pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann) (05/20/88)
[I've edited Tom's comments heavily to shorten things up...so that I can write a lot more :-(] In article <32505@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> (Tom Thackrey) writes: >In article <5537@megaron.arizona.edu> (David Gudeman) writes: >>[in response to Microsoft's statement that they use their own buggy >> compiler to make their language products] [no wonder the bugs perpetuate!] >>But you don't give the fixes to the people who have already bought the >>buggy software right? ...stuff deleted ... >I find myself in the unexpected position of defending Microsoft. I have >a pile of MS products... >As with any products there are problems from time to time. >[After much persistence, he gets thru; rarely gets help, sometimes has to > upgrade software for bugfixes] >[In one case, a dealer gave good support; in another, Microsoft was happy > to explain his operator error to him, one week after he asked for help] >[Microsoft also contributes to developer discussions about Windows on GEnie] >When I buy an update, [Microsoft makes sure that you pay at least $25 for every >update from the version you purchased until the one you are getting] >I am not under the illusion that MS products or support are perfect, >but, they aren't significantly worse than most of the industry and >they are better than some. Their major offense seems to be that >they are big and successful. Being big and successful is not bad. Assuming that most programmers see things your way IS bad. They are SIGNIFICANTLY worse than their competition. Compare the support you get with your $300+ Microsoft C and the support you get with your $65 Turbo C (which is a far better product than Microsoft's to begin with, except for debugger and linker [so far]): Microsoft: I try to port several MB of source to PC's; MSC croaks with 13 compiler errors [we're talking compiler-blows-up errors here! Not even simple bad-generated-code bugs]. After being persistent, I get these responses: 1) We don't beleive you've found any bugs in our compiler; 2) To prove it, you must send us your complete source code [riiiight. 4 MB of source, much of which is proprietary licensed code that I couldn't show to my mother if I wanted to :-)]. 3) Even if you *do* prove that there are any bugs, we wouldn't give you a bug fix anyway. You'll just have to wait and see they are fixed in the next release you buy. 4) You want a list of known bugs in the compiler? FORGET IT! Each new release is marketed as a new-feature release; there is always a significant charge. If you just want bug fixes, forget it! Borland: First release of the compiler. I note one of the 4 bugs that everybody found. Call Borland. They immediately ship me, FREE, an update with all 4 bugs fixed. They also tell me the patches over the phone so I can get going immediately. I find another, more subtle bug; they send yet another update for free. As version 1.5 is released, I find another 1.0 bug. They send me version 1.5 for free! [1.5 has significant new features, not just bug fixes] Microsoft has a SIGNIFICANT attitude problem. I've also seen it with other companies, but that doesn't excuse it. As far as they are concerned (go back and read the article they wrote to see this), each new release provides significant new functionality to the developer community; that's why we should be falling head-over-heels to shell out the bucks for each release. Any bug fixes passed on are a minor part of the deal. What's wrong with that?.... Their picture does not match reality! Sure, a FEW people see it their way; if you've already bought into Microsoft's future-OS/2-view, you are currently stuck with them! But... How many of us developers actually see it their way? Take the most recent release: Now you get OS/2 compatibility!!! Wow. If I were doing OS/2 stuff, I'd be excited. As it is, I've got a bunch of software that their 5.0 update BROKE. I paid for 5.0 hoping that the bugs I've been working around all this time would be fixed. Instead, I've got a piece of junk on my hands. Now I'm supposed to pay again, and I have NO confidence the new release will be any better!!! So what am I doing about it? What a lot of others are doing: as fast as I can, I'm switching to Turbo C. I hope that a lot of other programmers are doing the same. I hope the lack of update-fee-payments is hurting Microsoft in the only place they care about (the bottom line), so that maybe they'll have a change of attitude. Unless I see a BIG change, I'm NEVER going to buy a product from them again! It simply isn't worth it. There ARE substitutes. Turbo C is a nice start. Periscope III is far better for real work than CodeView. It is worth the extra bucks. I can't do OS/2 stuff yet, but who cares? I've got all the work I can handle without OS/2. I'm happy to let Lotus, A-T, etc waste their resources dealing with Microsoft. AN OPEN LETTER TO MICROSOFT [I hope you're still reading!] [The following may sound like a flame. Actually, it isn't, in the sense that I am *serious*, I am trying to be *constructive*, and I really hope that they *change* their attitude.] Microsoft folks: pull your heads out of the sand! Spend some bucks making your products better. Treat those of us who find bugs in your products better. You'll be MUCH more appreciated if you do. For example: - Make available a list of known bugs, no matter how subtle. By request only, maybe. DON'T CHARGE US FOR IT! I'm already mad enough when I find out exactly what contortions I have to go through to get around YOUR bugs. Don't make me pay to find out about it! Sooth me by helping me all you can! - Provide patch instructions whenever possible. - If I report a real bug, don't get defensive! THANK me. FIX the bug. If it is already fixed, or once you fix it, send me a floppy with an updated version! Again, DON'T CHARGE ME FOR IT! My time is valuable. When I take the time to isolate one of YOUR bugs, I'm NOT happy. I feel like sending you the bill for the time I've wasted. Sooth me; calm me down; make me happy again! That's what Good Customer Relations is all about!!! - Sure, if I don't bother contacting you to complain about a bug, it probably isn't bothering me all that much. Your little $25 update notice may be just what I need. But if I'm bothered enough to call you [repeatedly!], write you, Fed Ex stuff to you... you should be trying VERY hard to sooth me; calm me down.... In the past, you had little competition. That is changing; it is time you learned how to treat your customers right. - [and while I'm at it] How about producing a GOOD table of contents and index for your manuals? Every single Microsoft manual that I have ever used has a common failing: the TOC/Index are so bad that I can rarely find the topic I am looking for when I have a question. Sure, you have lots of entries, but somehow they are NEVER what I need. I'm not an expert at creating good indices, but I know a good one when I see it. Yours isn't. >FLAME ON -- As far as moral obligation goes, I suggest you buy the >product before you scream about poor support. Put your flamethrower away. The poor sucker said right at the start that Microsoft gives poor support to people WHO HAVE BOUGHT their products. That's been my experience also. I'm sure that our experiences are not unique. Pete -- OOO __| ___ Peter Holzmann, Octopus Enterprises OOOOOOO___/ _______ USPS: 19611 La Mar Court, Cupertino, CA 95014 OOOOO \___/ UUCP: {hpda,pyramid}!octopus!pete ___| \_____ Phone: 408/996-7746
kc@rna.UUCP (Kaare Christian) (05/26/88)
I'm not an independent observer of Microsoft, so I don't want to comment on their support. (But I'm not in bed with Microsoft, and I believe that I can report fairly on Borland. I am not a Borland basher, I have occasionally used turbo pascal for short projects, and I have taught Pascal using Turbo.) In article <232@octopus.UUCP>, pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann) writes: > Borland: First release of the compiler. I note one of the 4 bugs that everybody > found. Call Borland. They immediately ship me, FREE, an update with > all 4 bugs fixed. They also tell me the patches over the phone so I > can get going immediately. I find another, more subtle bug; they send > yet another update for free. As version 1.5 is released, I find another > 1.0 bug. They send me version 1.5 for free! [1.5 has significant new > features, not just bug fixes] I had just the opposite results with TurboC, and I abandoned it because of its many bugs. While working for half a year in Germany, I bought a copy of TC version 1. During my first few weeks I ran into a serious bug every few days. This resulted in four formal bug report letters to Borland, each accompanied by example code that irrefutably demonstrated the bugs. Some of the reports detailed several bugs, so we are talking about 8 or so of the buggers. There were problems with far and huge pointers, problems with floating point, problems with printf, and a couple of problems with library routines. In response to each letter I got a very polite response admitting that there was a problem, and pledging to fix the bug soon. (Each response was also accompanied by a compuserve freeby, which is pretty useless in Germany.) I never received any fixes. One of the bugs was in the lfind procedure. I wrote a replacement in about ten minutes (tho it took about a day to find the bug originally, 'cause who would suspect that lfind couldn't look through an empty list). Their response to this trivial to fix bug (just send me a new lfind) was "our engineers are working on it and we expect ...." <Flame on> Cripes sakes. If more than one person is working on it for more than about ten minutes then you should go get some real programmers.<Flame Off> Sometime later I was at a trade show in Munich, and I talked to a person at the Heimsoeth booth (they sell Borland stuff in Germany). The person said that 1.5 was just out and it was much better, and that he would send me a copy if I returned my 1.0 disks. I did, and he did, but there were no docs, no license, no nothing but the disks with the 1.5 software. I don't know if he was authorized to give away 1.5, or if he did it illegally. None of the important bugs was fixed. Approximately two weeks of my time were wasted because of turboc bugs. (I worked with turboc for about six weeks, but during that time I only made about 4 weeks of progress, because the rest of the time was spent finding compiler bugs.) In the end, my source was strewn with #ifdef __TURBOC__ statements to work around the bugs. It was a waste of time; my bug reports obviously didn't help make a better 1.5. Kaare Christian Research Assoc. The Rockefeller Univ.