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Comment by pbz | Hacker News Reader

Of course interactions like this are childish and unproductive. However, I feel that these are symptoms of being ignored. When people feel that the VS side has their fingers in their ears, one needs to yell louder to be heard. Claiming to paying attention to feedback when clearly not doing so is also quite frustrating.

A counter-example is how ScottGu handles situations like this -- or used to, nowadays he doesn't seem to have that much free time. When one posts about a problem on his blog he gets personally involved and assigns somebody to get it fixed. On the other side, one thousand people ask for the same thing and they're being ignored. Do you see my point?

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>When people feel that the VS side has their fingers in their ears, one needs to yell louder to be heard.

The problem is the people they are 'yelling louder' at are not the people making the decisions, they are simply the ones that have to/volunteer to face the mob. I try and be civil in my feedback for products I use even if I am pissed off because I know there is a human being at the other end and they are more than likely operating under similar constraints/deadlines/rules as everyone else in the world. Sometimes I disagree with their decisions, sometimes violently, but I try to approach the conversation from the mindset that they aren't simply doing it to annoy me, because they aren't.

>Claiming to paying attention to feedback when clearly not doing so is also quite frustrating.

Not sure how we could be considered to be ignoring people. Have you seen this announcement? Have you seen the massive UX changes due to Beta feedback? The only thing I can think of is the ALL CAPS issue, but that actually came in RC itself, and as someone else pointed out in the GP of this thread, that is also announced as being something that users will be able to tweak.

>A counter-example is how ScottGu handles situations like this -- or used to, nowadays he doesn't seem to have that much free time.

ScottGu is a VP now, he likely doesn't involve himself personally in many issues like that anymore as it doesn't scale and his time is more valuably spent in other pursuits.

>On the other side, one thousand people ask for the same thing and they're being ignored. Do you see my point?

I would if people were actually being ignored, I don't see anything in any recent announcement that would indicate that. Care to point out an issue with lots of feedback that is being ignored? And to be clear I don't consider "ignored" == "not doing what I want them to". Feedback can be given, even at large volume, and not result in a change of course. If the people making the decisions feel, even in the light of the feedback, that their course is correct that is their decision to make. Ignoring would be simply not even addressing the feedback at all and just blindly going about your planned course as if the feedback didn't exist.

If I think to the major feedback points I recall they were

Feedback: Don't like only being able to make Metro apps with Express.

Conclusion: See the post this thread is located in.

Feedback: Hate (dislike strongly) the UX in Beta.

Conclusion: See the RC release.

Feedback: Hate the ALL CAPS menu in RC.

Conclusion: See blog post where it was said officially that there will be a way to tweak this (not sure what that way will be, but it will be present).

Feedback: Hate that I can't build things in C++ that target XP using 2012.

Conclusion: Still sad panda (I have no hand in that matter though so I can't speak with any intelligence on it).

>Feedback: Hate that I can't build things in C++ that target XP using 2012.

lol. I apparently need to come give the VS team a brief on the VS team decisions. They've reacted to that crticism as well and are going to release an Express SKU with Desktop support.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/06/08/visu...

No, that release targets 'all OS versions that 2012 supports'. XP is not in that list. And in fact that link is just the link that the Ars link I posted to points to (whew). The problem with XP is that the CRT in 2012 is not supported on XP, thus any programs you built on it that depend on said CRT would not run on XP.

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/6...

Again, I'm not saying that being rude or inconsiderate is ever justified. However, when trying to look at a response from a psychological point of view, you kind of have to throw out notions about what is right and wrong as these tend to taint the data. The fact that people felt like they had to keep commenting and commenting saying the same thing over and over should tell us something.

When the original beta was introduced it was not a "hey guys, what do you think of the new UI" type of announcement. It was more of a "this is the new UI, it adheres to the latest and greatest design trends, is better, prettier, more 'energetic'; you will love it!" People felt patronized so they gave their feedback in droves.

This later set the tone that the only way they're going to listen is if we bury them in feedback. Of course this is unfortunate as good feedback was probably lost in the noise.

Also, there's tons of feedback that is being ignored: http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studi... A simple "maybe" or "won't do because X" would go a long way.

>Also, there's tons of feedback that is being ignored:

Here are the top requests:

>Change All CAPS Menu in VS RC to VS Beta format File Edit Instead of FILE EDIT

Already beat to death in this thread, and there has been a public blog post, hardly ignored.

>Add some color to Visual Studio 11

See RC release. Also see the comments section where there are posts from VS team members, so ignored is not quite the right word. I find a certain irony in the comments asking for the 2010 theme back, when we released 2010 there was a large amount of feedback of people that hated 2010 and wanted 2008 back.

>Make .NET 4.5 work on any OS that supports 4.0

See my comment about this not being resolved. It certainly isn't being ignored though.

>Visual Studio 11 Express on Windows 7 and the ability to write non Metro C++ applications in it.

Hmmm yeah something about that link I posted to start this whole thread.

>change the new 2012 RC bowtie icon back to the smooth style

Well, suggestion I guess. I doubt that will happen (branding changes are generally made by marketing). There is no comment there so this is the first one I think you could say has 'been ignored'.

>Leave VS 2010 theme (and the theme editor extension) as an option

Well okay, unlikely to happen, re-theming VS is not a small undertaking (we have multiple UI technologies in play, it isn't as simple as declaring a CSS file) and supporting 3 (dark + light + 2010) would be a large undertaking. As for the theme editor, it is still there, in fact it was written by the guy in the office next to me. I don't think it is 'going anywhere' and I would be shocked beyond belief if it didn't support 2012.

There are many more, I guarantee you there are PMs that have read every single one of those (fun times!). Not all have comments, so I guess if that is where you are going with 'being ignored' then it is accurate, but it is a bit of a stretch considering the most popular ones have all been addressed in one form or another.

I get what you are saying about the psychology, it is funny this all started because I made a comment on how I don't read the comments because, in my experience, they are fairly vituperative. That is me, I am not here representing as an official spokesman for VS or Microsoft so please don't apply that label to me as I have gone out of my way to make it clear I am NOT such a role. If you think no one is reading them, well I doubt I could convince you otherwise, though it is clearly not true.

>(...) I can't build things in C++ that target XP using 2012.

Maybe not for long, there is a work in progress: http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/how-to-get-visual-c-2...

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