Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by paulgb on Saturday July 11, 2020 @05:00PM (#23805923)

There was an enlightening tweetstorm last year from a Princeton prof about the institutional reasons why Blackboard is so widely used despite being so bad: https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/1182637292869115904

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by joeraut on Saturday July 11, 2020 @06:46PM (#23806825)

Link to the start of the thread: https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/1182635589604171776

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by closeparen on Saturday July 11, 2020 @08:25PM (#23807476)

IIRC Blackboard is also pretty aggressive about acquiring and/or enforcing patents against competitors.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by blackrock on Sunday July 12, 2020 @12:31AM (#23808831)

What patents do they have?

A patent for a black chalkboard?

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by closeparen on Sunday July 12, 2020 @01:20AM (#23809046)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...

Successfully enforced against Desire2Learn.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by miracle2k on Sunday July 12, 2020 @02:35AM (#23809355)

Wikipedia claims it was invalidated on appeal.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by closeparen on Sunday July 12, 2020 @02:56AM (#23809439)

Huh. I was going by https://campustechnology.com/articles/2008/02/blackboard-win...

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by blackrock on Sunday July 12, 2020 @02:19AM (#23809302)

Oh my god. WTF has the US Patent Office done to itself?

They must have been asleep at the wheel, and granted them this patent. They must have gotten starry eyed with all the wizardry of a web browser back in 2000, that they thought, this was a new and compelling technology.

The description of this patent, is just for a web site application, that will distribute assignments to students. The idea behind it is really not any more different than the GUI programs that were written on Windows 95 like the AOL program. They just splashed some fancy new words like "Uniform Resource Locator" and "World Wide Web".

This is another valid reason why software patents should be abolished. This is pure insanity. This is government and bureaucratic corruption of the highest order.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by imtringued on Sunday July 12, 2020 @05:16AM (#23810052)

I think the patent office has absolved itself from all responsibility and shifted it to the courts. This mostly hurts small businesses that want to avoid court as much as possible.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by Gunax on Sunday July 12, 2020 @01:18AM (#23809037)

A blackboard with rounded corners!

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by Zak on Saturday July 11, 2020 @11:03PM (#23808437)

You'd think more people in leadership positions would try getting end-users involved in acquisition decisions. There seems to be a significant bias against doing that sort of thing in large organizations.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by ponker on Sunday July 12, 2020 @02:09AM (#23809258)

Why? As in, how would their lives be better if they did?

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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday? by Zak on Sunday July 12, 2020 @12:00PM (#23812293)

In general, if an organization runs more efficiently, it reflects well on the leadership of the organization. Exactly how that benefits a given leader in an organization varies greatly, but if the leader's incentives aren't aligned with the organization's goals, that tends to lead to an unsuccessful organization.

An organization that gets its workers good tools that improve their productivity rather than wasting their time will get more done with the same resources. It will also have an easier time with hiring and retention. Even if there aren't direct pay bonuses or similar incentives, this will likely make life easier for the leadership.

And that's not even getting in to the basic human decency that you should care about other people.

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