So, it's been awhile. Two years almost. When I wrote my last entry, I was just starting a new job as a development manager, and writing the coda for my former job.
Since then I've learned an awful lot, made a ton of mistakes, changed positions within my company several times, and I'm finally ready to write another entry. You'd be forgiven if you thought it was some monumental thing that had motivated me to write another blog entry after all this time, but it's really quite a mundane subject. Sucky software.
But isn't that usually what gets you all fired up? Pure, unadulturated, suckitude. We too often take the *good* software for granted. I can't imagine myself being all fired up after two years to tell you about this great new program I found. I'd probably tell some colleagues, but I sure as hell wouldn't be motiveated to write a whole blog entry about it.
The really crappy software, though, that's worthy of a novel, a catalog every idiotic failing of its creators. Currently, my utmost hatred is directed at something known as DekiWiki.
Now, let me preface all this by saying I *love* using Wikis. In fact, one of my biggest frustations at my company is this love affair with Sharepoint and Excel that most Project Managers seem to have. They use these static documents that are written then forgotten, hopelessly invisible to the people that actually need the information, and don't even realize a Wiki can be such a great collaborative, living medium for communication.
Well, a *good* Wiki is an outstanding medium. DekiWiki, in contrast, makes me want to kill babies. Which is ironic given that it's theoretically an "improvement" on the outstanding MediaWiki. Even if you don't know the name MediaWiki you've likedly used it. MediaWiki is the thing that powers Wikipedia.
Now, the brilliant minds at MindTouch decided that MediaWiki just wasn't quite good enough. No, the lightweight markup language used by MediaWiki was far too complex. After all, who can keep track of using two brackets around a name to create and link to a new page. Asterisks to create a bulleted list? Who can remember all that complexity? No, what a Wiki *really* needs is a WYSIWYG-editor stolen from Word. After all, a Wiki is really just a Word doc anyway, right?
No, no, no, no.
People too stupid to use Wiki-markup simply shouldn't be using a Wiki. These are the same people that they have to put warnings on hair dryers saying 'Do not use while bathing' or the warning on peanuts saying 'Food allergy warning: this product may contain peanuts'. Sadly, natural selection no longer is allowed to eliminated these individuals and apparently they now need a Wiki.
So, what we get is a heavyweight Word interface, which is slow (pages take seconds to load) and clumsy. If you get frustrated with the way in which in hamstrings you, you can edit the code: in HTML. Man, I can get this table quite right. Let me edit all these trs and td with nbsp's. Great!
Let's compare what you do to add a new page in MediaWiki vs. DekiWiki:
MediaWiki:
1) Edit the page and put two brackets around the new page name.
DekiWiki
1) Click 'New Page'
2) Wait several seconds for new page to load
3) Add contents, editing 'Page Title' to have page's title
4) Goto page from which you wish to link to new page
5) Click 'Edit Page'
6) Wait several seconds for page to load
7) Right click and select 'Link to page'
8) Wait several seconds for window to populate with existing pages
9)...
There are a few more steps before you're done, but I'm too tired to even keep typing them. I think you get the point.
So, in the name of making things "easier" (God forbid someone spend 5 minutes looking up Wiki-markup), anytime we want to add a page it takes 10 times as long. Great! It also has the wonderful side-effect of crashing certain browsers. That someone thought this was an "improvement" simply baffles me. Unfortunately, I think a lot of software shares this trait. Improvement to make it easier, that just makes it crap.
Normally, I wouldn't care, I would just use MediaWiki. Hell, my company has MediaWiki installed, so I'm all set.
Except for one problem, my company also has DekiWiki installed. And in the name of standardization (after all, we can't have people using different tools. It's chaos!) has decided to standardize on a single Wiki.
Guess which one *wasn't* selected.
The people doing the selection are people decided the Troubleshooting guides they used for production issues were too hard to locate, so they wanted to put them on a Wiki. And, you know, really a Wiki is just Word on the web.
But that's a topic for another blog entirely...
Since then I've learned an awful lot, made a ton of mistakes, changed positions within my company several times, and I'm finally ready to write another entry. You'd be forgiven if you thought it was some monumental thing that had motivated me to write another blog entry after all this time, but it's really quite a mundane subject. Sucky software.
But isn't that usually what gets you all fired up? Pure, unadulturated, suckitude. We too often take the *good* software for granted. I can't imagine myself being all fired up after two years to tell you about this great new program I found. I'd probably tell some colleagues, but I sure as hell wouldn't be motiveated to write a whole blog entry about it.
The really crappy software, though, that's worthy of a novel, a catalog every idiotic failing of its creators. Currently, my utmost hatred is directed at something known as DekiWiki.
Now, let me preface all this by saying I *love* using Wikis. In fact, one of my biggest frustations at my company is this love affair with Sharepoint and Excel that most Project Managers seem to have. They use these static documents that are written then forgotten, hopelessly invisible to the people that actually need the information, and don't even realize a Wiki can be such a great collaborative, living medium for communication.
Well, a *good* Wiki is an outstanding medium. DekiWiki, in contrast, makes me want to kill babies. Which is ironic given that it's theoretically an "improvement" on the outstanding MediaWiki. Even if you don't know the name MediaWiki you've likedly used it. MediaWiki is the thing that powers Wikipedia.
