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From: rlcarr@athena.mit.edu (Rich Carreiro)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,alt.flame
Subject: Lattice, er, Lettuce strikes again
Summary: Technical Support, er Stupidity Department
Message-ID: <1990Mar16.211641.6821@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 90 21:16:41 GMT
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Reply-To: rlcarr@space.mit.edu (Animato)
Organization: A place where the music's fine and the lights are low
Lines: 67


[Warning, severe flames and strong language ahead]

Well, Lattice has just lost at least one customer.  I just got my 5.05 patch
in the mail today.  And guess what - it doesn't work.  So, I call Lattice
Technical Support, er..., Technical Stupidity.  Which of course costs ME
money, not $*&@(%$ Lattice.  I tell the phone geek that the 5.05 patches
complain about not having the right version to patch.  Suprise,
surprise - he actually knew that a wrong 5.04 was shipped out.  But
wait, there's more.  His solution - "Wait a couple of weeks - we are
preparing a new 5.05 to take care of the bad 5.04 disks."  Gee, gotta
love it.  Those $#it-heads at Lettuce have my goddamned serial number
and can check it.  After all, Technical Stupidity wouldn't have
listened to my call if they hadn't had my name, serial no, and phone.
What Lettuce should be doing, ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY CLAIM THAT ONLY A
*SMALL* number of the 5.04 disks were bad, is send out a set of
5.05 MASTERS.  Not the manuals, just the masters.  Hell, they must
have them, after all - what are they selling?

But no, doing that would qualify as Real Customer Support, and we all know
that Lettuce can't have that.

It gets better.  I ask the Technical Stupidity person about the prototype
conflict between stdlib.h and string.h concerning the mem***() functions.
At first he claims that there is no such problem.  I tell him he
doesn't know what he is talking about, and that there damn well IS a problem.
He checks and says "Oh.  Yeah there is a problem, but we only have it
classified as severity level 3."  That is SECOND FROM THE BOTTOM!
SMART MOVE LETTUCE!!  So, whenever ANYONE tries to compile something with
both stdlib.h and string.h, (and I can't imagine ANYONE wanting to do that,
can you?) the damn compile will FAIL.  But apparently that doesn't bother
Lettuce.  And what makes it better is that I have gotten mail from people
on the net whose 5.04 patch FIXED this problem.  So good old Lettuce
doesn't even know what is going on.  Surprise, surprise.

Ah, before I forget - my 5.04 patch BROKE LMK.  That's right.  LMK 1.05
(the 5.02 version) works, but LMK 1.07 (the 5.04 version) doesn't.
1.07 reads in the lmkfile (verified by using the -d option) and stops.
No error messages, just stops.  And here's the kicker - IF I run 1.05,
THEN 1.07 will work fine.  However, as soon as I edit the lmkfile OR
simply "more" (using the Workbench 1.3.2 More) it, LMK 1.07 NO LONGER
WORKS.  And again, despite complaints I've heard from people on the
net, Lettuce claims that there is no known problem with LMK.

Ah - such brilliance has to be experienced to be believed.

So, I am going to get every free upgrade coming to me and will then NEVER
buy another product from Lettuce again.  And to you SAS guys out here,
how about telling Technical Stupidity to get their #&^$@ heads on straight
and at least be MARGINALLY familiar with the product?  Is that such an
unreasonable thing to ask?  And how about adding some phone lines so it
takes less than 20 tries to get through?  And a toll-free number like
legitimate companies have.  It kills me to spend $$$ on a phone call
because Lettuce managed to f**k up a damn BUG FIX.

Is there a Quality Assurance department at Lettuce?  Does it actually do
anything?  Judging from the bugs that have made it through, and we're
talking blatant, non-obscure bugs here people, I really have to wonder.

[flame off - I warned you it was going to be severe]


--
Hollywood's Animato Lives!                         ==>  Mike Jittlov  <==
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