A while ago I noted early reports of problems with Windows Vista:
The biggest problem, it seems, is that Microsoft's version of beefing up security consists of attaching a warning dialog to every single task, so that whenever anything goes wrong the operating system can say, Hey, it's not my fault! You left me unlocked! This is not security; this is ass-covering.At the end of that post, I sort of wondered why a company as smart as Microsoft would do something that stupid. Philip Su's much-linked essay "Broken Windows" offers an explanation: an entire culture based on ass-covering.
After months of hearing of how a certain influential team in Windows was going to cause the Vista release to slip, I, full of abstract self-righteous misgivings as a stockholder, had at last the chance to speak with two of the team's key managers, asking them how they could be so, please-excuse-the-term, I-don't-mean-its-value-laden-connotation, ignorant as to proper estimation of software schedules. Turns out they're actually great project managers. They knew months in advance that the schedule would never work. So they told their VP. And he, possibly influenced by one too many instances where engineering re-routes power to the warp core, thus completing the heretofore impossible six-hour task in a mere three, summarily sent the managers back to "figure out how to make it work." The managers re-estimated, nipped and tucked, liposuctioned, did everything short of a lobotomy -- and still did not have a schedule that fit. The VP was not pleased. "You're smart people. Find a way!" This went back and forth for weeks, whereupon the intrepid managers finally understood how to get past the dilemma. They simply stopped telling the truth. "Sure, everything fits. We cut and cut, and here we are. Vista by August or bust. You got it, boss."
