IBM has just released a “new” free office suite (word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software) called IBM Lotus Symphony.
Joel Spolsky thinks that this is a non-event and that the software will fail to get a large number of users. (Personally I am very happy with OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice)
I love this paragraph from Joel’s post:
“As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.”
Will I ever be able to tell my students to learn Assembler after this?!?