Grossman family west

Tonight, a friend sent me a few bmp screenshots of a project that she was working on and Windows XP dutifully opened them up in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. I checked out the first picture and clicked the Next button to see…

A FAX THAT I HAD RECEIVED SIX MONTHS AGO. Next Again…

A pal riding the mechanical bull at a Boston bar from October. Next Again…

Me, dressed as a woman (costume ball, I swear). Next Again…

The second screenshoot my friend sent (finally)



To get to the final screenshot, I had to hit Next seven more times.



This is exactly the kind of annoying bug that Microsoft drops on the floor because of a surprising lack of organization and because attention to detail like this isn’t in the air. There is nobody responible for a large portion of the code in Windows. I was there during the “security stand down”, during which we went through security training and went back and examined every feature. It was shocking how many features had had no owners.



But this post isn’t about security. It’s about attention to detail and the ethos of just getting things right. I can imagine Steve Jobs going bonkers if Apple shipped a bug like that. I can’t see Bill Gates caring. Yet it’s the little things, the subtleties, that really make for a beautiful final product that delights the users. Or drives them mad. In its defense, the Windows Shell team is really trying. There isn’t the ethos, though, of the attention to detail that you see in other operating systems and so I’m betting that I’ll have to continue to deal with this one through Longhorn and beyond.



How do you create that ethos? Is it nature, or nurture?



joel