6200 comments
2357 subscribers
Follow me on Twitter (@sachac)
Subscribe! Feed reader E-mail

More about Spec Ops

Jon_P wrote:

Also, don’t forget that most hardcore geeks in the
Philippines dabble in Linux. The extent of familiarity with MS
technologies you will see in local programmers are relegated to VB
programming, which is nowhere near the level of sophistication needed
to contribute to a project like David.

Wrt to SpecOps’ hype, I initially had a similar reaction as you
expressed above when I saw their first generation web copy, but
closely scrutinizing a succeeding version, they actually made a small
bit of effort to explain some technical details behind what would
possibly make David an improvement over WINE. Still far too little
though, and now such details are gone again.

I don’t think that hardcore geeks in the Philippines are just limited
to Linux. I know a fair number of .NET-wielding and C++ hacking
Windows geeks. ;) Although Microsoft doesn’t really do development in
the Philippines, there’s still a lively developer community. I
remember joining a well-attended Microsoft DevStock convention in
Manila.

So yes, there are hardcore Windows programmers. In fact, they’re quite
cool.

They’d have no reason to work with SpecOps, though. Why bother?

With regard to SpecOps’ hype: explanations of technical details
are just handwaving until they show us a product, not a rigged demo of
someone else’s code. Considering that they were supposed to have a
working demo last year—or was that two years ago?—then they _really_
should have something to show for all their time, money, and hype
about contracts here and agreements there.

Too little, too late.

I don’t know how they managed to get people mixed up in it. I’m _so_
curious about SpecOps now. I want to know the whole story. For
example, Caslon Chua’s name has been liberally splashed over the story
from the beginning. I’ve been wondering why he hasn’t backed out of
it, given that he’s with DLSU. I always thought teachers needed better
BS detection filters than most people, or else students would have a
far too easy time with their subjects. I think he’s probably bought
into it big, and he can’t afford to discredit them or pull out because
he’d lose his investment. What’s up with Turbolinux, too?

I have very good reasons to believe that SpecOps name-drops more
than it should, which is one of the reasons why I don’t like them. I
find it difficult to trust a company that’s so… well… “trying
hard.”

Still, maybe they’re on to something.

Riight. More likely that they’re on something.

Sheesh.

Samuel 17:40? More like Jeremiah 9:3.

(By the way, I’m ordinarily a very nice person. But SpecOps insulted the talent in my country and made a laughingstock of us on Slashdot not just once, but every time they’ve made it there. I get along with business people, but I want business to be backed by substance.)

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/3007

On This Day...

  • 2011: Batch cooking, community-supported agriculture, and gardening — W- and I are big fans of batch cooking. Making large batches of food and freezing individual portions means that [...]
  • 2010: New note-taking workflow with Emacs Org-mode — The new workflow looks like it works better for me. Or rather, it’s an old workflow with new tools. [...]
  • 2009: Shifting gears — I woke up with a terrible cough–the same one from last week, but worse–and decided not to inflict it on [...]
  • 2008: Leia’s home! — Water: Drank a number of laps of water. Food: Ate a third of an 85g can of Fancy Feast Turkey. We took [...]
  • 2008: Bio: “IBM: The Next Generation” — I thought I’d start keeping track of the bios I use in presentations, hiding company-specific information as necessary. =) Sacha Chua [...]
  • 2005: Annoyed with self — Update: 2013/01/12: Getting better at this! =) Belt bag + digitizing as much as possible helps a lot. One of my [...]
  • 2005: Blog envy — How can Zak make Planner look so cool? I need to develop mad CSS skillz.
  • 2004: Whew! — Long list of checked-off TODO items. Planner is good for the heart. Today I bought four more spools of yarn, anticipating [...]
  • 2003: Links from the past — First noticed on 2003.02.12 - Redesigning an Introductory Java Course to Bridge the Gender Gap (http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~tshih/THESIS/thesisFinal.doc) - Introduction to Programming Using Java [...]
  • 2003: CS21a ideas for vectors — (education) I want students to be able to keep track of the elements of vectors. I also want them to become familiar [...]
  • 2003: Khaire – literary night for tomorrow — From the announcement: “Khaire: Magsaya!:A Literary Night,” reading by accomplished poets, 6-8:30 p.m., Quad 1. Be alive and rejoice at the medley [...]
  • 2003: HTML_Form and passwords — Pfft. HTML_Form from http://pear.php.net is not so nice when it comes to passwords in forms.
  • 2003: chora — http://www.horde.org/chora/about/ Chora is a CVS repository viewer that I learned about from #php. I _thought_ I’d blogged about it, but I grepped [...]
  • 2003: Flash MX on Linux — Apparently, Flash MX is supposed to work under WINE. I should look into installing it, then. =) http://frankscorner.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=28&page=1 for more information. Update [...]
  • 2003: Ethics talk with the philosophy department — Introductions - Sandra Lovenia, introduction to IT for comtech, introduction to MIS. - Ariel Maguyon, seniors and juniors, computer architecture, MIS administration - [...]
  • 2003: CS21A today and Monday — (education) The files mentioned can be found at http://sacha.free.net.ph/cs21a/ . Looks like my thinking out loud does have its uses, so I’ll [...]
  • 2003: info links from Emacs — ;; ;; The following functions to insert info-links into a buffer were originaly ;; posted on gnu.emacs.gnus by Reiner Steib, August 2003. ;; [...]