Joel on Software
Microsoft Goes Bonkers
by Joel Spolsky Saturday, July 22, 2000
Microsoft's latest announcement, called Microsoft .NET, while touted by the likes of Fortune Magazine as a huge "revolution", is really nothing but vaporware, and I think it proves that something has gone very, very wrong in Redmond.
微软最近的发布，叫做微软.NET， 虽然被财富杂志吹嘘成巨大的“革命”，实际上除了是一个虚幻软件外什么都不是， 我觉得这证明了Redmond有些东西已经错得非常离谱了。
With vaporware, you promise all kinds of features and products that you simply can't sell because you don't really have them. But .NET is worse than vaporware. In their blasé loftiness, Microsoft isn't even bothering to provide the vapor itself.
所谓虚幻软件，就是你承诺各种各样的功能和产品，但是你根本没法销售因为你没这些东西。 但是.NET是最糟糕的虚幻软件。 一如既往的漠不关心，微软甚至都不操心要提供这种虚幻软件。
Read the white paper closely, and you'll see that for all the hoopla, .NET is just a thin cloud of FUD. There's no there there. Try as you might to grasp onto something, the entire white paper does not say anything. The harder you grasp, the more it slips right through your fingers.
仔细的阅读白皮书， 你就能看到所有热闹， .NET只是FUD一层薄云。 并没有任何实质东西， 努力尝试的话你也许能想到一些东西，但是整篇白皮书没有提到任何东西。 你越努力的去领悟，它越快从指间溜走。
I'm not saying that there's nothing new in .NET. I'm saying that there's nothing there at all.
我并不是说.NET里没有任何新东西。 我是说，.NET里面没有任何东西。
Look at some of this:
看看下面这段话：
Everyone believes the Web will evolve, but for that evolution to be truly empowering for developers, businesses and consumers, a radical new vision is needed. Microsoft's goal is to provide that vision and the technology to make it a reality. [from "Microsoft .NET: Realizing the Next Generation", June 2000].
所有人都相信网络会进化， 但是为了让这种进化赋予所有开发人员， 商家，消费者力量， 市场极端渴求一个新的版本。 微软的目标就是提供这个版本， 提供技术把这一切变成现实。 【摘自 “微软.NET：认识下一个时代” 2000年6月】
How about this:
不如改成这样：
The Microsoft .NET vision means empowerment for consumers, businesses, software developers and the entire industry. It means unleashing the full potential of the Internet. And it means the Web the way you want it. [Ibid]
微软.NET的愿景意味着赋予消费者，商家，软件 开发人员和整个行业力量。 意味着发挥因特网的全部潜能， 意味着你想要的那个网络【我打赌】
What's going on here? I couldn't find one single idea that could actually be implemented in a software product in that entire white paper. Instead of providing a list of features, Microsoft provides a list of amorphous "benefits" like this one:
发生了什么？ 通篇白皮书里，我没办法找到哪怕是一个能够用软件产品实现的想法。 不是去提供一个功能列表，微软提供了一堆无形的好处，就比如这个：
Web sites become flexible services that can interact, and exchange and leverage each other's data. [Ibid]
网页服务变成灵活的，能够互相交互，交换并互相利用各自数据的强大服务【我打赌】
That's a "feature" of this exciting .NET architecture. The fact that it is so broad, vague, and high level that it doesn't mean anything at alldoesn't seem to be bothering anyone. Or how about:
这就是微软激动人心的.NET架构提供的特性。 问题是这也太广义，太模糊，太高级别的抽象了。 这几乎没有给出关系到任何人的任何东西。 又或者这条：
Microsoft .NET makes it possible to find services and people with which to interact. [Ibid]
微软.NET使得服务能够寻找它们需要的服务和人来进行交互【我打赌】
Oh, joy! Five years after Altavista went live, and two years after Larry Page and Sergei Brin actually invented a radically better search engine, Microsoft is pretending like there's no way to search on the Internet and they're going to solve this problem for us. The whole document is exactly like that.
哦，太欢乐了！ Altavisa上线5年之后，LarryPage和SergeiBrin实际上发明了一个要好的多的搜索引擎2年之后，微软假装已经没有办法发现因特网的潜能，已经找不到他们能够为我们解决的问题了。 这篇文档就是这个意思。
There are two things going on here. Microsoft has some great thinkers. When great thinkers think about problems, they start to see patterns. They look at the problem of people sending each other word-processor files, and then they look at the problem of people sending each other spreadsheets, and they realize that there's a general pattern: sending files. That's one level of abstraction already. Then they go up one more level: people send files, but web browsers also "send" requests for web pages. Those are both sending operations, so our clever thinker invents a new, higher, broader abstraction called messaging, but now it's getting really vague and nobody really knows what they're talking about any more.
