Outlook: The object of ridicule among Microsoft programmers

I recently had the pleasure of catching up with some of my favorite Podcasts. These include such stalwarts as .NET Rocks, Hansel Minutes, the Polymorphic Podcast, and Java Posse... among others.

I was impressed by the number of Outlook jokes these programmers were cracking. What is an Outlook joke? Any joke which sticks a thumb in the eye of the designers and programmers responsible for the Outlook application. The suggestion is always the same: They did an outrageously bad job on this application, they obviously don't know what hell they are doing, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Example: Anders Hejlsberg, probably the greatest genius at Microsoft, is being interviewed about the future direction of the .NET programming platform. He is the man most responsible for setting the course in programing systems at Microsoft. Anders is explaining the sorts of strides that must be made with programming languages, techniques and tools to support the multicore present and future. Anders believe that the .NET development team must revisit the basic design of threads in .NET. When a user says something like var x = new Thread(); the CLR initializes such a threat with a 2mb logical address space. This would mean only 2048 threads in total would be possible in a 32 bit address space, and frankly you'll never get close before memory will become so congested that problems will strike.

Richard Campbell, cohost of .NET Rocks seizes the opportunity to strike: "But that would mean we can only run Microsoft Outlook on our machines with 4GB and then we are all done?!?" This brought howls of laughter. Anders did not really want to comment. It would be tough to venture a defense. Believe me, if there had been something to defend, he would have mounted a defense. Anders is extremely knowledgeable and fair minded. He loves to argue. The fact that he dropped the subject speaks volumes.

Anders motto is "I think we can do better." He is always seeking to "do better". Believe me, if Anders was tasked to run the Outlook group, he would kick a lot of asses right out the door. He might recommend the dreaded EOL logo also.

I heard several other jokes on the other Podcasts. Those would be more difficult to explain. Even the Java Posse, a group unrelated to Microsoft, were wondering aloud why Microsoft programmers continue to suffer Outlook when we hate it so. The answer is simple: Because bad men with MBAs continue to ram it down our throat. Believe me, we would burn it, if we could.

Folks, I want you to know that Outlook is a bad joke among Microsoft programmers. It is a byword meaning "everything done wrong" from the programmers point of view. It is a detestable, reprehensible, object of hissing and horror. None of us can understand why the bloody bastard has 32-46 active but idle threads open when you are doing nothing with the application. We still can't understand why Microsoft would ever have though that modules of Visual Basic behind your eMail (Active Mail) was anything but a virus writer's wet dream.

Folks, it goes deeper than that. All groupware fuctions can be performed in a web environment. No client-side tool is necessary. Microsoft has a fully-orbed web-based system themselves with Outlook Web Edition (OWE). They should have placed Outlook in the EOL (end of lifecycle) category and deprecated it immediately when this web edition hit the streets. Microsoft Live! has even better implementation for most of us. Google long-since crushed Outlook with their Gmail-based suite of scheduling and groupware tools. Mail and groupware is simply the perfect case-study for the "software as a service."

It is conceptually wrong to build a thick client, or maintain an existing thick client, for the purpose of doing mail, schedule, and group actions. If you go to Visual Studio and select File->New->WinForm Application, and begin to write any sort of thick client for eMail and groupware, you are instantly wrong. You have made a mistake. The mistake isn't that the niche is filled. The mistake is that there is no niche in the first place. These apps should not exist.

There are many pieces of evidence for this. I know many scores of Mozilla Firefox users. I know of no one in my circle who uses ThunderBird. Oh, what's that? You've never heard of ThunderBird? Excellent! That's precisely my point. Thunderbird is the Mozilla mail client.

When I ask Mozilla fans why they don't download and use ThunderBird for free, the answer is always the same: I can see no use for the application. Now that we have webmail, who needs a mail client on the machine? These individuals are thinking correctly. Their conclusions are well merited and valid.

Outlook is evil. Outlook should not be used. I am not the only Software Engineer who thinks so. If you are dependent upon Outlook, you are wrong, period. Get right. If you have built a business around Outlook, you have built your business poorly upon shifting sands. You are also wrong and should correct the situation as soon as possible.

Putting the band-hammer down on Microsoft Outlook

So, I guess the economy must be rebounding or something like that. Not only have the Rams selected a QB who will cost 256 times per year what Vince Ferragamo once cost, but my relatives are now contacting me about the prospects of building new computer systems for them.

