If there’s one thing you’ll notice over here at InsanIT.net, it’s that I like to tear apart things that deserve it.  And sometimes big targets (like Microsoft) come up again, and again, and again.  But do I really hate them?

Naw!

I mean I’m sitting here running Windows XP right this very second.  I use Microsoft Office (mostly Word and Excel) all the time.  I’ve been using the Visual Studio environment to program in for years, even when I was writing in Python.  I’ve specifically programmed in Visual C++ / MFC and Visual Basic.  None of it is bad.

It’s just that, especially lately, it’s not been all good either.

Like the rest of us, nothing and no one is perfect.

But when you put yourself out there, especially something as frequently used as Microsoft products, you’re gonna catch flak for any little thing you do wrong.  And let’s face it, lately, Microsoft has done more than “little” things wrong.  I mean releasing to the public an operating system that can’t even reliably delete a file?  That’s wrong.  Turning Microsoft Word into an almost unusable program just to make it look different?  That’s a massive GUI blooper.

I’ve used Microsoft products for about as long as I’ve used a computer.  The first PC I built for myself had DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.  Without Microsoft … well … okay, so someone would have probably come up with some similar products and concepts, but even stil, would they have been quite as quick to do so or as user friendly?  I mean look at Linux, still struggling between geek-posessed and trying to reach layman acceptance.  For better or worse, Microsoft has made our computer industry what it is today.

And I have to respect that.

But it doesn’t mean they’re god, or that they’re always right.

And so, just like any famous target that does something thick-headed now and then, Microsoft makes a great target to poke fun at.

But that doesn’t mean I hate them.

If you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?  ;)  Goodness knows I’m not perfect either.  If there’s one thing a computer programmer learns quickly, it’s how to take criticism - constructive or not.  No code is ever perfect from the beginning.  There are always flaws.  And there are always ways to do things better.  We live.  We learn.  We grow.  But only so long as someone points out what we did wrong, so that we know to fix it.

And that, my friends, is what I’m good at.  I’m that thorn that reminds you when you just foolishly blundered through the briar patch again.  But I wouldn’t poke if I didn’t care.