这其中发生着两件事情： 微软有着一些伟大的思想家。 当伟大的思想家思考问题的时候，他们开始发现模式。 他们发现了人们互相发送电子表但的问题，他们意识到这里有个模式：就是人们互相发送文件。 这已经是一层的抽象了。 他们进一步的进行抽象： 人们发送文件，但是网页浏览器也会互相发送请求获得网络页面。 这些都是发送操作，所以我们的聪明的思想家发明了一个崭新的，高级别的抽象叫做消息通讯， 但是这个点上，已经变得十分模糊而且再也没有人直到他们在讨论什么了。
And if you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all.
而且如果你走的太远，就抽象层面来讲， 你就会缺氧。 有的时候聪明的思想家就是不知道什么时候停下来， 于是他们创建了这些荒谬的，包罗万象的，高层次的宇宙图像，所有一切都很好很不错，但是这些东西根本没有任何意义。
And that seems to be what happened here.
这就是看起来发生了什么。
The next generation of the Windows desktop platform, Windows.NET supports productivity, creativity, management, entertainment and much more, and is designed to put users in control of their digital lives. [Ibid]
下一代的Windows桌面平台，Windows.NET支持开发效率，创意，管理，娱乐还有更多， 这些完全是致力于将用户置于他们的电子化生活的控制地位【我打赌】
This stuff is so abstract it's impossible to criticize. Who doesn't want an operating system that supports productivity? Great feature! Get me one of those spiffy new operating systems with the productivity feature! Problem: How exactly is Microsoft going to do it? For the last 20 years of software, productivity improvements have been gradual and incremental. Have they suddenly discovered a new chemical compound that will make their operating system more productive? I don't think they have. I think they're bluffing. FUD and vaporware.
这玩意儿太抽象了，根本都没办法批判。 谁不想要一个支持生产效率的操作系统？超级棒的功能！ 给我来一份带这种漂亮新功能的操作系统！ 问题来了： 微软究竟要如何才能实现这样的功能呢？ 在软件行业过去的20年里， 生产效率的改进都是逐渐的，缓慢的，增量式的。 他们难道是发明了什么新的化合物能够让他们的额操作系统变得更有生产效率么？我觉得他们没有发现，他们只是在吹牛，死保守，虚幻软件。
The scary thing is, they'reearnest.
最可怕的事情是他们很认真。
I know Microsoft; worked there for three years. I know the kind of people that wrote this document. Bill Gates almost certainly had a very significant role in it; that's why he gave up the CEO position, so he could work on this stuff. I don't think that Microsoft created this document because they needed some vaporware. These are super-smart people.
我知道微软，我在那儿工作了3年。 我知道那些写这种文档的人。 比尔盖茨对微软当然功不可没； 这就是为什么他要放弃CEO的职位，来做这件事情。 我不觉得微软写下这种文档是因为他们需要一些虚幻软件。 这些可都是非常聪明的人。
I actually think that they earnestly think they're inventing the future, as well as they know how. They've looked at every Microsoft product, from Hotmail to SQL Server, and tried to fit them into a Bold New Vision Thing. But the trouble is that nobody there is actually inventing anything earthshaking. Which isn't surprising: not because Microsoft is stupid, which they're not, but because earthshaking new inventions are so rare and Microsoft only has a finite number of smart people. Only one person in the whole world invented Napster, and he didn't work for Microsoft. Microsoft desperately wants to believe that it can manufacture revolution, but even in the Cambrian explosion of the Internet, there are only a handful of truly revolutionary ideas per year, and the chances that one of them will happen inside the tiny world of Bill Gates and the knights of the Redmond table are vanishingly small. The chances are even smaller when you consider that a typical smart programmer working in the bowels of Microsoft on display drivers for Windows NT, who has a great idea, is probably not going to get his idea listened to.
我实际上任务，他们真的觉得他们是在重造未来， 据我所知，这些人认真的审视微软的每一项产品， 从HOTMAIL到SQLSERVER，并且尝试将这些东西放入一个更宏大的愿景。 但是事实是其他人都没有发明什么撼动世界的东西啊。 这并不奇怪，不是说微软很愚蠢，他们不愚蠢。 是因为撼动地球额发明实在是太罕见了，微软只有有限的聪明人而已。 世界上只有一个人发明了Napster, 而且他没有给微软工作。 微软极度想证明给自己看他们能够制造革命。 但是哪怕是在因特网的寒武纪大爆炸时期，每年也只有几个数的清的想法吧了， 而这些想法最后会诞生在比尔盖茨的小世界以及Redmond的圆桌上的概率是近乎为0那么小。 当你考虑到工作在微软碗底的聪明程序员负责WindowsNT的显示驱动开发，他想到了一个好主意，但是没人愿意听他的这个好主意，那么这种概率就更小了。
The only thing concrete that you can discern from the white paper is that software should be a subscription service you get over the Internet, not something you install from a CD-ROM.
