4 ms·

Why exactly does Cringley have such a hate on for IBM?

by smackfu 12y ago

throwawayaway 12y ago
it seems common among ex-employees.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  IBM probably deserves it, but they have already stopped being relevant to most of us.
  - fat0wl 12y ago
    ...in the myopic startup world. I work for an enterprise doing WebSphere & I'm scared to see it go one day actually -- will be cool if it cheapens to the point where it is equivalent to an open source tech but I think its the proprietary nature that got it to where it is. Pretty big learning curve but it is rock-solid and would be quite an upgrade from a lot of the scripting lang stacks if it were to hit the world at large. Coming from RoR it feels like moving from a toy plane to a Harrier jet.
    - anonymousDan 12y ago
      '...but it's rock solid...'. From someone who did a lot of robustness testing against WebSphere in the course of writing a JMS adapter, you have got to be kidding?
      - fat0wl 12y ago
        I think the clarification "watwut" makes is fitting -- it's not like it's complete perfection in every situation, but I use WebSphere 8.0 running a ton of apps written in a pretty wide variety of techs (Portal, Commerce, Message Broker, services). It even runs crappy legacy projects with minimal changes (literally 1 or 2 quick fixes suggested by IDE). Obviously it is a bit opinionated & works best when you code specifically for the APIs/standards it is currently attempting to embrace, but the all the open source scripting tools I've used are way more opinionated. I like WAS's take because I often find that it's exposing services that I don't even know about until I eventually need them. And it's not a lot of bloaty junk, it's essential JavaEE interfaces/protocols. I'll admit it took a while to grow on me and we have fantastic hardware...
    - watwut 12y ago
      WebSphere may be upgrade from a lot of the scripting lang stacks, but it still is a horrible crap. I think that open source J2EE compliant alternatives exist and are much much better.
    - sk5t 12y ago
      The solid parts are actually the JRE / JVM...
      - fat0wl 12y ago
        eh yeah but it doesn't hurt to have an admin GUI and a ton of default stack config done for you, that's all I mean. WebSphere is like a 1-click install for a massive stack. The open source community seems to like DropWizard, Websphere is just like that on steroids. I'm sure a comparable stack can be made from open source components though and there are other companies who do the pre-packaged stack approach, I know. But WebSphere is kinda convenient and nicely integrated is all I mean. After spending a ton of time chasing down gem dependency conflict/upgrade issues using package managers in Ruby, I'm kindof impressed with the prescription full-stack. It's just like having a corp do all the dependency/interop checks so you don't have to. Limiting in a way but reduces a lot of friction.
  - BankingAnon 12y ago
    If you've ever read "IBM And The Holocaust" [1], you might say they deserve much more than this. 1. http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Holocaust-Strategic-Alliance-Corporation/dp/0914153102 http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Holocaust-Strategic-Alliance-Corpo...
freditup 12y ago
He seems like a sensationalist who has certain vendettas against specific companies and entities. I'm not sure why he's taken seriously at all... (As in, I really don't understand why he keeps getting posted on HN, not just some throwaway insult)
- smacktoward 12y ago
  Because he wrote the best book ever written on the rise of the PC industry, Accidental Empires (http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554 http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Co...). And then turned it into a TV documentary miniseries, Triumph of the Nerds (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FXQO http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FX...), which was best in class as well.
  - freditup 12y ago
    Hmm, perhaps you're right. But he seems to me to be in that category of authors who takes small bits of evidence and draws much to large of conclusions. (And yes, I'm doing the same thing with this very comment)
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  sensationalist as he is, he's usually on the money about IBM. he had a huge following on slashdot too, and has a huge following among IBM employees with many wondering whether or not you get shitlisted for visiting cringely.com.

Why exactly does Cringley have such a hate on for IBM?

by smackfu 12y ago

Why exactly does Cringley have such a hate on for IBM?

throwawayaway 12y ago

it seems common among ex-employees.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
IBM probably deserves it, but they have already stopped being relevant to most of us.
- fat0wl 12y ago
  ...in the myopic startup world. I work for an enterprise doing WebSphere & I'm scared to see it go one day actually -- will be cool if it cheapens to the point where it is equivalent to an open source tech but I think its the proprietary nature that got it to where it is. Pretty big learning curve but it is rock-solid and would be quite an upgrade from a lot of the scripting lang stacks if it were to hit the world at large. Coming from RoR it feels like moving from a toy plane to a Harrier jet.
  - anonymousDan 12y ago
    '...but it's rock solid...'. From someone who did a lot of robustness testing against WebSphere in the course of writing a JMS adapter, you have got to be kidding?
    - fat0wl 12y ago
      I think the clarification "watwut" makes is fitting -- it's not like it's complete perfection in every situation, but I use WebSphere 8.0 running a ton of apps written in a pretty wide variety of techs (Portal, Commerce, Message Broker, services). It even runs crappy legacy projects with minimal changes (literally 1 or 2 quick fixes suggested by IDE). Obviously it is a bit opinionated & works best when you code specifically for the APIs/standards it is currently attempting to embrace, but the all the open source scripting tools I've used are way more opinionated. I like WAS's take because I often find that it's exposing services that I don't even know about until I eventually need them. And it's not a lot of bloaty junk, it's essential JavaEE interfaces/protocols. I'll admit it took a while to grow on me and we have fantastic hardware...
  - watwut 12y ago
    WebSphere may be upgrade from a lot of the scripting lang stacks, but it still is a horrible crap. I think that open source J2EE compliant alternatives exist and are much much better.
  - sk5t 12y ago
    The solid parts are actually the JRE / JVM...
    - fat0wl 12y ago
      eh yeah but it doesn't hurt to have an admin GUI and a ton of default stack config done for you, that's all I mean. WebSphere is like a 1-click install for a massive stack. The open source community seems to like DropWizard, Websphere is just like that on steroids. I'm sure a comparable stack can be made from open source components though and there are other companies who do the pre-packaged stack approach, I know. But WebSphere is kinda convenient and nicely integrated is all I mean. After spending a ton of time chasing down gem dependency conflict/upgrade issues using package managers in Ruby, I'm kindof impressed with the prescription full-stack. It's just like having a corp do all the dependency/interop checks so you don't have to. Limiting in a way but reduces a lot of friction.
- BankingAnon 12y ago
  If you've ever read "IBM And The Holocaust" [1], you might say they deserve much more than this. 1. http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Holocaust-Strategic-Alliance-Corporation/dp/0914153102 http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Holocaust-Strategic-Alliance-Corpo...

freditup 12y ago

He seems like a sensationalist who has certain vendettas against specific companies and entities. I'm not sure why he's taken seriously at all... (As in, I really don't understand why he keeps getting posted on HN, not just some throwaway insult)

smacktoward 12y ago
Because he wrote the best book ever written on the rise of the PC industry, Accidental Empires (http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554 http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Co...). And then turned it into a TV documentary miniseries, Triumph of the Nerds (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FXQO http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FX...), which was best in class as well.
- freditup 12y ago
  Hmm, perhaps you're right. But he seems to me to be in that category of authors who takes small bits of evidence and draws much to large of conclusions. (And yes, I'm doing the same thing with this very comment)
throwawayaway 12y ago
sensationalist as he is, he's usually on the money about IBM. he had a huge following on slashdot too, and has a huge following among IBM employees with many wondering whether or not you get shitlisted for visiting cringely.com.