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What's The Greatest Software Ever Written?
InformationWeek ^
| Aug. 14, 2006
| Charles Babcock
Posted on 08/15/2006 9:31:36 PM PDT by BillF
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To: BillF
This is just another biased article from the IT MSM. In concert with the naysayers.
The Microsoft Windows Operating System is without exception the finest software ever written, and continues to be. It's success and usability is witness to that.
No other software is attacked so blatantly and directly each day than this OS. Yet for the most part. It stays intact on a BILLION machines every day.
I once heard that if Windows OS was an airplane, would you accept all the crashes it had?
The answer is yes, If the hosted software manufacturers wrote to the proper specification, you'd eliminate 90% of crashes.
The answer is yes, if you consider that 50% of the 'passengers' on this OS are there to do it WRONG.
The answer is yes, if you know that it is the DAILY TARGET of 99% of all software viruses, hackers, OS cheats, agents and other software criminals that ever existed.
Microsoft Windows: You're using it now...
21
posted on
08/15/2006 9:44:54 PM PDT
by
foldspace
(Windows XP is the Finest Piece of Software ever written.)
To: BillF
Best software?
Operating System: Unix, as instantiated in MacOS-X -- the ideal combination of solid BSD Unix (the best foundation) and the best GUI. I tend to use Linux and Windows more for various business reasons, but MacOS-X is the best.
Application: Email. Mundane, but completely essential.
I started in 1985 with VMS Mail on a VAX and mailx on System-V Unix, and have used it continuously for over 20 years, through Compuserve, Netscape, Outlook, Eudora, you name it. These days the Mozilla family (Thunderbird) on Linux or Windows is my personal favorite.
22
posted on
08/15/2006 9:45:03 PM PDT
by
dayglored
(Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
To: kingu
No problem .... there is a 32 bit (emulated?) version out there called ZTREE, available
HERE which I've been using for years in the Win95-XP era ... works like a charm, and is either free (with nag screens) or unencumbered for a small donation
Enjoy :)
To: BillF
For me it's any database program. My favorite was the dBase series. I've written many programs in dBase and Clipper, unfortunately a few are still in use almost 25 years later by some of my clients (ported from mini's to current-day servers).
And I agree, typing on teletypes sucked. I hated feeding in the paper-tapes of my saved code (still have some sitting in shoeboxes somewhere, but alas no reader).
24
posted on
08/15/2006 9:45:28 PM PDT
by
roadcat
To: BillF
Are you kidding me? Sid Miers Civilization tops em all !!!
25
posted on
08/15/2006 9:45:30 PM PDT
by
Obie Wan
To: BillF
26
posted on
08/15/2006 9:45:56 PM PDT
by
A CA Guy
(God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
To: BillF
Pinnacle is a program for video editing (there are many)
With it I eliminated thousands of dollars worth of editing equipment and the results are incredible.
Digital editing programs for video and pictures are astounding...
Many programs had to exist before this could evolve though
To: BillF
[I guess that I took word processors so much for granted that I didn't even think of them.]
Just think how versatile Microsoft Word is; the military used it to type memos way back in the early 70s!
28
posted on
08/15/2006 9:47:27 PM PDT
by
spinestein
(Follow The Brazen Rule)
To: BillF
29
posted on
08/15/2006 9:47:34 PM PDT
by
Vicki
(Washington State where anyone can vote .... illegals, non-residents or anyone just passing through)
To: Calpernia
Word Perfect before it was hijacked by MS Word. And my favorite old word processor was Wordstar, before it was hijacked by Word Perfect. Had a lot of fun with Wordstar on CP/M machines.
30
posted on
08/15/2006 9:47:49 PM PDT
by
roadcat
To: BillF
There's only one answer:
Hello World
Like singing the song Happy Birthday, Hello World has become the most-written program ever. It as practically mandatory in every progamming language manual ever written, or will be written.
-PJ
To: BillF
VisiCalc ... it brought the Personal Computer into the office.
32
posted on
08/15/2006 9:47:56 PM PDT
by
StevieB
To: HAL9000
I use Photoshop a LOT, but I think the modern spreadsheet is the single piece of software that has made the most difference.
You obviously can't nail it to a single piece of software, but the code that makes the internet run has changed the world.
33
posted on
08/15/2006 9:48:34 PM PDT
by
Richard Kimball
(The most important thing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, everything else is easy.)
To: BillF
Honorable mention has to go to COBOL, the business language that drives 90 percent of legacy mainframe code, and by far the largest installed code base in the world. It's not a particularly great language, although its English-like syntax makes it easy to learn and relatively easy to maintain.
The same could be said of BASIC, the language every 3rd-grader learns these days, and that Microsoft converted into Visual Basic, the core of its .NET technology. Of course, Microsoft didn't invent BASIC; as is its wont, it simply stole it and slapped its own varnish over the scratches.
I was going to nominate TCP/IP, but that kind of got rolled up in the Number One package.
All in all, this is a pretty good list.
34
posted on
08/15/2006 9:48:36 PM PDT
by
IronJack
(ALL)
To: Vicki
Photoshop Good Answer!
-PJ
To: mazack
Unix. Pointy Haired Boss - "Well, if the company nurse comes by, tell her I said never mind." :-).
36
posted on
08/15/2006 9:49:49 PM PDT
by
KarlInOhio
("Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper" - Thomas Jefferson)
To: BillF
I liked MSDOS. Never crashed. You could do some serious stuff with it. And when Windows crashed every five minutes, you could always go to DOS and fix it quickly.
I used to have all of these great MSDOS modifications that made jumping directories and searching ultra quick.
Of course, I can have all of these great memories, but back then, I only had a 14.4 modem and local BBSs to call up.
37
posted on
08/15/2006 9:50:23 PM PDT
by
mysterio
To: BillF
The Free Republic forum software
38
posted on
08/15/2006 9:50:33 PM PDT
by
GeronL
(flogerloon.blogspot.com -------------> Rise of the Hate Party)
To: BillF
best piece of liberating software ? the SPREADSHEET
39
posted on
08/15/2006 9:51:19 PM PDT
by
Centurion2000
(Islam is a subsingularity memetic perversion : (http://www.orionsarm.com/topics/perversities.html))
To: BillF
Pong.
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