从那篇白皮书里唯一能得出的具体的东西就是，软件应该是基于英特网的订阅而不再是从CD-ROM进行安装的。
To a customer, getting your word processor via Internet subscription rather than via a CD-ROM might be a small benefit, but, um, no, not really. It doesn't really solve any customer problem. Getting bug fixes over the Internet? Great. I can already do that. I've been downloading patches for Microsoft products for 7 years, and now it's quite automatic. Getting new versions? What's the point, if the only thing that the new version does is make it easier to get new versions! They've hardly added a single new feature to Word for the last three releases, except that at some point, they did something bizarre to make it "easy" to position pictures, and I can never get pictures to go where I want them.
对于一个客户来说，从英特网订阅而不是CD-ROM安装来获取你的Word字处理器可能有那么一点儿意义，但是，恩，不，不对。 这并没有解决你的客户的实际问题。
通过因特网修复错误？ 不错。 我已经能这么做了。 我已经能下载微软的补丁包7年了。 现在已经相当自动化了。 获得一个新的版本？ 重点在那儿呢？ 如果一个新版本的提供的唯一功能就是让获取新版本变得更容易！ 在过去的三个版本以来他们几乎没有给客户提供什么新的功能， 除了一些例外情况， 他们做了一些奇怪的额事情让用户更容易放置图片， 而我从来没有能够让图片摆到我想要他们在的违章上去。
The truth is, Microsoft noticed way back in 1991 that an increasing amount of their revenue came from upgrades, and that it's hard to get everybody to upgrade, and they've been trying to get their customers to agree to a subscription model for buying software for almost a decade. But it hasn't worked because the customers don't want it. Microsoft sees .NET as a way to finally enforce the subscription model which suits their bottom line.
事实就是：早在1991年的时候，他们收入的增加来源于他们的升级包， 并且很难让每个人都升级， 于是他们一直在尝试努力让他们的客户一次购买几乎10年的订购服务，但是这并没有奏效因为用户并不想要。微软最后将.NET看成一种来强制执行他们订购模型的方式，这也是他们的底线了。
It almost seems as if Microsoft .NET doesn't fill a single customer need, it only fills Microsoft's need to find something for 10,000 programmers to do for the next 10 years. We all know it's been a long time since they've thought of a new word processing feature that anybody needs, so what else are all those programmers going to do?
看起来似乎微软不愿意满足任何客户的需要，它只想找一些能让它的10，000程序员继续工作10年的事情，我们都知道他们已经很久没有想出每个人都需要的文字处理器特性了，那么这些程序员还有什么其他可做的呢？
The Bright Side of the "Vision Thing"
“使命计划”的光明面
Old joke: A man goes to the psychiatrist. The shrink shows him a picture of a bird and says "What does this make you think of?" The man says: "Sex." The shrink shows him a picture of a tree. "OK, what does this make you think of?" The man says: "Sex." Picture of a train. "Sex." A house. "Sex."
老笑话：有个男人去看精神病，一生向它展示了一张鸟的图片，问道：“这张图片让你想起了什么？” 那个人回答道：“性”。 一生又向他展示了一张树的图片。“好吧，这张图片让你想到什么？” 那个人回答道：“性”。 火车的图片， “性” 房子的照片。 “性”。
"My God!" says the shrink. "You're obsessed with sex!"
“天哪！”精神病医生说道：“你简直痴迷于性！”
"I'm obsessed with sex!?" says the man. "You're the one who keeps showing me dirty pictures!"
“我没有痴迷于性！”那个人回答道：“是你老是向我展示黄色图片！”
Ya see, the bright side of vague documents like the .NET white paper is that they are a kind of Rorschach test. People read them with preconceived ideas, and since the document is so vague, they think that Microsoft is reiterating their ideas. Dave Winer, president ofUserLand software, has many interesting, innovative ideas about software. When he read about Microsoft .NET, he assumed that Microsoft was finally recognizing the same ideas that he'd been talking about for two years. Dave, you give them too much credit. They are completely clueless compared to you. They are playing the trick of psychic hotlines and newspaper horoscopes: by feeding you cloudy, meaningless generalizations, you fall into their trap of thinking that they read your mind. "Today the planetary alignment is such that you will take a big step forward to achieve your goals." The difference is that Dave has real, concrete ideas that can translate into real software, while Microsoft is still in the kind of lalaland they were in 6 years ago when they were talking about how "Cairo" would provide "Information At Your Fingertips," a vision that the Internet fulfilled and Cairo didn't.
