Author Topic: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?  (Read 12221 times)

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Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #100 on: May 24, 2022, 04:31:10 am »
If I ask them to play an online game, they say they can't, because  their open source NVIDIA GPU driver is still bodged on Debian.. an OS where loading a decently performing (but non-supported) binary-blob driver is considered a sin
It's unlikely that an open source purist is going to buy a Nvidia GPU nowadays, AMD graphics drivers are open source and perform way better than the current open source Nvidia drivers.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 
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Offline mansaxel

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #101 on: May 24, 2022, 06:13:21 am »
Early versions of SAP R/3, using the thick desktop client. Took one day to register one month of work, when work was 20 8-hour days of exactly the same billing code.

Any network code written or endorsed by The Lennart, especially DNS or DHCP related. (the idea of a init replacement that can restart processes cleverly is not a bad one, only implemented better by others, like on AIX, since 1994 or so)

Any license management software, case in point flexlm. (one can argue that it is successful, because its job is to prevent people from running software, and there it certainly is an overachiever.)

H-PUKES (AIX wannabe, with one of the worst compilers ever almost-bundled. Would have been OK if free. Was not. )

Solaris manpages written by people who would rather write a dissertation using Complicated Words than tell people how to run the fucking program.

Software without sensible defaults.
I've been using OS X since about 2003, and am still with it. I mostly like it, but: Every release they make it less Unix and more iOS, and we complain, and continue using it. As if we're slow-boiled toads. I need to stick kexts (kernel modules / drivers) into mine, and that is more and more painful, and often accompanied by "you should really reconsider that" warnings.

I have very few complaints with OpenBSD and FreeBSD. If I can, that's what I run.

Offline bd139

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #102 on: May 24, 2022, 06:45:20 am »
Regarding kexts I really think those need to die. Windows is doing the same to some degree as well. It stops the whole “relabel generic serial adapter with different vendor code” garbage. We have USB standard device classes and AirPrint. No drivers needed!
 

Offline mansaxel

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #103 on: May 24, 2022, 08:39:55 am »
Regarding kexts I really think those need to die. Windows is doing the same to some degree as well. It stops the whole “relabel generic serial adapter with different vendor code” garbage. We have USB standard device classes and AirPrint. No drivers needed!

This is not for USB serial (but yes, it used to be. Now they've got all the ususal suspects in-kernel, which is second best to device classes). It's for arcane but very useful things like network file systems.

Ever heard of OpenAFS? It is a horrible concoction, slow and requires a level 7 magician juggling lots of moving parts in reasonable lockstep.  It also is 1000x better than any other network file system. And since I am a grumpy old Unix greybeard, I happen to think that the current "API means a badly documented HTTPS-carried pile of JSON poo to a load balancer (implying broken caching as well, for lulz) because distributed eventual consistency is hard" trend should be taken out and shot, I think that the classic file system model still wins.

Offline free_electron

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #104 on: May 24, 2022, 04:53:10 pm »
Solaris manpages written by people who would rather write a dissertation using Complicated Words than tell people how to run the fucking program.
well they are all Stanford alumni , so they thumb their nose at you. talk about an evil company.... giving away their hardware to universities so students get used to it and then demand the same machinery (waaaay overpriced) when they go to work somewhere.

One of the founders is still in dispute about a piece of beach he illegally owns (or doesnt)
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Offline Zoli

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #105 on: May 24, 2022, 05:53:23 pm »
...
One of the founders is still in dispute about a piece of beach he illegally owns (or doesnt)
He owns the access to the beach; this kind of behaviour is worse then just fighting over the beach in question, IMNHO.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #106 on: May 24, 2022, 10:08:18 pm »
Regarding kexts I really think those need to die. Windows is doing the same to some degree as well. It stops the whole “relabel generic serial adapter with different vendor code” garbage. We have USB standard device classes and AirPrint. No drivers needed!

This is not for USB serial (but yes, it used to be. Now they've got all the ususal suspects in-kernel, which is second best to device classes). It's for arcane but very useful things like network file systems.

Ever heard of OpenAFS? It is a horrible concoction, slow and requires a level 7 magician juggling lots of moving parts in reasonable lockstep.  It also is 1000x better than any other network file system. And since I am a grumpy old Unix greybeard, I happen to think that the current "API means a badly documented HTTPS-carried pile of JSON poo to a load balancer (implying broken caching as well, for lulz) because distributed eventual consistency is hard" trend should be taken out and shot, I think that the classic file system model still wins.

