Was Joel wrong?

I'd say he got the broader point right.<p>Prior to DropBox, no one did care about file synchronization, because the solutions presented thus far <i>were</i> largely "architecture astronaut" solutions. Rather than providing a simple, straightforward way to synchronize files (such as what DropBox provided), technologies like Hailstorm always focused on way too broad a feature set - it wasn't about "your files are always available", it was about pervasive cloud architectures that revolutionized the way you use your computer.<p>It wasn't until DropBox simplified the problem to "put files in this folder, and then they're synched" that file synchronization tools took off in any significant way.<p>Joel isn't complaining about file synchronization per se, he's arguing that the Microsoft approach of attempting to revolutionize computing every year with yet another failed omnipresent platform.

I think Joel's larger point is that most programmers are actually arrogant assholes who aren't as good as they think they are, so when they start these massive, architecturally complex projects, they get themselves in way over their heads and it ultimately fails. Actually-good programmers are humble enough to not try to arbitrarily force their white-whale architectures on their project mates and can engage in much more reasoned discussion that results in appropriate, incremental change.<p>Incidentally, that's what my handle is about: I remind myself everyday I'm just a moron who puts his britches on one leg at a time like everyone else. It's helped me stop caring about code and start caring about my customers' needs. The code I write is what is necessary and sufficient for the task at hand, and as soon as it is no longer necessary or sufficient, it gets deleted or augmented without argument.<p>And I do catch myself, "but I like this code", and I remember the handle. "Just a moron for hire". Yep, delete the code, it's nothing.<p>I've had people on message boards reply, "it's hard to take you seriously with your name...". Yeah, no shit. Quit taking people on the Internets so seriously, mostly because they have no impact on your life and you shouldn't let them rise to the level of giving a shit about them.

Depends on how you sync it. bt sync is really awesome, and i'm really waiting to see all computing done in p2p, which is not the same thing than in "the cloud". The cloud is still centralized so that they can control the content in some way.<p>I really wish I could have the skill, time and motivation to work on p2p techs like the ones bittorrent is working on. But defining what you want to do on p2p is really hard and is unexplored.<p>Every geek nerd investor/programmer you-name-it will join the current mainstream herd and tell you to make facebook apps, iphone apps, android apps, and advise you to auth your blog comments with twitter or openid.<p>I don't know what this joel guy is always saying that can attract so much attention, all I know is that I want to bury the web2.0 remains into the ground, forget about internet browsers and focus on sharing mechanisms that actually work. The web was designed to make static pages, not dynamic pages. So please, kill that SPDY thing right now, close those huge, innefficient data centers and try to work on decentralized techs.<p>The web currently works in a centralized fashion, so there is no way developers can join in and add value. Facebook is a fortress.<p>And if the CIA knocks and tells you they need to monitor your stuff, let them do it. Nobody really cares except journalists, who are professionnals.<p>I know it sounds unreal, but I'm so convinced people could share more information if the platforms were not owned and regulated by websites, but instead by people, even if there is are security and spamming risks. I'll sound crazy but the internet has always been an opportunity to have a better local economy, and that's a shame it's not happening.

Just because someone is a professional online ranter it doesn't mean they are always right.

I would simply agreed with the article if I read it at that time.<p>On the topic, seems like Microsoft produced quite a lot of products that simply ahead of its time. Some of the product pitch and description quoted in the article may sounds stupid at the time, but now, it is simply is a necessity.

In other news, we have recently discover that all tech gurus are human too, hence fallible<p>We martians are infallible, and we are very surprised at this human weakness

I really like Joel, I think he has some very worthwhile articles to his name. That said, he's probably more often wrong than he is right and I disagree with him on many points regularly. Even when he's wrong though he's still worth reading because usually you'll find a few nuggets of wisdom buried in there even if the broad picture is wrong, or as in this case if it's the other way around.

Strictly, I don't think he did; Dropbox is a big thing but it is not a "killer application" as I'd define it, ie. an application that people would buy a particular platform just to get. In the way that, say, Office is for Windows, or Halo might be for Xbox (or so I hear).<p>Of course, it's kind of irrelevant to Dropbox; they don't have a horse in the platform race, so they're supporting all the major ones and doing very well, but they're not a killer app for any one of them. I don't think that proves that it couldn't ever have been a killer app, but it looks unlikely now that it'll be the case.

<i>We make the future in the same way: We extrapolate as much as we can, and whenever we run out of imagination, we just shovel the present into the holes. That's why our pictures of the future always seem to resemble the present, only more so. -- Corey Doctorow</i> [1]<p>Dropbox just happens to be a part of the future Spolsky didn't invent. Then again, neither did Alan Kay.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/how-hollywood-congress-and-drm-are-beati/199903173" rel="nofollow">http://www.informationweek.com/how-hollywood-congress-and-dr...</a>

I wonder how many people use Dropbox for sync amongst multiple devices. For me it is mainly backup and sharing from my laptop.

"file synchronization is just not a killer application"<p>...is still true. Solving for the problems of not having having my files when I need them, on any device I'm using and without having to map drives and deal with complex, technical setup IS a killer application.<p>Customer experience and usability changes everything.

Did you read the date of the article?

Why does this matter? Who cares?

Well, everyone is Wrong sometimes, so let's talk about Wrongulence, which is the matter of whether a person is consistently Wrong. Technically speaking, there's a lot of Wrongness on the Internet not because there is something wrong with the Internet, but because of the persisting Wrongulence of people who use it.<p>Back in 2008 I applied to Fog Creek and was rejected. I turned out to be awesome, not that one would have known that 5 years ago, because at the time I was a n00b with a capital zero and wrongulent about many technical things myself.<p>Add this to a noninformative prior of Beta(1, 1) and we get a posterior of Beta(1, 2) on the Wrongulence distribution.<p>If we interpret x &#60; 0.5 as "Not Wrongulent" and x &#62; 0.5 as "Wrongulent" then we get a 95-percent confidence interval of...<p><pre><code> [Not Wrongulent, Wrongulent] </code></pre> Conclusion: hell if I know.