Pet Peeve #3 - "BloatWare" and "Internet Enabled Applications"
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, "Personal" computers didn't require 6 gigabyte disk drives or 128 megabytes of memory.  Admittedly I wouldn't want to go back to the ways of doing things that we had then, but what the Hell is going on here?  Let's take a look at the past 10 years or so, and do a quick and dirty projection to see what it looks like. Whoa ... what's this?  Disk space and memory requirements have quadrupled in the past 2 years?  Can this possibly be true?  Of course it is!  Now, not only does your word processor handle typing letters for you, it can also design your web page (assuming of course that you want to use a word processor to design a web page), it can fetch your E-Mail for you  (assuming of course that you want to use a word processor to fetch your E-Mail),  browse the World Wide Web (assuming of course that you want to use a word processor to browse the World Wide Web) and a multitude of other things that were completely unheard of a couple of years ago.  Not only that, what used to be simple little "File Manager" is suddenly some kind of Internet-aware, octopus-like creature that wants to take over your entire system (Yes Heather, there is a creature living in your computer that won't let you have it), scatter hundreds of files that you don't even know you have all over the disk drive and refuse to let you have them (ever heard of "Hidden Files"?  Ever tried to delete the "Temporary Internet Files", "History", or "Cookies" directory using Explorer?  For that matter, what is "Temporary" about "Temporary Internet Files" that never get deleted?)

What's happened here?  Where will it stop?  It happened because developers are trying to create applications that will do everything at once.  And as to where will it stop, it won't!  The way I see things going, by the turn of the century (which is only about 18 months away) we will need 1gHz (that is 1 Giga Hertz) processors with a gigabyte of memory and terabyte disk drives just to be able to do the same things we are doing today!  At the same SPEED we are doing them today!  Have you noticed that it still takes about as long to write and print a document today as it did a couple of years ago?  The machines are more powerful, they have more resources, but they don't do things much quicker.

I hate to disappoint some of the developers around here, but I don't particularly want a word processor / browser / web page designer / e-mail application / FTP client / Time synchronizer / graphics illustrator / file manager / database / spread sheet / appointment calendar / this / that / everything-in-one.  Especially when, to get just your word processor I have to load your word processor / browser / web page designer / e-mail application / FTP client / Time synchronizer / graphics illustrator / file manager / database / spread sheet / appointment calendar / this / that / everything-in-one and to get someone else's E-Mail application I have to load their word processor / browser / web page designer / e-mail application / FTP client / Time synchronizer / graphics illustrator / file manager / database / spread sheet / appointment calendar / this / that / everything-in-one.  All of a sudden I have a half-dozen word processors / browsers / web page designers / e-mail applications / FTP clients / Time synchronizers / graphics illustrators / file managers / databases/ spread sheets / appointment calendars / these / those / everything-in-ones loaded on my system.

And, and this is REALLY going to shock some developers, so sit down, hold tight, and get a grip on yourself:  There are still people who don't use the Internet!  Damn, somebody help that guy get back in his chair.  It's the truth though, hard as it may be for some of you guys to believe, there are still MILLIONS of computers around that don't even have modems in them.  Crap, somebody help him up again!  And here's the real kicker, lots of people don't even WANT to get on the Internet!  OK, just leave him on the floor.

All joking aside, can anyone tell me why, if a machine doesn't have a modem in it, doesn't have TCP/IP installed, and isn't on a network, why I would want a bunch of "Internet Aware" or "Internet Enabled" applications installed?  Apparently there is a reason because there are a lot of applications around that are going to install their Internet portions whether you want them or not.  If a machine doesn't have a modem in it and isn't on a LAN, it's a pretty good bet that it doesn't need a phone dialer, FAX software, Web Browser, E-Mail, or anything like that.  You're going to get it installed in many cases though, want it or not!

Let's be realistic.  There are certain things that go together and there are others that don't.  No matter how hard you try, and no matter how many man years are expended on the development, there is never going to be one application that does all things for all people.  There is no reason for one application "Suite" to try and do everything, and there is no EXCUSE for one application to try and take over someone's system.  I personally have never and will never allow application software on my system unless I can control what gets installed, where it gets installed, and what it takes over.  I won't allow application software on my system that creates directories in my Windows directory (and yes, this includes "Temporary Internet Files", "Cookies", "History", and all that other garbage).  I won't allow software on my system that scatters files all over the disk drive.  My system is exactly that; it is MY system, not yours, MINE.  Application developers don't decide what gets installed or where it goes on my computer, I DO and if they can't live with that, TOUGH!  There are new developers and new software coming out every day, and I'm willing to wait for the well-behaved stuff.

Oh yeah, one more final word before I leave ... If you are one of the developers who are writing applications that "Requires Internet Explorer" or "Requires Java", please let me know so I won't waste my time taking a look at them.  I can guarantee you that these requirements will never be met.

Scott Craig - April, 1998

Next Time .... Customer Support?
Last Time ..... The "Windows System Registry" 

Copyright © 1997-2008, Scott A. Craig, All Rights Reserved