The Cynic Express(ed) 1.28: Software Grumblings

     A friend sent me a video clip via e-mail, a long MPEG entitled "Bad Day." During the course of the clip (apparently taken by a security camera in an average office), a middle aged man types on a computer, only to dispute what the machine is doing or responding with. He slams on the keyboard, but when that does not resolve the irreconcilable differences between man and machine, he bats the monitor off the desk with the keyboard and chases it to the edge of the camera's viewpoint to deliver a few a few kicks. I understand how he feels. I use Microsoft Word 97, too.

     Of course, I don't mean to single Microsoft out for this particular batch o' barbs, no matter how worthy or fitting a target they might happen to be. I would like to throw a few handfuls of gravel at the entire industry.

     As Americans we have always had a certain amount of worship of technology, but it would seem that here at the end of the century, we are apotheosizing technocrats and holding them above standards that we hold other people, namely common sense and quality assurance.

     Case in point: I have spent the last several days at work struggling to renumber lists of steps technical manuals. Microsoft Word wants one big list. I want many short lists. Who wins when we argue, MS Word and I? The software puts a nonspecific error message on the screen and does the software equivalent of taking its ball and going home. I sought help with this phenomenon, which does not come from the printed manuals-not from Microsoft, not without an extra cash outlay for instructions. Instead I am proffered inane little menus and talking paper clips. This is user friendly?

     Of course, if I have a real problem, I can contact Microsoft Technical Support. For sixty dollars an instance. Or I can reach them on the Web. I tried the Web route, crashing Internet Explorer on the rocks of Microsoft's technical facility on HTML, CGI, and whatever other little short pointy things punctured some random DLLs and rendered the browser useless.

     Finally, I have been told that this is a known bug. As if that makes me feel any better. Fortunately, I did not have to pay for the instance nor wait for Microsoft's eventual response to my web query (promised that it will be jumped upon within one business day, barring Internet traffic or having to use their own products).

     Were this an isolated instance I would not find it worthy of writing a full column on. But the Quality Assurance departments of many software companies would be a good idea. Blue Sky Software, producers of RoboHelp online documentation utility, shipped a version of their software that breaks into a Visual Basic Application window during execution. A technical assistant there among the blue skies responded, "Bummer," (or so the story goes).

     Coupling with these software problems and producing lots of illegitimate frustrations are the lack of documentation provided by software and even hardware manufacturers. Instead of solid, hard copy manuals, many send along a CD Rom or a Web address. Case in point: Packard Bell provides a CD Rom containing schematics for their hardware (what limited upgrade information they provide). The perfect place to store something like a motherboard diagram, where it is available for someone who has spilled the entrails and IDE cables of his or her Pizza Box on the table to connect a new modem. Speaking of modems and while I am in the middle of a really run-on paragraph on hardware, here's to US Robotics, who provides a short booklet containing all of the benefits of your new 56K modem with a hidden set of jumper setting guides but a rather enthusiasticly displayed Website for when you accidentally get it installed correctly.

     I don't know what the intent behind these phenomena, if there is any, but I see one of the effects. People are confused and intimidated by their fickle machines. End users become somewhat reliant upon the clergy of the technicians who can interpret the access violations and hexadecimal addresses and who can recommend rituals to cleanse the .ini's and to banish the offending DLLs. The consumers become reliant, and more offensively, tolerant of such bugs. And the whirlpool swirls lower and lower in its cycle, sucking money and time and frustration into the abyss of Redmond banks.

     The proper rebellion is to learn, of course, to be able to purchase and use software that is well written and supported by the publisher. To be able to understand enough of computerly things to not be taken by some of the goofballs making their way through IT programs at community colleges or working on their MSE certifications in whatever dungeons that takes place in. And to be able to ignore bromides issued from Washington, Redmond, and Ziff-Davis Publications.

     A smarter, more demanding marketplace will make the computer industry more user friendly in the long run. Software companies will have to work make the software faster, more efficient, and less predisposed to dumping bits onto the memory heap and leaving them there. Or dumping your hard work into Dr. Watson's log files. We need that in a computer industry before too long. Heaven knows I will not knowingly trust my life to, say, a Windows space station where it's only a matter of time until there is a General Protection Fault and my life support systems are jettisoned to make room for the online registration routines.