Lazy Journalism on C|Net
I've often heard the saying that journalists are
always right unless it is an area you know
something about. Ever since I started working on
technology and writing articles I have been stunned
by what seems like a lack of technical background
in the people behind reporting technology issues.
This is understandable given that computer
technology and software are broad topics. However
there is a difference between being a guru about a
particular technology and performing due diligence
or doing even a modicum of fact finding. This
brings me to my rant today.
Regular readers will remember that I specifically
noted the
lack of journalistic presence at XML 2002 which
was the first public unveiling of the XML features
in "Office 11". So imagine my surprise on reading
an
article on C|Net about the XML features in the next
version of Office. Reading the article is an
enlightening journey into how to write an article
about a technology product without doing any
research beyond obtaining soundbites from a
representative of the "IT public" and a competitor.
The primary premise of the article is that
Microsoft Office's XML functionality is proprietary
and closed due to not "disclosing the underlying
XML dialect".
There are two major things wrong with this article
which a minute amount of research on the author's
part would have turned up.- The primary pitch of
Office 11 which has been detailed via
white papers and screenshots,
technical articles and
press releases is that the primary goal of
the XML features in "Office 11" is to support
customer defined schemas (i.e. customer defined
XML dialects) not one specific XML dialect.
- Providing a schema
(whether XSD, RELAX NG, DTD or whatever) is not
that interesting for an XML format since it
only describes structure not semantics. The
following blog posts highlight emphasize this
point much better than I can
Given that the author of the article decided to
focus on making a mountain out of a mole hill in a
manner which telegraphs fundamental ignorance about
the technology he was writing about I only have one
thing to say
<tim-bray-quote> This story is just silly
and technically illiterate
</tim-bray-quote>
#MoneyBags
Arguments in Technical Discussions
Saw an interesting post on the Joel on Software
forums entitled
Mr. MoneyBags. The author is basically
bemoaning the behavior of people who counter
technical arguments in online discussions with "I
make 6 figures or I have P.hD, so there". I've
always considered such statements to not only be
without merit but
extremely childish. The
interesting thing about the discussion thread isn't
the original post but the amount of people who
actually defended the practice and are under the
mistaken conception that there is significant
correlation between ability and pay in the software
industry. That is such a crock of shit. I
especially like the person who quoted Ecclesiastes
"...the race is not to the swift, nor the battle
to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor
yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet
favour to men of skill; but time and chance
happeneth to them all."
-- Ecclesiastes 9:11
I've known people who were making six figures a a
couple of months ago and who make close to that
now. I don't consider them any more technically
capable than a number of people I know pulling
$50,000 to $70,0000. I especially don't consider a
P.hD, which is primarily a measure of how much ass
you can kiss, a label that imbues the holder with
Papal Infallibility when it comes to arguing about
software. This is not to say that people who are
P.hDs aren't smart but actually leaning on the side
that they are not significantly smarter than their
experienced yet non-doctorate slinging brethren. I
look at myself as an example, the only reason I'm
not in a P.hD program (despite pressure from the
folks *chuckle*) is that I'm not interested in
spending three or four more years in school not
getting paid and living off of my folks. Especially
since I can't see much difference between what I'd
be researching in school versus what I'd work on in
corporate America besides who owns whatever patents
I'd end up generating. :)