5 ms·

As a rule of thumb, you have: * Decent software companies terrible at making hardware * Decent hardware companies terrible at making software I yet have t

by xroche 9y ago

As a rule of thumb, you have: * Decent software companies terrible at making hardware * Decent hardware companies terrible at making software I yet have to see one that does both correctly. Hardware manufacturers are known to produce the worst code quality you can think of, badly designed, poorly written, undocumented, insecure, bloated. I have the feeling that the whole IoT problem is also related.

cat199 9y ago
Umm.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Superdome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Superdome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX and HP is usually one of the best rather than worst here, though definitely more so in the pre-carly days. though i get the general sentiment, esp when applied to consumer products..
prklmn 9y ago
Apple?
- onion2k 9y ago
  iTunes
golergka 9y ago
Apple was not bad at both some time ago. Not anymore though.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  iOS quality dropped jsut after the days of "everything must be skeuomorphic!" - that ux was thrown out quickly (luckily) but the replacement has been hardly stable and quite poorly thought from the inception, and some stuff is still giving me constant annoyance even today - like the time app not opening on the last used tab
  - rubatuga 9y ago
    It depends if you use the control center shortcut or not.
- kps 9y ago
  The good period was Apple hardware and NeXT software.
krylon 9y ago
> Decent software companies terrible at making hardware Not sure if one wants to count them as a decent software company, but Microsoft is quite good at building keyboards, IMHO.
- frik 9y ago
  Old 1990s hardware from them was awesome. IntelliMouse, Joysticks, keyboards, etc very good devices. Even the Comfort Mouse 6000 was still great (though the die too fast, and have a hardware bug - middle click is delayed) But nowadays it's all cheap plastic and cheap mechanics, made to last 2 years. There are alternatives for good keyboards, but I have yet to find a good mouse. (a business mouse, not a rainbow colored funky gamer mouse)
- oblio 9y ago
  Their internal divisions might be all over the place regarding company policies (see: Windows 10 as spyware :) ) and their insistence on keeping strict backwards compatibility with sub-par products (DOS, basically) might be debatable. But their engineering these days is top notch. They might not be the best but they're probably in the top 10% sofware companies regarding engineering practices, IMO. If not higher.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > and their insistence on keeping strict backwards compatibility with sub-par products (DOS, basically) might be debatable. All 64 bit versions of Windows can neither run DOS applications nor Win16 applications (I described the technical reason for this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246521).
    - temac 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure that excuse is random bullshit. First, are handles limited to 16 bits in 32-bits Windows? I'm pretty sure they are not, especially when the 2 lsb are 0 for NT handles... Second, you could cherry-pick other random resource pointer and make up another excuse with the same power: e.g. "32-bits programs can not work under 64-bits Windows because pointers are 64-bits wide with 'all' (at least > 32) their bits used, so they won't fit in 32-bits pointers of 32-bits programs" That's not how retro-compatibility involving virtualization is engineered - that's pretty much the other way around! If MS wanted to make Win16 run on 64-bits Windows, they could have engineered it (without much difficulty). They choose not to (and I don't blame them too much for that) and as a result, maybe some (or a lot) of details that would have been needed to ease that implementation do not exist (maybe SOME handles were limited to 16-bits on 32-bits Windows, all the time or when the program was a 16-bits one - and the provision to limit to 16-bits is not there anymore in 64-bits Windows as a result of the lack of purpose it would have given the general lack of support of win16 on this plateform), which maybe makes it harder to do for a 3rd party now... (and even by MS, given Windows has evolved a lot since introduction of 64-bits)
gpderetta 9y ago
NVidia seems to produce excellent software (drivers, tools and SDK) for their excellent hardware. SolarFlare network cards are also pretty good and so are their drivers and user space network stack. In both cases the quality of the software side is a significant drive for their hardware sales. In both cases the hardware is very expensive though.
- ge0rg 9y ago
  NVidia seems to produce excellent software (drivers, tools and SDK) for their excellent hardware. Here is a different perspective: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/02/attacking-windows-nvidia-driver.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/02/attacking-win... And "excellent hardware" is probably rather subjective as well.
  - gpderetta 9y ago
    Excellent software does not mean bug free of course. Apparently the size of the code base of the driver itself is comparable to that of a typical OS kernel. Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation. There are many more criteria: - Openness: Open specification, existence of open source drivers, necessity for a firmware blob vs. open firmware, support of open standards - Time the hardware is supported by producers with new drivers for new platforms (NVidia loves to cease support for older GPU chips). - cost and cost-benefit ratio (the whole Intel vs. AMD vs. ARM flamewar ;-) ) - Existence of intentionally blocked features: Some hardware vendors intentionally block features, sometimes even with the possibility to unlock them afterwards (e.g. by firmware or fuses) if you pay them additional money - Willingness to go to legal limbo in the interest of the users: For example when copy protection schemes for CDs were common in the early 00 years, producers of CD/DVD writers tried to surpass each other with capabilities of their devices to be still able to read out such copy-protected CDs. A modern example might be how other copy protection schemes for, say, audio or video are implemented: In software and written in such a bad way that it will (hopefully) soon be cracked or deeply dongled down in a security chip that is part of the hardware.
eternalcode 9y ago
Apple?
- chrisper 9y ago
  Apple Music and iTunes? Both horrible.
paulddraper 9y ago
Apple, I believe, is the wildly successful exception.

by xroche 9y ago

cat199 9y ago

Umm.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Superdome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Superdome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX and HP is usually one of the best rather than worst here, though definitely more so in the pre-carly days. though i get the general sentiment, esp when applied to consumer products..

prklmn 9y ago

Apple?

onion2k 9y ago
iTunes

golergka 9y ago

Apple was not bad at both some time ago. Not anymore though.

