"Killer Apps" (was: Re: New names)

[DAsmussen@xxxxxxx]

Buck,

In a message dated 1/29/01 5:16:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
buck.calabro@aptissoftware.com writes:

<<snip>>
> >Excel was first written for Mac, then ported to Windoze,
> >1-2-3 was first written for CP/M, then ported to IBM/PC
>
> Leave it to Leif to find the obvious flaw in my argument! <grin>
> If I remember correctly, it was a loooong time before Excel for Windows lost
> that "It ran better on a Mac" stigma...  I believe the basic premise is
> valid though.  What ported product has a better reputation on the 400 than
> on it's "native" hardware?  Does SAP sell more "reliable" 400s than Unices?
> Lotus (Domino)?  I haven't heard of any, and the cross platform PC ports
> (Mac/Windows) generally have lesser reputations as well.


As one who has been intimately acquainted with this segment of application 
development for years, this "It ran better on the (insert original platform 
here)..." stigma will never go away from _ANY_ package.  Why?  Because the 
application in question was written _TO_ (i.e., PROPRIETARY) the original 
platform.  Software vendors usually utilize either (or a combination of) code 
translators, middleware, or CASE tools in order to port their packages to the 
new platform.  Code translators, though "tweakable" if customers complain 
loudly enough about performance to force the vendor to do so, are the best 
option yet still are hardly as good as hand written code on the native 
platform and are usually written by the native platform's coders.  Middleware 
adds additional overhead and is often written by people that do not fully 
comprehend the abilities of the target platform.  CASE tools generate bloated 
code regardless of the source or target.

BTW, if MAPICS and BRMS belong in the list presented earlier, I'm becoming a 
Luddite.  No offense to those that may have been involved in its development, 
but MAPICS is the most over-engineered piece of junk ever written.  If _HALF_ 
the effort put into determining restarts had been put into functionality, it 
wouldn't have needed the darned restarts and we'd have our "Killer App" 
today.  MAPICS is probably best described as a "virtual interactive system".  
BRMS continues to fail on a regular basis everywhere I go that actually 
_needs_ it.  If there's _ONE_ thing you don't want to fail...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

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