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My developer experience with Citrix last year: 1) Contact Citrix support about some missing details in their SDK (Dynamic Virtual Channels were not loading pro

by nikanj 5y ago

My developer experience with Citrix last year: 1) Contact Citrix support about some missing details in their SDK (Dynamic Virtual Channels were not loading properly on XenDesktop, and the SDK docs just said "Use the Microsoft APIs for registration") 2) Citrix ponders about the issue for a few months. I write a full DVC plugin for them to test things with, because they don't seem to have anyone in-house who knows their own tech stack 3) Citrix finally declares that dynamic virtual channels are currently broken. They might get fixed in a future release, but they're not on the active roadmap. 4) Citrix is still releasing frequent updates to the SDK, advertising DVC support. NB this is not just a small typo in the docs, they have a long chapter dedicated to the topic ( Citrix Dynamic Virtual Channel Protocol at https://github.com/citrix/receiver-for-windows-virtual-channel-sdk/blob/master/docs/architecture.md https://github.com/citrix/receiver-for-windows-virtual-chann... ). The feature is very thoroughly documented, it's just...not actually implemented. I can't imagine how many developer hours get wasted yearly with people trying to get virtual channels to work, when in reality they're just flat-out not supported.

hermitdev 5y ago
That largely mirrors my experience with IBM's DB2 Connect software on Windows ~20 years ago. Follow the install documentation to the letter, it doesn't work. Contact support. Months of follow ups later and: IBM: "this isn't a supported configuration." Me: "But, it's documented as a supported configuration." IBM: "It has been removed from the latest documentation." Me: "And when was that published?" IBM: "Tomorrow" Even after getting a DB2 Connect install working, it was a nightmare then dealing with their compatibility flags, which changed with every fixpack. Want feature A to work? Set the flag for it...but, you'll lose features B & C if you do that... (edit: formatting)
- nikanj 5y ago
  It's bizarre how companies reach a certain size, and they seem to lose all developers. There's the clueless helpdesk and the marketing/sales org, but nobody seems to be writing code / fixing issues anymore. In my experience, contacting a 10-person company about a bug means that a dev is going to look at the issue in a day or two. Contacting a 10 000 person company about a bug means that a dev will never see the bug - unless they happen to be browsing Reddit and see someone complaining about it
  - jordanbeiber 5y ago
    Building new things is seen as business risk, I reckon. This is why startups or VC backed things can explode, and innovate, but once you IPO, innovation is not what’s important - it’s about perspective I guess. When the death spiral of anti-innovation starts, people such as talented developers start to drop off, and in the end you’ll have a slow, bureaucratic mess of an org, sustained by the inertia of an already existing customer base. “How about we yank up them licensing fees?!”, or my favorite “Let’s rename a product suite!” (Citrix, as a case in point, is notorious for this…) This be the enterprise IT lifecycle.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    The developers are there but they are so far removed from the customer experience that it seems like they aren't. Large companies don't like developers talking directly with customers because they tend to speak frankly and honestly.
    - nikanj 5y ago
      Or, heavens forbid, offer help for free. ”Oh hey yeah that’s like 10 lines of code, I’ll put in the next service pack” Nnnnnoooooooo -sales org
  - rjzzleep 5y ago
    Recent Fortune 500 contracting experience I had: Ubuntu was to be introduced into the company. The team was 1 developer and 4 managers. When we asked for collaboration with the developer the manager kept saying "we don't do this" "it's not a supported configuration". The developer defied his direct superior and offered collaboration and as a result was removed from the project. Now the project staff was 4 managers and 0 developers. The manager claimed he was doing this to protect his developer from overwork, but really it was just about his own ego. A lot of the projects I saw there were basically 1 engineer and a couple of managers of some sort. Security manager, Project Manager, Portfolio Manager, some medium management and some other people. And then they would constantly say that they don't have resources to fix things. Well yeah, because you have 1 engineer for 10 projects, but 4 managers per project.
  - 5y ago
- meepmorp 5y ago
  > IBM's DB2 Connect software on Windows ~20 years ago So many really middling memories just came flooding back.
  - bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
    Similar, but with IBM Websphere MQ. Why a message queueing technology is branded under 'Websphere' I have nooo idea, but it turned out to be a nightmare of various configurations jammed together and not working well. Tibco Enterprise Messaging (EMS) on the other hand is a dream to work with IME.
    - meepmorp 5y ago
      MQ was MQ series before the WebSphere rebrand. The rebranding happened because IBM is managed by silly people.
exikyut 5y ago
I wonder if some large account acquisition somewhere somehow wound up contingent on implementing this functionality... but technical due diligence during the integration process identified that it was absolutely irrelevant... and it was subsequently declared that it was easier to just pretend the feature exists to keep the middle-manglement happy because the account was important. Maybe. Going fishing in thin air here.
- nikanj 5y ago
  Maybe. But it does work on XenApp, which is their somewhat-deprecated non-vdi offering :D
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  >middle-manglement Freudian slip of the year
cyanydeez 5y ago
we call this vendor lock in. RIP