是啊，明白了么，.NET白皮书这样模糊文档的光明面就是他们就像一种罗夏测试。 人们会带着已经形成的观点去阅读， 而因为文档本身是如此的模糊， 于是他们觉得微软不过是不过是在重申他们的那些想法罢了。 UserLan软件公司的主席 DaveWiner 有着很多有趣的关于软件的创新想法。 当他听说微软的.NET的时候， 他觉得微软终于意识到了他多年来一直在思考的那些想法。 戴夫， 你太过奖他们啦。 跟你比起来他们完全没有头绪。 他们玩的不过是心理热线和新闻占星术的那些鬼把戏： 通过想你灌输惆怅的，无意义又泛化的东西， 让你觉得它们能够读懂你的心思一样。今天五星连珠意味着你能够在实现你的目标的愿景上迈出一大步。 不同之处在于戴夫有真实的具体的想法，可以最终转化成实际的软件， 而微软觉得它们还处在6年前的罗兰岛，那时他们讨论着“Cairo”如何能够“让信息触手可及”，这是因特网最终完成的愿景而不是什么Cairo。
So hopefully, all this meaningless blah blah will actually get somebody's creative juices going (as it has at UserLand) and lead to some real innovations. But these innovations are probably more likely to come from outside Microsoft than inside.
因此，希望这些没有意义的巴拉巴拉能够真的让某人的创意想法灵光一闪（就像Userland一样）最后变成真正的创新。 但是这些创新大概更有可能来自于微软的外部而不是内部。
Postscript: "But Wait," you say. "I have the .NET SDK!"
潜台词：“但是，等一下”，你会说，“我有.NET开发包!”
Since this article originally appeared a lot of people have written in to say that they have the .NET SDK! It's not vapor! It's "real!"
既然这篇文章写得让很多人看起来能够说他们有.NET开发包！那不是膨胀软件！那是真的！
Well, uh, yeah. What's in it? There's SOAP, a technology basically invented by Dave Winer based on XmlRpc, which I personally baked into the Juno signup process about two years ago. Microsoft is a little late to that ballgame. There's a programming language, C#, which is just Microsoft's way of saying that if they can't take over Java, dammit, they're going home and playing with their own toys. There are new versions of ADO, ASP, and some other stuff... all good stuff, but justincremental improvements. There's nothing revolutionary here, Fortune Magazine. If Microsoft's marketing wasn't working in overdrive, we'd have all this stuff anyway, and nobody would be pretending that it's some kind of computer Nirvana on the horizon.
额，好吧。 里面是啥呢？ 有SOAP，这是DaveWiner基于XMLRPC协议发明的一种技术， 我在两年前在JUNO工作的时候就已经用在了注册过程中了。 微软玩这个球也太晚了。 还会有C#语言，这不就是微软在嘀咕他们玩不过Java，该死，他们要回家玩自己的玩具了。 有几个新版本的ADO， ASP，还有其他东西…都是好东西，但是都是增量式的改进罢了。 并没有什么革命式的东西， 致财富杂志，如果微软的营销团队没有这么加班赶点的话，我们还是会迎来这些东西， 但是没有人会觉得这是计算机行业地平线上的曙光。
This is the way Microsoft works: they have a product team for each product, and every year or two, that team ships a new version of their software. That's all. What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a pure marketing team that looked around at all the upcoming releases, decided they need a "theme" to make Microsoft look like Big Revolutionary Innovators, and ordering everyone to call their next thing ".NET". When you work at a place like Microsoft, there's nothing more frustrating than when the marketing people take over: read this response to my article from a Microsoft insider.
这就是微软的工作方式： 他们每个产品都有产品组， 每隔一两年那个产品都会发布一个新产品。 就这样。 我们获得的就是，女士们先生们， 一个纯粹的营销团队在审视将要发布的所有版本之后， 决定他们需要一个“主题”，把微软包装成一个大的革命式的创新者， 命令所有人将他们的下一个发布成为.NET。 当你在微软这样的地方工作的时候， 没有什么比市场营销人员统治一切更让人有挫败感了： 请阅读软内部人士文章的回应。