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Comment by lkey

4 years ago

Yes, the open source volunteers and random employees deserve it. They are responsible for all of microsoft's many sins, and we should find them online and tell them they are trash tier developers until they learn their lesson, right?

Ok, sarcasm off. This attitude is utterly toxic. People who are ignorant of how fast their software could be do not deserve abuse from strangers.

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lkey

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wtallis  4 years ago

> People who are ignorant of how fast their software could be do not deserve abuse from strangers.

That's not the only valid way to frame the situation. At some level, professional software developers have a responsibility to be somewhat aware of the harm their currently-shipping code is doing.

  • lkey  4 years ago

    Taking responsibility (which the developers later did by the way, even in this thread) and enduring abuse (which is also well documented here and elsewhere) should not be put on the same level.

    More broadly, I'd much rather endure a slightly slow terminal made by developers acting in the open and in (mostly) good faith than the intentionally malicious software produced by actual bad actors within Google, Facebook, Microsoft et all..

    • wtallis  4 years ago

      "Abusive" is probably the the best one-word description of the way Microsoft and its software interacts with users. But I thing we'd agree it's a bit of a stretch to apply that to the case of a slightly slow terminal. However, it is absolutely fair to call it abusive when Microsoft tries to deny their problems or lie to their users that those problems are not Microsoft's fault and are something the users must simply put up with.

      It's also important to keep in mind the vast asymmetry here. When Microsoft deploys problematic software, even a relatively minor problem will be responsible for many man-hours of frustration and wasted time. Far more man-hours than are ruined when a few developers have bad things said about them online. One doesn't excuse the other, but you can't ignore one of the harms simply because it's more diffuse.

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