If There Was an Information Technology Reality TV Show
A couple days ago I asked what a Reality TV show might look like based on Information Technology professionals. OK, I can be a little twisted sometimes. I think there could be some good stuff there. Just look how much mileage Dilbert gets out of humor for scenarios that many of us see often.
Andrew took me seriously (which I was) and responded with some ideas of his own. I shared a thought about a marathon of a bunch of developers working a marathon for two days to build something. Andrew was thinking:
One can’t forget Brook’s law here. I think most of the two days of work would be spent with developers simply getting used to the new project, if they all worked at once. Now if you spread them out over a few weeks, say 5 developers at a time, then you would get an interesting material. Imagine the mix of coding styles, the hours spend with developers shaking their heads in confusion, “Why did they do it that way?”. The importance of clarity, a good spec, and modularity, would come to the fore.
Andrew had another idea that I thought would be great:
Take a group of sys-admins, and set them up with websites that they have to maintain against a group of crackers. Have a bot server that pings the websites every so often, and runs unit tests on the web pages, simulating typical web use. Every time a server doesn’t pass the test(i.e. the page is defaced or down for more than 30 minutes), the sys-admin for that server is eliminated, and the last sys-admin standing wins. That one would produce a fair bit of drama.
I’ve Become My Father
I think I am really starting to get older, and less quick to adopt change. At least I’m not yelling at kids to get off my lawn yet. Where is this going? Well I have been taking a closer look at Windows 8 lately, and see how it is a lot simpler. But, it will make my life a lot harder.
Picture a filing cabinet capable of holding all the documents a business collects over the years. But, it has only one big drawer. Everything is in this one drawer. How long will it take you to find an important document? That is how Windows 8 feels to me.
To be honest, I haven’t worked with it much…and intend to really put it through the wringer before making any strong claims or running away. So far it looks just like all the GUI releases since Windows 95…making lots of changes that provide little or no benefit (other than a new product for people to upgrade). Windows 95 was the first Windows OS that had useful features far beyond its predecessor. Windows XP was the first operating system from Microsoft that was a truly solid platform.
Since windows XP the best part of Windows releases (not talking about server versions) has been security and integration with central management tools. But nothing from the User Experience has made my life any better or increased my efficiency.Those are great features. But the GUI changes don’t provide much value to a computer user.
Now I look at Metro with the nice clean lines and find that really all that is different is that things I use fly out instead of taking up real-estate. I guess if I worked on a machine with limited screen that would be very useful. I think it is a great copy of ?Pad look and feel. To me, it seems like I am trying to make my computer as limited as my smart phone when it comes to presentation.
The hard part is I think it really looks GREAT! I’m just trying to figure out how I am going to get work done using it. For those of us with large monitors I find the lean use of the screen to not be of much value. I could see myself simply moving to the Chrome OS and having pretty much the same experience with a lot lighter foot print. Take a look at all the apps you can get on Google Chrome. Or even on the Android OS. Is this really a market a desktop operating systems needs to compete against?
That prompts me to ask myself a few questions:
- Microsoft isn’t going to throw away a huge market share. So why make this pivotal shift?
- Are large monitors and heavyweight computers (laptops and desktops) fading as the typical business user platform?
- Is this a “Me Too” move from Microsoft (like Windows copying the Mac and Xbox copying other gaming engines)?
- If Microsoft can capture the desktop with this new look at feel will it be an additional doorway into the smart phone and tablet markets?
What do you think? Have I simply become my father, blinded to the value of new technology? Frankly I look at it and say, “oooooh, Shiny…but it doesn’t have enough value or make my job easier”? Will you be following the Microsoft trend to get your app to follow the Windows Metro look and feel?
Share your feedback by email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
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