We're resetting our company culture when it comes to Windows at 37signals

If I had a dollar for every time some slick SV website had a broken layout due to scrollbars, or tried to give me a seizure when scrolling with a mouse wheel, I might be able to buy a mac with more than 8GB of RAM.

Edit: To add a couple more: using system fonts without a suitable fallback, and not being careful with modifier keys when doing custom hotkeys

Between this and their anti cloud stance, it’s like they’re doing the Costanza “do the opposite” strategy.

... it boggles the mind to think that because they use Mac's to develop on, they never tested things on other devices.

Until very recently (the arm switch) it was possible to use a Mac and test on every major (and most minor) desktop environments and with a little effort, both major smartphone platforms. From one physical computer.

He may as well have said they only tested in Chrome and are suddenly surprised to find out shit didn't work in Firefox or Safari, it sounds equally as amateurish.

I don't know what kind of sicko posts two jpegs of a wall of text with blue hyperlinks onto Twitter but I'll save you the trouble

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIABYEXaYAAtXtY?format=jpg&name=...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIABcKJaYAASThv?format=jpg&name=...

and courtesy of tesseract -l eng since searching for that first paragraph didn't cough up any readily accessible Internet text versions of it:

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KICKOFF

The Return to Windows

& David Heinemeier Hansson - Mar 5 - Notified 65 people

In the name of security and simplicity, we decided a while back to go all-in with the Mac for work here. The few Windows users we had at the time were asked to switch to the Mac (hello Ron and » Chad!). In retrospect, this was a mistake. We should not have abandoned the biggest platform (Windows) for our biggest product (Basecamp), just because it made things easier for us on the security management side of things.

It took Apple's shenanigans with PWAs in Europe to illuminate why having all our computing eggs in one basket was a bad idea in general. And it took me switching to Windows, and seeing deficiencies in our apps and marketing pages, to realize why it's a bad idea specifically. We have to be where our customers are. We have to see and live with what they see and they live with. And that means being on Windows.

So starting immediately, we're going to begin the correction. I'm staying on Windows for the foreseeable future (along with Android). We're going to figure out a security story that can match what we have with Kandji on the Mac. And I'm hoping we can get a few other folks, especially on product, to give Windows a try for work as well.

8 Gabriel has already volunteered to start using his PC more actively in the QA work, and we're going to start with a full audit of where things stand right now. @scott and others on design have already hit some of the big, glaring issues | noticed immediately (like ugly scrollbars and default fonts). But going forward, we're not going to ship new work for the web without making sure it's delightful on Windows as well.

DEVELOPERS! ‘@ DEVELOPERS! ‘@ DEVELOPERS! ‘@®

The push is what's stated above. We should have a sizeable delegation on Windows, so that the products we ship have been dogfooded extensively there before customers see them. Such that we don't ship things that are obviously broken (like missing country flags on marketing sites, busted jump menu hotkey on HEY) or obviously ugly (scrollbars that feel like a prison cell).

To that effect, Windows needs to become a fully support first-class platform here. For designers, developers, and anyone else who'd like to run Windows. That means fully supported setup process and fully supported security posture.

But it also does mean a change of perspective and tone. And I'll start with myself. I've been highly critical, and, historically, outright disparaging of Windows. That's gotta stop. It's totally fine to have preferences, and it's also fine to be happy about your own choices, but going forward, we're going to be THANKFUL that Windows exists, not scornful. THANKFUL that there is a strong, mainstream alternative to the Mac. Just like | was ever so thankful to find the Mac a strong, mainstream alternative to Windows starting in the early 2000s when Microsoft was the industry bully.

You pick what you work with best, but as a company, we're going to ensure that we have enough representation on Windows that things don't ship without being well-examined on that platform. We had to do a similar cultural reset several years back regarding Android. It was a big blindspot that nobody save a few were running Android here. Today, we have lots of happy Android users, and our products are much better for it.