Problem with filesystems is they only deal with streams of bytes. Problems are slightly more complicated than that as are transactions, consistency and locking. Not to mention disconnected devices and latent consistency.

Agree with your assertions about APIs however. HTTP and JSON are the wrong solution. I probably went on about this before but I am partially through implementing something completely new to bridge these two problems. It's long, complicated and painful and my motivation is lacking at the moment  :-DD
 

Offline mansaxel

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #107 on: May 24, 2022, 10:14:46 pm »
Solaris manpages written by people who would rather write a dissertation using Complicated Words than tell people how to run the fucking program.
well they are all Stanford alumni , so they thumb their nose at you. talk about an evil company.... giving away their hardware to universities so students get used to it and then demand the same machinery (waaaay overpriced) when they go to work somewhere.
SUN hardware and software, excluding the SysV doldrums from 5.1 through 5.6, and not talking so much about the low-end SunBlade machines with IDE disks, was mostly excellent. The manpages sometimes are horrible. And their attempts at building a system for patching the OS did leave something to be desired, but it could mostly be circumvented. A Java GUI program that insisted to be run on the actual console, wouldn't that be a splendid idea for a server OS that runs on Real Computers? (A Real Computer runs Unix, is natively Network Byte Order, and has a serial console at 9600 8n1, that isn't an afterthought which will only do 83% of what the graphical console, if it even exists, can do. This obviously excludes anything X86 from being a Real Computer)

This is all completely irrelevant now, because Oracle bought them and turned it all to shit.

One of the founders is still in dispute about a piece of beach he illegally owns (or doesnt)

Rich people, regardless of which software company they founded / funded (or not), will do these things. It is irrelevant to the discussion and smacks of axes to grind.  Let's save that for Larry Ellison, shall we?

Offline mansaxel

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #108 on: May 24, 2022, 10:31:55 pm »

Problem with filesystems is they only deal with streams of bytes. Problems are slightly more complicated than that as are transactions, consistency and locking. Not to mention disconnected devices and latent consistency.

I'm going to be even more back-asswards and state that RDBMS is far from dead, and has solutions to this.  But it is not fancy to use it, because developers have not been allowed in to mess with it, and therefore they insist on using glorified BDB hashes instead.

Agree with your assertions about APIs however. HTTP and JSON are the wrong solution. I probably went on about this before but I am partially through implementing something completely new to bridge these two problems. It's long, complicated and painful and my motivation is lacking at the moment  :-DD

I'd be delighted to read more when you're bored with moving house and have taken that up again.

Offline bd139

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #109 on: May 24, 2022, 10:41:51 pm »

Problem with filesystems is they only deal with streams of bytes. Problems are slightly more complicated than that as are transactions, consistency and locking. Not to mention disconnected devices and latent consistency.

I'm going to be even more back-asswards and state that RDBMS is far from dead, and has solutions to this.  But it is not fancy to use it, because developers have not been allowed in to mess with it, and therefore they insist on using glorified BDB hashes instead.

Yes. One of my solutions I have implemented before was actually a disconnected SQLite replicated to a master DB. The replication was over HTTP / JSON though so you won't like it  :-DD. Ironically this is the same thing Apple use for their cloud stuff (Core Data) even though I didn't know at the time when I blindly reimplemented everything they did.

I use Apple's API every day for tasks, notes, music and spreadsheets and it works quite well.

Agree with your assertions about APIs however. HTTP and JSON are the wrong solution. I probably went on about this before but I am partially through implementing something completely new to bridge these two problems. It's long, complicated and painful and my motivation is lacking at the moment  :-DD

I'd be delighted to read more when you're bored with moving house and have taken that up again.

I'll stick it on github when I get a chance to remove all the embarrassing bits and document it. It has evolved a cranky Forth like programming language since I last mentioned it which allows you to distribute code with workload rather than compile it into node controllers like the first version. Eventually it'll evolve into a mutant of a distributed lisp machine and kubernetes and then I'll look like an idiot :)
 

Offline TimNJ

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #110 on: May 25, 2022, 02:53:07 am »
$500 to Chroma (ATE) for a horrendous 20 year old LabView based program to control an AC source from a PC GUI interface. I was reminded of the glorious early 2000’s color schemes of some programs. Hot pink + forest green anyone?

Oh and no free update path when they finally updated the godforsaken thing a year ago to support additional hardware features. Dish out another $500 if you want it.
 

