Fragility in the floppy world (was Re: TRS-80 Model II Manuals)

[Teo Zenios]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: Fragility in the floppy world (was Re: TRS-80 Model II Manuals)


> On Wed, 3 Nov 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
>> I am seriosulyt worried by the fact that a group of programmers who are
>> capable of writing a compiler didn't realise the value of backups. I
>> can't beklieve tht nobody had ever lost data before.
>
> It is one of the consequences when companies recruit straight out of
> colleges.  Although not necessarily the cause in THIS case, it tends
> toward a work group who are strong on theory and very weak on real-world
> experience, who will fail to realize all of the things that could go wrong
> (such as using scanf() for USER input!, or not making backups ("Oh.  The
> technicians always took care of THAT"))
>
> Look at the GREAT ideas, and stupid mistakes, on the Lisa dream team.
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred     cisin at xenosoft.com

What stupid mistakes did the Lisa team do, and where they GUI related 
(something new) or simple programming mistakes?

Programmers are like doctors, they seem to have specialties they know 
everything about but other stuff in their field not so much. Backups should 
be the IT departments job (who report to management as to what is important 
to save and what is not) not the programmers.