David Maynard writes:

In that case they have the wrong development process because the first
thing they should do is acquire the knowledge, one way or the other.

They haven't done that. They've been able to make a lot of money
doing what they know how to do, so they've never developed the habit
of learning to do other things.

The aforementioned PhotoDraw 2000 was a classic example. It was
clearly written by people who were expert in using standard Windows
constructs and tools, people who knew the Windows interface inside and
out and could produce semi-transparent, glistening, rose-scented
context menus blindfolded ... but these people knew nothing whatsoever
about image processing, and the piece of junk they produced was an
absolute horror. It was quickly and quietly discontinued.

No, but if it were 1930 and I had a hand crank unit I might be willing to
'upgrade' to one of them new fangled electric 'automatic' ones even though
its still just a washing machine.

Someone might be willing to upgrade from an original PC to a brand-new
one today, too. But a lot of the intermediate upgrades are
unnecessary. And someone using an old PC to get things done doesn't
need an upgrade, as long as the old PC does the job.

It's true there's more inertia but I've heard the "all you likely need"
argument since DOS came out.

Some people still run DOS. Each newer version of a PC OS leaves more
and more people still running with prior versions. It gets harder and
harder to convince anyone to "upgrade," especially outside the geek
community.

There are simply things you can do with the 32bit architecture that you
can't with the 16.

But there are also things for which you don't need 32-bit
architecture.

Well, that people need a reason *first* simply isn't true and if anything
proves it its the computer itself as you couldn't find more than a handful
of people who could think of a dern thing to use one for when 'home
computers' first came out, and there's still some who can't

And they still don't have computers.

You know, I can remember when a telephone was for speaking to someone, not
taking pictures, PDA, WAP, and text messaging. You think anyone really
'needed' those 'first'?

No. And I know that hardly anyone is using those extra features.

Same here. Plus I like mulling over business practices. Who knows, maybe
I'll come up with a 'great idea' and be faced with the same problem some day

Ray Kroc came into his own in his fifties.

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