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One word: Microsoft. Two words: shipping crap. Three words: It may get better. Four words: let the users test. Last word: doomed.

Where is the system engineer? Why did Macromedia become so great?

"In college, Randy's classmate Norman Meyrowitz was giving a presentation when a light bulb on the projector blew out." The rest is history.

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> Why did Macromedia become so great?

Flash filled a need. CSS is just now beginning to achieve feature parity.-

Flash filled a need to install software in a single click, which the web browser made possible. Flash unironically became so widespread because Microsoft dropped the ball in OS development.

"Silverlight", anyone?

The ball Microsoft dropped was in Windows' lack of package manager. Silverlight was an unrelated event, namely Microsoft's me-too attempt at Flash.

The reference here is to “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Lecture

Thanks for that. I was wondering - and, of course that lecture.-

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