Now, the brilliant minds at MindTouch decided that MediaWiki just wasn't quite good enough. No, the lightweight markup language used by MediaWiki was far too complex. After all, who can keep track of using two brackets around a name to create and link to a new page. Asterisks to create a bulleted list? Who can remember all that complexity? No, what a Wiki *really* needs is a WYSIWYG-editor stolen from Word. After all, a Wiki is really just a Word doc anyway, right?
No, no, no, no.
People too stupid to use Wiki-markup simply shouldn't be using a Wiki. These are the same people that they have to put warnings on hair dryers saying 'Do not use while bathing' or the warning on peanuts saying 'Food allergy warning: this product may contain peanuts'. Sadly, natural selection no longer is allowed to eliminated these individuals and apparently they now need a Wiki.
So, what we get is a heavyweight Word interface, which is slow (pages take seconds to load) and clumsy. If you get frustrated with the way in which in hamstrings you, you can edit the code: in HTML. Man, I can get this table quite right. Let me edit all these trs and td with nbsp's. Great!
Let's compare what you do to add a new page in MediaWiki vs. DekiWiki:
MediaWiki:
1) Edit the page and put two brackets around the new page name.
DekiWiki
1) Click 'New Page'
2) Wait several seconds for new page to load
3) Add contents, editing 'Page Title' to have page's title
4) Goto page from which you wish to link to new page
5) Click 'Edit Page'
6) Wait several seconds for page to load
7) Right click and select 'Link to page'
8) Wait several seconds for window to populate with existing pages
9)...
There are a few more steps before you're done, but I'm too tired to even keep typing them. I think you get the point.
So, in the name of making things "easier" (God forbid someone spend 5 minutes looking up Wiki-markup), anytime we want to add a page it takes 10 times as long. Great! It also has the wonderful side-effect of crashing certain browsers. That someone thought this was an "improvement" simply baffles me. Unfortunately, I think a lot of software shares this trait. Improvement to make it easier, that just makes it crap.
Normally, I wouldn't care, I would just use MediaWiki. Hell, my company has MediaWiki installed, so I'm all set.
Except for one problem, my company also has DekiWiki installed. And in the name of standardization (after all, we can't have people using different tools. It's chaos!) has decided to standardize on a single Wiki.
Guess which one *wasn't* selected.
The people doing the selection are people decided the Troubleshooting guides they used for production issues were too hard to locate, so they wanted to put them on a Wiki. And, you know, really a Wiki is just Word on the web.
But that's a topic for another blog entirely...
6 comments:
I hear ya man. I was constantly fighting with extra spaces and an inability to switch out of headlines. Once you're editing the HTML, something is wrong.
I've also not found anything that truly annoys me enough to blog about, as my blog also tends to be mostly rants/things that I'm fired up about for one reason or another.
So glad someone has :)
On a more on-topic note - not that I don't enjoy *loads* of gay innuendo - I think you're not alone in your frustrations. I remember having to set up WYSIWYG editors at the job I had prior to you-know-where, for customers who wanted to use a Wiki because it was the "new great thing".
We would install MediaWiki or something similar on their server and watch them fumble like complete idiots. Mind you, these were high-up administrative and tech people at the various Michigan public high schools, colleges, etc. They just didn't *get it*. I think a Wiki requires a certain frame of mind, or at least the basic ability of cognitive thought. Here is roughly how the conversations went...
Them: "How do we attach an Excel file?"
Me: "Uhh... you don't..."
Them: "Can we import it?"
Me: "Uhh... I mean.. I suppose that could be doable but I'm not sure if..."
Them: "Ok, we want to do that!"
Me: "Wait, but see, Wiki has table syntax that..."
Them: "We want to click a button and have the Excel sheet show up!"
Me: "Right, I know, but what I was trying to say is that..."
Them: "What about editing? We want to be able to make things bold and underlined, and I want to post pictures of my baby eating apple sauce!"
Me: "Ok, so, to get text bold, you can put quotes around.."
Them: "Where is the button?!?!"
Me: "Uhh... the quote button? Well, there is a quote *key*..."
Them: "We want a button, like in Word. And I want to drag my baby's picture right next to the financial figures because everyone loves babies!"
Me: "Uhh... I mean, I suppose we could try to.."
Them: "Ok, when can you have it done?"
Me: "*sighs* Probably not before you have a chance to reproduce again..."
Sometimes it's just easier to quit. If you haven't watched Idiocracy yet, I suggest you do.
Josh-
Yeah, if you're at the point of editing HTML, something is seriously messed up.
As for not finding anything worthy of bitching about via a blog, that's just because you're not misanthropic enough.
I've racked up at least 10 or 12 subjects worthy of anger-fueled diatribes. This just seemed the easiest to put into words. Lol.
Adam-
I have, in fact, seen idiocracy. It's been a few years, but I remember there was some pretty dead-on stuff in it, lampooning American society.
There is a general revulsion to *thinking* I think, even in technical fields where you'd think it'd be valued.
That dialog is comedy gold. That sad thing is, you probably didn't even have to make much of it up.
Post a Comment