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Meanwhile, it's hard to walk in an Apple store for the crowds. (well, pre-pandemic)
TTFN - Kent
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Quote: serving customers beyond any physical location
I also wondered if that meant that Heaven is using Microsoft products, and Hell is using Apple? Or do I have that backwards?
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headline says: Microsoft to close all retail stores
Wait...Microsoft had brick-and-mortar retails stores? Hmm...
Never knew.
But, I mean I only used MS products for 30 years so what do I know? 
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Yeah, and I was thinking also...what did they even sell in the retail stores?
They don't have a phone...I guess they did in the past, but they didn't have an entire ecosystem of products like Apple does -- watch, phone, laptops, home systems, ear buds, etc.
I guess you'd walk in and there'd just be rows of Microsoft Natural keyboards or something. 
Sounds like the stores would'a been really boring. Of course, even the Apple stores bore me.
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They sold their Surface line of hardware as well as a mish-mash of laptops. The staff, at a few stores I visited, knew the talking points of the Surface stuff but the other stuff - the Acer, Asus etc gear? They barely had a clue.
There was no focus. It was "here's what we want you to buy, and here's what we're also offering because we know what we want you to buy isn't enough".
At an Apple store you have Phones, Tablets, laptops and computers. All arranged in sections and each section you have your levels of expensiveness. There was a very clear heirarchy.
At Microsoft stores there was a random assortment of laptops with zero guidance as to which was the best. With Apple, for instance, you choose your cheaper lighter Air or the expensive, heavier Pro laptop. Play or Work. Then you choose how much SSD and RAM. All in one areas and you're done.
At Microsoft you go from table to table wondering if the HP is better than the Asus, or if the Huawei is more powerful than the surface laptop. And what's the diff between the Surface Laptop and the book?
Further, at Apple everything (of consequence) was Apple. You knew, 100%, that quality wasn't an issue. At Microsoft you didn't know. There was no brand trust.
And finally (well, finally for me) Microsoft stores didn't always have the latest and greatest. I was there looking at a Matebook Pro and the staff member helping didn't know the specs. I was looking them up on my phone and realised they were selling the out of date model.
They should have not tried to be Apple and instead backed themselves and sold only their Surface Hardware and had free espresso.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Thanks, that is interesting on what the Microsoft stores were like.
Chris Maunder wrote: They should have not tried to be Apple and instead backed themselves and sold only their Surface Hardware and had free espresso.
Yeah, it's too bad they are closing. I always like more competition in these spaces so we don't eventually get to a place where there is only 1 choice.
And, honestly, I remember going into stand-alone computer shops way back in 1985 and trying to look at computers. There would be 5 computers, each siting on a separate desk and you weren't allowed to touch any of them. You just stared at them from afar while knowing you couldn't afford the $3,000 price tag and the salesmen (yes,actually, all men) condescended toward you.  
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Happy Days.
I remember walking into them a few short years later and yup - same thing here.
There'd be 3 or 4 machines in the shop, each on their own little plinth. The cheapest one, a 386-33 if I remember, was about $3k and 486s were years off. Remember standing in line at a shop once and listening to the bloke in front asking about the 80486DX and 80486DX2. He was querying the poor soul about memory latencies and about wait-states. It looked to our teenage minds like the sales-bloke was about to have an brain aneurysm.
Last week spied on old Toshiba Portege with an i5, 4gb, 256gbssd and full-hd 10-point-touch panel.
They wanted $259.
I still remember looking in the green-guide (telly/tech guide offered in a newspaper) at the price of ram. $65 a megabyte? Holy sheet that's cheap!
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Great story. Remember 486SX (no math coprocessor) vs DX (with coprocessor)?
I worked at a shop that was building and selling at that time (386s and 486s just came out).
Ram got cheap at $40 per megabyte.
4 Mb at $160 Phew...
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Hoped you'd find it a bit of fun.
Oh gawd. Yes! I've probably still got some of the programs that 'upgraded' an SX to a DX. Naturally of course, they'd just install exception handlers then make the computation in software when you tried to execute an fpu instruction and the exception handler was fired.
40 bucks?! Wauw - lucky..
I can even still remember seeing cache ram (70ns) for sale. Try convincing people of that these days.
What? Are you telling me the cache wasn't on-chip?
Felt like royalty when I got a DX4-100 with 8mb.
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They gave up on all kind of hardware... Wonder why?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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For the same reasons Apple gave up on all the various hardware they tried selling. Profit, focus, consumer needs, and some that were just dragging the brand down.
They are powering ahead with the Surface brand, though, and good on them I say.
Now if they would just ditch that ridiculous hinge on the book.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Test-driven development was supposed to eliminate the need for independent testing. Alas, it doesn’t go far enough. Who will test the tests?
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TDD is good for core code that doesn't require an interface, or that can generate tangible results that can be validated, but testers are STILL required to make sure things look okay and that the displayed data makes sense.
TDD is NOT a panacea. It's simply a dev tool.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Quote: Test-driven development was supposed to eliminate the need for independent testing.
From what alternate universe has that author been living in?
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The writer has, obviously, never worked in the IT industry.
Who ever said TDD would eliminate independent testing only ever held a management job and never wrote a single line of code.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: Who ever said TDD would eliminate independent testing only ever held a management job
Although I don't really like all managers... are you not being a little bit too harsh?
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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No, I limited my scope to just those who thought TDD was the "silver bullet". Not all management thinks that way.
Not all management are complete idiots. I've worked for some really good management types, and some really, really bad morons too.
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I forgot again the joke icon... 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Management has been trying to rid of programmers and testers for over 40 years.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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 Almost every firm sees software development as a cost center, even if it's critical to their success. Few of them see themselves as being in a software business, even if most of their sales are from software. They do nothing to promote a culture of design excellence and act as if software is produced by developers who aren't all that different from assembly line workers.
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An upcoming movie will take the concept of robotic acting to an entirely new level. She is type-cast as a robot though
Arnold wasn't available?
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Arnold wasn't available?
He has the robot part down perfectly. Perhaps he wasn't willing to declare as a female? 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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This will de-volve into porns featuring sex-robots looking like whomever the hot actress of the day is.
... and give new meaning to the still-new term, "Deep Fake"
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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OMG... that's creepy.
The robot looks as the head were turned around 180° like the girl on the exorcism
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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