LoSboccacc 9y ago
iOS quality dropped jsut after the days of "everything must be skeuomorphic!" - that ux was thrown out quickly (luckily) but the replacement has been hardly stable and quite poorly thought from the inception, and some stuff is still giving me constant annoyance even today - like the time app not opening on the last used tab
- rubatuga 9y ago
  It depends if you use the control center shortcut or not.
kps 9y ago
The good period was Apple hardware and NeXT software.

krylon 9y ago

> Decent software companies terrible at making hardware Not sure if one wants to count them as a decent software company, but Microsoft is quite good at building keyboards, IMHO.

frik 9y ago
Old 1990s hardware from them was awesome. IntelliMouse, Joysticks, keyboards, etc very good devices. Even the Comfort Mouse 6000 was still great (though the die too fast, and have a hardware bug - middle click is delayed) But nowadays it's all cheap plastic and cheap mechanics, made to last 2 years. There are alternatives for good keyboards, but I have yet to find a good mouse. (a business mouse, not a rainbow colored funky gamer mouse)
oblio 9y ago
Their internal divisions might be all over the place regarding company policies (see: Windows 10 as spyware :) ) and their insistence on keeping strict backwards compatibility with sub-par products (DOS, basically) might be debatable. But their engineering these days is top notch. They might not be the best but they're probably in the top 10% sofware companies regarding engineering practices, IMO. If not higher.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > and their insistence on keeping strict backwards compatibility with sub-par products (DOS, basically) might be debatable. All 64 bit versions of Windows can neither run DOS applications nor Win16 applications (I described the technical reason for this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246521).
  - temac 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure that excuse is random bullshit. First, are handles limited to 16 bits in 32-bits Windows? I'm pretty sure they are not, especially when the 2 lsb are 0 for NT handles... Second, you could cherry-pick other random resource pointer and make up another excuse with the same power: e.g. "32-bits programs can not work under 64-bits Windows because pointers are 64-bits wide with 'all' (at least > 32) their bits used, so they won't fit in 32-bits pointers of 32-bits programs" That's not how retro-compatibility involving virtualization is engineered - that's pretty much the other way around! If MS wanted to make Win16 run on 64-bits Windows, they could have engineered it (without much difficulty). They choose not to (and I don't blame them too much for that) and as a result, maybe some (or a lot) of details that would have been needed to ease that implementation do not exist (maybe SOME handles were limited to 16-bits on 32-bits Windows, all the time or when the program was a 16-bits one - and the provision to limit to 16-bits is not there anymore in 64-bits Windows as a result of the lack of purpose it would have given the general lack of support of win16 on this plateform), which maybe makes it harder to do for a 3rd party now... (and even by MS, given Windows has evolved a lot since introduction of 64-bits)

gpderetta 9y ago

NVidia seems to produce excellent software (drivers, tools and SDK) for their excellent hardware. SolarFlare network cards are also pretty good and so are their drivers and user space network stack. In both cases the quality of the software side is a significant drive for their hardware sales. In both cases the hardware is very expensive though.

ge0rg 9y ago
NVidia seems to produce excellent software (drivers, tools and SDK) for their excellent hardware. Here is a different perspective: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/02/attacking-windows-nvidia-driver.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/02/attacking-win... And "excellent hardware" is probably rather subjective as well.
- gpderetta 9y ago
  Excellent software does not mean bug free of course. Apparently the size of the code base of the driver itself is comparable to that of a typical OS kernel. Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation. There are many more criteria: - Openness: Open specification, existence of open source drivers, necessity for a firmware blob vs. open firmware, support of open standards - Time the hardware is supported by producers with new drivers for new platforms (NVidia loves to cease support for older GPU chips). - cost and cost-benefit ratio (the whole Intel vs. AMD vs. ARM flamewar ;-) ) - Existence of intentionally blocked features: Some hardware vendors intentionally block features, sometimes even with the possibility to unlock them afterwards (e.g. by firmware or fuses) if you pay them additional money - Willingness to go to legal limbo in the interest of the users: For example when copy protection schemes for CDs were common in the early 00 years, producers of CD/DVD writers tried to surpass each other with capabilities of their devices to be still able to read out such copy-protected CDs. A modern example might be how other copy protection schemes for, say, audio or video are implemented: In software and written in such a bad way that it will (hopefully) soon be cracked or deeply dongled down in a security chip that is part of the hardware.

eternalcode 9y ago

Apple?

chrisper 9y ago
Apple Music and iTunes? Both horrible.

paulddraper 9y ago

Apple, I believe, is the wildly successful exception.