by nikanj 5y ago

hermitdev 5y ago

That largely mirrors my experience with IBM's DB2 Connect software on Windows ~20 years ago. Follow the install documentation to the letter, it doesn't work. Contact support. Months of follow ups later and: IBM: "this isn't a supported configuration." Me: "But, it's documented as a supported configuration." IBM: "It has been removed from the latest documentation." Me: "And when was that published?" IBM: "Tomorrow" Even after getting a DB2 Connect install working, it was a nightmare then dealing with their compatibility flags, which changed with every fixpack. Want feature A to work? Set the flag for it...but, you'll lose features B & C if you do that... (edit: formatting)

nikanj 5y ago
It's bizarre how companies reach a certain size, and they seem to lose all developers. There's the clueless helpdesk and the marketing/sales org, but nobody seems to be writing code / fixing issues anymore. In my experience, contacting a 10-person company about a bug means that a dev is going to look at the issue in a day or two. Contacting a 10 000 person company about a bug means that a dev will never see the bug - unless they happen to be browsing Reddit and see someone complaining about it
- jordanbeiber 5y ago
  Building new things is seen as business risk, I reckon. This is why startups or VC backed things can explode, and innovate, but once you IPO, innovation is not what’s important - it’s about perspective I guess. When the death spiral of anti-innovation starts, people such as talented developers start to drop off, and in the end you’ll have a slow, bureaucratic mess of an org, sustained by the inertia of an already existing customer base. “How about we yank up them licensing fees?!”, or my favorite “Let’s rename a product suite!” (Citrix, as a case in point, is notorious for this…) This be the enterprise IT lifecycle.
- jedberg 5y ago
  The developers are there but they are so far removed from the customer experience that it seems like they aren't. Large companies don't like developers talking directly with customers because they tend to speak frankly and honestly.
  - nikanj 5y ago
    Or, heavens forbid, offer help for free. ”Oh hey yeah that’s like 10 lines of code, I’ll put in the next service pack” Nnnnnoooooooo -sales org
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  Recent Fortune 500 contracting experience I had: Ubuntu was to be introduced into the company. The team was 1 developer and 4 managers. When we asked for collaboration with the developer the manager kept saying "we don't do this" "it's not a supported configuration". The developer defied his direct superior and offered collaboration and as a result was removed from the project. Now the project staff was 4 managers and 0 developers. The manager claimed he was doing this to protect his developer from overwork, but really it was just about his own ego. A lot of the projects I saw there were basically 1 engineer and a couple of managers of some sort. Security manager, Project Manager, Portfolio Manager, some medium management and some other people. And then they would constantly say that they don't have resources to fix things. Well yeah, because you have 1 engineer for 10 projects, but 4 managers per project.
- 5y ago
meepmorp 5y ago
> IBM's DB2 Connect software on Windows ~20 years ago So many really middling memories just came flooding back.
- bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
  Similar, but with IBM Websphere MQ. Why a message queueing technology is branded under 'Websphere' I have nooo idea, but it turned out to be a nightmare of various configurations jammed together and not working well. Tibco Enterprise Messaging (EMS) on the other hand is a dream to work with IME.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    MQ was MQ series before the WebSphere rebrand. The rebranding happened because IBM is managed by silly people.

exikyut 5y ago

I wonder if some large account acquisition somewhere somehow wound up contingent on implementing this functionality... but technical due diligence during the integration process identified that it was absolutely irrelevant... and it was subsequently declared that it was easier to just pretend the feature exists to keep the middle-manglement happy because the account was important. Maybe. Going fishing in thin air here.

nikanj 5y ago
Maybe. But it does work on XenApp, which is their somewhat-deprecated non-vdi offering :D
selimthegrim 5y ago
>middle-manglement Freudian slip of the year

cyanydeez 5y ago

we call this vendor lock in. RIP