If you want to see what a good old-fashioned internet rant looks and sounds like, Joel Spolsky unloads it for you.

He's talking about Microsoft, Ray Ozzie and Live Mesh. It's important to note that Joel used to work at Microsoft, and contributed to what I consider the single greatest app of the PC era: Microsoft Excel.

As you read through the crescendo of angst at Microsoft's over-engineered cluelessness, be sure to note the tell-tale long sentences at peak rantage. You can feel the pounding that the keyboard took when this was typed:

It's a whole goddamned architecture, with an API and developer tools and in insane diagram showing all the nifty layers of acronyms, and it seems like the chief astronauts at Microsoft literally expect this to be their gigantic platform in the sky which will take over when Windows becomes irrelevant on the desktop.

And later, more unimpeded flux from the keyboard:

It sort of bothers me, intellectually, that there are these people running around acting like they're building the next great thing who keep serving us the same exact TV dinner that I didn't want on Sunday night, and I didn't want it when you tried to serve it again Monday night, and you crunched it up and mixed in some cheese and I didn't eat that Tuesday night, and here it is Wednesday and you've rebuilt the whole goddamn TV dinner industry from the ground up and you're giving me 1955 salisbury steak that I just DON'T WANT.

Good stuff!

Stick around for the end, cause Joel gives bonus ranting, and targets Google...

Labels: joel, microsoft, rant

¶ 5/08/2008