Offline VK3DRB

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #111 on: May 25, 2022, 08:08:23 am »
ooh. i got another one. LabWindows on Solaris....


Labwindows is actually pretty good, but yes overpriced. You can use C# and DLLs instead. NI is a bit of a ripoff.
 

Offline VK3DRB

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #112 on: May 25, 2022, 08:19:01 am »
Wow, I came here to say Altium.  I haven't dabbled in the others, but my impression has been that they all tend to have a worse user experience or are missing a lot of the graphical control options that Altium has (even if most of what Altium has is half-baked and half-broken), which is part of what has me still putting up with it.

Altium is WAY overpriced on it subscription costs  :--. The cost has increased a lot over the years. It is now $A 2,400 for a one year's subscription. I reluctantly renewed, but this will be the last time. They should give a $100 discount to a user for every verified new bug he reports.
 

Online nfmax

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #113 on: May 25, 2022, 08:46:12 am »
DOORS

Very briefly, and many years ago, but still...
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #114 on: May 25, 2022, 08:56:13 am »
Windows 10 -- Even free with a computer is too much.
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #115 on: May 25, 2022, 04:58:18 pm »
Microsemichip Libero.

oh my what a load of stinky poo.
 

Offline Gribo

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #116 on: May 27, 2022, 07:14:45 pm »
I'll take your DxDesigner and up it with Veribest and AcePlus.
AcePlus ran well on a 486DX2 laptop. Veribest (name changed after Ingram Micro was acquired) made a Pentium 2 cry.
Also, LabVIEW - NI just changed it to subscription only - Guess who is moving to C# and Python?
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Offline bd139

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #117 on: May 27, 2022, 07:25:05 pm »
Windows 10 -- Even free with a computer is too much.

After today I'm going to add Windows 11 to that list...
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #118 on: May 28, 2022, 08:39:02 am »
Microsoft .NET Framework

If you have a newer version of Microsoft .NET Framework installed, the older software does not recognize it
If you want to install an older version of Microsoft .NET Framework, it is refused because newer versions are available.
It's ridicules !
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Offline bd139

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #119 on: May 28, 2022, 09:03:44 am »
That mostly Microsoft’s schizophrenia showing. The technology itself is fairly good. But the versioning snd management of it is comedically bad.

I spent about 5 hours on calls last week helping two companies around .net framework problems. Ah can’t install 4.8. Oh that’ll be because you’re on windows 10 1511 and haven’t installed any windows updates for 6 years because you read on a forum that updates were evil  :palm:. Oh and your machine is infested with shit which is bad because now I have to legally report you to compliance  :-DD
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #120 on: May 28, 2022, 09:40:59 am »
Yes, I agree, that  .NET Framework works well, when running.

But try to install 3 different CAD programs on one PC and all of them want a different .NET Framework. :-//
Eventually one gets it running with lots of patients but the steps to do so can drive you nuts.
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Offline bd139

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #121 on: May 28, 2022, 11:32:02 am »
It’s fairly simple. Just install the optional .net 3.5 from windows add remove features and run all windows updates in. That will cover it now. Both the 3.5 and 4.x frameworks can be used along side each other and the 4.x is backwards compatible.
 
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Online nctnico

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #122 on: May 28, 2022, 11:45:14 am »
Yes, I agree, that  .NET Framework works well, when running.

But try to install 3 different CAD programs on one PC and all of them want a different .NET Framework. :-//
Eventually one gets it running with lots of patients but the steps to do so can drive you nuts.
For that reason I have different VMs for some applications. Just to make sure installing one application can't mess up the other. Virtualbox is a real blessing!
« Last Edit: May 28, 2022, 11:51:23 am by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline HighVoltage

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #123 on: May 28, 2022, 12:26:24 pm »
Yes, I agree, that  .NET Framework works well, when running.

But try to install 3 different CAD programs on one PC and all of them want a different .NET Framework. :-//
Eventually one gets it running with lots of patients but the steps to do so can drive you nuts.
For that reason I have different VMs for some applications. Just to make sure installing one application can't mess up the other. Virtualbox is a real blessing!
I should give that a try, thanks!
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Offline neil555

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Re: [Banter] What is the worst software you have used for its price?
« Reply #124 on: May 28, 2022, 01:18:31 pm »
There's so much badness to choose from but here's a few ...

Linux (any version)
GCC (has to be the worst compiler ever)
Xilinx ISE
Anything by Adobe
 


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