Dear Microsoft: It's not me, it's YOU | Hacker News Reader

Dear Microsoft: It's not me, it's YOU

lessonsoffailure.com

21 pointsgacba14 comments

> Let’s list the litany of technologies released and then abandoned by you in the past 15 years: ADO, Silverlight, DNA, BizApp, .NET, J#, XNA.

.NET & XNA are abandoned?

> With Windows 8, we’re now going to write everything in HTML5 and Javascript?

No.

> I’ll give you props for making a gutsy move here. Acquiring a dying company, killing their development platform and shoving yours down their throat takes a whole lot of chutzpah.

I have no idea what company he is talking about here

>Picking up a company that doesn’t even use your core technologies ought to be a clear signal you’re not making the right move here.

There are many coherent arguments for why buying Skype might have been a bad reason. This is not one of them.

There were maybe 2 valid points in the whole article (Linux Server marketshare, Mac OS virtualization just works), but the rest of it is just a rant.

I'm guessing the mobile company reference is to Danger.

The interesting thing I find is that the developer talks about developing for his clients, and if his clients don't change to Mac, he'll still be developing using Windows.

If he truly does decide to develop for Mac/iOS, what does he think of the developer tools? I'm a web developer, but tried to work in x-code and found it very frustrating. I've heard very positive things about the windows development environments.

The argument about XP I think is flawed. The reason people still run XP is that it works for them. That is a strength. Apple doesn't support their apps on anything beyond a few versions. http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ve...

Windows XP was a very good operating system, but it is time to move on for many people. Vista I think was more of a PR nightmare than actually a horrible operating system. It wasn't good, I'm not saying it was, but I think the media blew it out of proportion. Windows 7 is very good. I downloaded the Win 8 developer release yesterday, and I have to admit that I think it lacks the polish of OSX. Refinement is still not Microsoft's strong point.

As a web developer, I think Microsoft's move to support and promote HTML/Javascript as a first-class language on their platform should be applauded. I'm one of those who think that supporting multiple languages for different devices when HTML can accomplish 99% of the capabilities is a ridiculous cost and energy sink. Though I do agree that UI refinements are required for web-apps to compare to native apps.

Apple/Microsoft dev here (although I am transitioning away from Apple stuff).

After reading this blog post, I'm not sure the author has done any serious development on Windows, or perhaps any at all by the way they state things.

Many of the technologies he's listed as abandoned, weren't abandoned, they were evolved. NET and XNA are far from dead.

Silverlight as a name and a browser runtime may or may not be dead, but all the underlying technologies of Silverlight continue to live on and grow. J# was never alive.

Why would Microsoft's acquisition of Skype play into a personal decision process?

He goes on to state that everything Windows 8 is going to be written in HTML5 and Javascript?

I can't speak for anyone else, but my experience and numerous direct interactions with Microsoft developer people has been outstanding. I'm not even somebody that they could exploit for marketing or PR, but I've still received quite a bit of help and encouragement from them.

By contrast, my experience with Apple developer reps has been the website. No blogs, no interactions -- Apple allows neither. My feeling is that engineers would love to open things, but the brass won't allow it. However, if you buy a WWDC ticket, the Apple folks are seriously helpful and open and great. I've had engineers spend hours with me on debugging stuff and be quite open with me about upcoming features.

This blog post reeks of some Apple fanboy with little or no actual Windows developer experience. If he's thinking the pasture is going to be greener, I think he's in for a rude awakening.

There's no One True Way. Just switch. Don't embarrass yourself with some silly rant.

His OS stats are from December 2010, the up-to-date stats[1] show that xp is now down to about 42% and win7 is up to 37%. Not great, but hardly the stark picture he paints.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201008-201108

Just buy a Mac and leave Microsoft if you don't like it and please post something constructive / informational instead of rants.

Really, it's OK to not like a product/platform/company. It's also OK to not buy and use those products.

Most of his list of abandoned microsoft environments haven't been abandoned...

Source?

Source for where .NET has been abandoned? Sure, I'd love one too, they just announced the next version of .NET 2 days ago. Maybe I missed something since then.

One of many, but certainly the latest:

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/sasha/archive/2011/09/15/...

WinRT will require you to completely rewrite your app if you want a total Metro experience. IOW, .NET apps are not fully supported as first-class citizens of Win8. Can they run? Yes. Are they what Microsoft wants you to do? No.

You don't have to rewrite your entire app. In fact, there are probably large parts of it you can reuse. But you can't expect a Win32-style UI to work in Metro, and you can't expect sandboxed apps downloaded from a marketplace to be running as admin and have full access to the registry, either.

Can WPF apps run on Win8? Yes. Are they preferred when the user is running an iPad-like device with no keyboard and fat-finger pointing accuracy? No. How about when the user has a keyboard, mouse, and desktop? Sure. Is Excel usable with fingers? Not really.

This is just like when Apple released OSX 10.5, and all of a sudden all the Carbon apps had to be rewritten. Except not; Microsoft will still let you write Win32 apps and run them on Windows 8, where Apple said "if you want to run on 64-bit OSX, rewrite."

Some applications will work better in a touch screen environment, that's the aim of the Metro UI. Some applications, like Visual Studio, will work best within the traditional desktop environment. I think Microsoft is more about offering you a wide variety of choices on how to implement your application rather than forcing you to any single technology.

WinXP still has %50 market share? We use it on all our desktop PCs at work but I didn't know in the wild its market share is still so high.

Microsoft is releasing a new OS with a better UI stack and programming model, and preserving the ability to run legacy apps on machines they're compiled for. I wasn't around for the OS9 -> OSX transition, but I'm guessing there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth then, too. How many people wrote public breakup letters with Apple when that happened?

I've been wanting Microsoft to do this for years. The Win32 API is very powerful, but supporting it is a severe constraint; just ask Raymond Chen. I think Apple did the right thing by making a clean break, telling everyone "from now on, things are going to be different, and better."

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