Memo to Microsoft: Windows 10 is broken, and the fixes can't wait | Hacker News Reader

Memo to Microsoft: Windows 10 is broken, and the fixes can't wait

theregister.co.uk

20 pointsToFab12311 comments

I love the idea of having your actual users testing the software, rather a dedicated tester. A dedicated, employed, tester can never use the product like a normal user would. They have too much knowledge of how the system works and what it can and can't handle. In order to truly observe something, we must completely, or as much as is possible, remove ourself from that situation. A normal user however doesn't know that it's not possible to achieve task X within the system, and will try, and if enough users try to perform that task, it might be an indication that it is a task that should be implemented or looked over to see why they are trying to perform this. This is just an example, but I find the role of a tester pretty confusing and awkward. As a developer I build and test the code I'm writing. If something doesn't work within that code I want to know as quick as possible if something isn't right. So why should I hand over my code to someone else? And also, if a user doesn't find the bug, is it really a bug?

Actually testers are educated and trained to do their job right. Professional ones have none of the flaws mentioned?

As a developer the simple fact is that if I knew something could happen I would have written the code to support it. Testers are about looking at the code from a different angle. It’s not surprising quality has dropped dramatically since Microsoft embraced the idea that devs should also be testers.

Customers are the ultimate testers. But using them as guinea pigs has a cost to your reputation.

We will see growth in the adoption of thin terminals and desktop running in the cloud.

That doesn't help, if the terminal is wonky.

Or the network is wonky. Which it so often is.

What difference does that make? "Sure, we run the same borked Windows 10 build as everybody else, but don't worry"?

Well if Windows were running primarily on Azure then the hardware and configurations are a known set so the surface area on which to test reduces dramatically.

In other words, Windows Embedded, Windows for Desktops, Windows Server, and also new Windows for Cloud line descended from Desktop? With majority being the desktop, that doesn't solve much...

I hope not. That would be like going back 40+ years: dumb terminals nobody can write software for and 100% dependency on centralized services. Just no, it would be bad in multiple ways, not just technically.

What I fear instead is Windows becoming in a few years a proprietary layer+GUI built on top of the Linux kernel+base environment (not unlike what Android Inc. and Apple did using respectively Linux and BSD), a move that could help MS reduce development costs but also take away from Linux most of its struggling desktop users and push soft houses to support it instead of the real thing. What if they were already working on it and MS WSL is a subtle move in that direction?

This oscillates every decade or so, and always has. It depends on the relative performance of CPU vs network and so on. Its a yo-yo as technologies develop in unsynchronized bursts and first one scheme works better, then the other.

I see the cloud adding just one new thing - I no longer have to upgrade/manage my personal machine. That's important for some folks and businesses, so it'll change the balance a little.

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