Given Google’s history of coming up with projects and then abandoning them, I would feel very wary about writing anything that might last a long time in Go (see “Go offers scalable alternative to C++”). I think C++11 with the right libraries offers much of the functionality of Go at the same time based on an ISO standard language.
Anonymous
United States

A most complicated logo change
Why was the Federation constantly redesigning its Starfleet uniforms? (This in response to “Zeichick’s Take: The new Microsoft logo.”) I’ll offer you a counter-example: Why did American car makers change their styling every year, while Porsche kept the same lines for years at a time? When asked about this, F.A. Porsche said, “Why wouldn’t they? At their production volumes, they have to make new body dies after a year’s production, so why wouldn’t they update the styling? Porsche makes so few cars that the stamping dies remain serviceable for years, and they are expensive.”

As for Star Fleet, did you ever see a factory? In that era, everything came from the Replicator. If you make everything one-off “publish to order” from a digital model, you can make changes on a whim. The old uniforms were recycled to atoms and remade in a new image. I expect even egalitarian Federations in the far future have their power struggles and egocentric stylists promoted to positions of power.

The US Army just went through a phase of spending billions on “new, stylish” camo uniforms that looked cool but performed dangerously badly in the field.

If you live in a world where logos are just bitmaps and signs created by CNC machining centers, it’s a wonder logos do not change more often. You may recall that the Pac-Man Microsoft logo was in fact not the first. The first Microsoft logo I recall (from the C Version 3, MS-DOS and Windows 1 days) had horizontal lines through the “o”.

I’ve given up trying to understand anything Microsoft does.
R.K. Herzog
United States

Don’t feed the Apple
Kudos to Microsoft! It’s about time they got serious. (This in response to “Microsoft’s ‘800 Pound Gorilla’ ideal and the need to move on.”) First rule of business warfare (or any warfare for that matter): “Don’t feed your enemy.” Microsoft has already said they are not leaving anything on the table for “the company he really does not like.” And this is a case where weakening the competition (Apple) by costing them sales in the i-toy product line makes perfect sense.

The iPad is not the only tablet form factor out there, and some of the others run Microsoft’s OS. So by not “feeding the enemy” in Apple’s desired timely fashion, Microsoft is subtly highlighting Apple’s greatest weakness: its closed ecosystem.

While I am not the biggest fan of the new look and feel of the latest MS Office suite, even I have to admit it does what it is supposed to do better than any of the competition (and believe me, I’ve been testing for any suitable replacement). It has been the de facto business standard for decades now, and its status is unlikely to change. This is a case where Apple needs to do some real public begging, not the other way around at all.

Personally, due to the results of the Apple-Samsung case, I want to see an industry-wide development boycott against Apple. Pull the software and hardware products that are considered i-accessories because the risk of litigation is now a clear and present danger when dealing with Apple. Shunning them for a year or two will not kill the company, but it will send a message about getting along with trade partners. So yeah Microsoft! Why write code for the clear industry enemy?
David Sherry
Midnight Engineers