I used to build computers for fun. There's nothing to it really. If you can snap together Legos as a kid would, you can assemble a computer these days. You just put the round peg in the round hole, and the square peg in the square hole. It is amazing what a challenging concept that is for some people. When I was a 6 year old kid, I was asked to perform a series of stupid tasks like this in an IQ test at Fresno State. I rang the bell at the top. The Ph.Ds were very excited. My grandmother was stunned.

I still have no idea what they were going on about. A fool could do what I did then.

But now I am going to withhold my lego snapping skills for cause. I am going to flat-cold refuse to build new computers for these relatives. I am going to do this for a very important reasons: The folks are using Microsoft Outlook.

Yep, that's right. Because they are using Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, they get no love from me. They are on the contraband list.

The last time I built machines for my mom and cousin-in-law, I had weeks of headaches with one phone call after another related to one fucked up piece of shit program: Microsoft Outlook. Toss Outlook in Express in there also. The difference between these two is the difference between colon cancer and anal cancer. About 6 inches of distance mayhaps.

There was nothing wrong with the hardware I built for them. The machines were humming along superbly. The build was flawless in both cases. No, these two users were experiencing software problems related to exactly one piece of software: Outlook. For this reason, they called me repeatedly with question after question about Outlook.

This pissed me off to no end. You have no idea how much I hate Outlook. I never use Outlook, except at work, where I am forced too by very poor management decisions. At work, I use the disease as little as possible. As far as I am concerned, Outlook is the worst application ever devised by mankind. There is no piece of software more poorly conceived, more poorly designed, or more poorly implemented.

Asking me questions about Outlook is like asking me questions about Gay sexual techniques. I don't know much about the subject, I don't want to know what I do know, and I am certainly not willing to learn more about it to help you get it right. Don't ask. Don't tell.

Being an Outlook user is a shameful thing. If I was an Outlook user, I certainly wouldn't tell anybody about it. I would hide that fact in the closet and never admit it. I certainly wouldn't ask for help in continuing with this problem. I would seek help in kicking this habit.

Take this to heart, Outlook users: Be ashamed of yourselves, be every ashamed. Shame on you. You are bad; very bad.

Outlook is the worst application Microsoft ever did, and that is saying an awful lot because they also wrote Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer and Outlook are the two greatest security holes Microsoft ever invented. Most of the alleged security flaws in Windows itself are really problems with Outlook and IE. If you never use either application, your probability space for infection by malware shrinks down to almost nothing.

With Outlook the problems run much deeper than mere security holes. Outlook is a pure waste of skin. It is an app without a purpose in life. It has no reason to live. There is literally no purpose in putting a local database of eMail and contact information on your computer. There is no logic in it at all, ever, under any circumstances. This is a completely outdated and outmoded approach to doing business. If you have a local database of such information, you are wrong, full-stop.

All of that stuff should be handled in web-based systems like Gmail, or Microsoft Live! There are no exceptions to this rule. In this way, you never experience problems in moving from computer to computer. There is no need to synchronize databases between a laptop and a desktop. There is no reason to worry about what will happen to your email or contact book if your hard disk crashes. All of these problems go out the window. Asking how you synchronize Gmail between two machines is like asking how you rewind a DVD before returning it to the rental store. The problem does not exist.

Amazing how entire categories of problems can be entirely avoided if you merely don't go there and don't do that. Just say no to Outlook. You will be grateful you did.

I'm putting the band-hammer down on Outlook. I'm going to leave these relatives hanging. They can stay in these current machines until those hard disks die. They can loose that entire database of mail and contact information. At that point, they will experience excruciating pain, and I will be there to tell them "I told you so."

I know they are not backing up on a regular basis. I know that asking a user to backup on a regular basis is a very unsound approach to doing business. I know they will loose mission critical information they can never recover when this eventuality happens. I know that is going to hurt like hell. I will be there to tell them "I told you so."

It's going to take a pain-event like that to make them kick the Heroin habit. I just saw fragments of "Requiem for a Dream" last night. Absolutely disgusting movie, and I hated it. However, it did demonstrate that Jared Leto had to lose his entire left arm to infection before he could begin the process of quitting Heroin.

Outlook = Heroin. Kick the habit.