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Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

They can, the problem is that apparently they aren't able to hire people nowadays with Win32 development experience, so they get interns that have grown in US universities with macOS and Linux, which sundenly have a Win32 developer role.

That is how you end up with web garbage in what was supposed to be native code, or .NET.

I think this is also a reason why WinUI efforts went down the drain.

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They laid off a lot of people with Win32 experience in the past couple of years. If that was really a problem they could just hire some of them back (or, I dunno, keep them in the first place).

Keep them?? But how else would you keep devs working hard if there are no mass layoffs to be afraid of all the time??

Get them working on interesting projects building things customers/users/peers will value.

What are you, some kinda communist?

> building things customers/users/peers will value.

AI. Customers want AI, users want AI, peers want AI. If anyone says otherwise, they’re a Luddite and possibly a dangerous political radical.

I'm no longer at MSFT, but according to the people that are, the leadership is straight up saying that anyone who doesn't like AI coding has no place in the company now.

Unfortunely, they are making people like myself, that in general tend to have comments more pro-Windows, starting to consider the alternatives yet again.

Even .NET and C++ tooling getting spoiled with AI no matter what, see latest set of DevBlog announcements.

Agreed, or I don't know, actually promote internal trainings for the folks that lack the experience.

The problem isn't hiring people that only know macOS/Linux, we always argue about how bad HR hiring processes are in our field.

The problem is apparently the lack of management motivation to bring those peoples up to speed, and is confortable pushing for Web widgets instead.

I do not know what is up with people and their aversion to help people be better (or at the very least more useful) at their job. Not just in IT, but even hard / physical labor-type jobs or w/e.

In a culture obsessed with individual success, helping someone else does not have any obvious upside, but plenty of clear downsides - what if he gets so good that I look worse in comparison? What if he stays the same and I look like a bad mentor? Why would I sacrifice my time for no practical reward? Etc etc.

Yeah I understand that and I was thinking the same things, but it honestly sucks. I have been in a position where I was supposed to be taught the work on the spot but instead they expected me to know everything and do what I have never done before and it is such a bad experience. :/

It costs money. You're paying that person to be doing something other than working. If you're not squeezing maximal productivity out of your workers, then you have failed as a manager and will not be getting that sweet bonus this quarter

It's weird that Linux people are still seething to this day that the reason for Linux's lack of success on the desktop comes from the unfair pushing of Windows, when it's clear that Microsoft has been barely putting any effort into Windows, and gutting development save for AI stuff.

I'm sure Microsoft would be perfectly fine ditching Windows as long as they could keep pushing Teams, Azure AD and Office 365 to companies.

It's crazy how no one actually competently working towards a shared goal is invested in the desktop OS game any more.

Linux people still have some fire left in them, but lack organization and shared vision to deliver a high quality product in a timely manner. macOS is the best contender, but other than pushing weird mobile-driven UX design and locking down the OS, the macOS of today hasn't changed that much from the OS X of 20 years ago.

I'm a Linux user but I don't understand the drive of Linux users for it to be a mainstream OS. If it would be mainstream it would be more commercial, the users having less agency, having no choice in desktop environment and tied to commercial services. Because once it's big, big companies will want to make big bucks off the people using it. And most consumers actually like big tech companies taking them by the hand and choosing for them.

So in other words, Linux on the desktop will be a Linux I will hate. The closest thing to Linux for the mainstream we have is ChromeOS and I'm sure we all hate it. I sure do because I want nothing to do with Google services.

In other words, be careful what you ask for.

>> they aren't able to hire people nowadays with Win32 development

They can hire pretty much anyone. They choose to not hire people with Win32 experience. They choose to implement hiring process which results in hire other kind of people.

Do you honestly think you could hire a staff a project (requiring hundreds) with young(ish) people of at least decent skills who all know Win32/COM/C/C++?

> this is also a reason why WinUI efforts went down the drain.

That may be, but there is PLENTY of people with the expertise to develop WinUI apps -- IMO, the glaring problem would be that Microsoft can't get their head straight on which UI to support in the first place!

Win32, Windows Forms, WPF, even MFC, I do agree.

WinUI, only Microsoft employees on the Windows team, and fools that aren't aware of all the WinRT tooling reboots since Windows 8 was introduced, buying into WinUI marketing of how great it is.

As one of the fools that thought WinRT was a great idea, what .NET 1.0 should have been, I doubt there are many of those left.

WPF wasn't brought back into active status at BUILD 2024 by accident.

Can you write or point to some more insights about the problems / critique of these most recent approaches?

This comment should provide a good overview of the current chaos,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40843252

Then check the feedback on the latest community call,

https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/discussions/1...

But who is letting interns with no experience take architectural and technological decisions for a core feature such as the start menu? These are the people that should be blamed.

Yet Apple can find decent developers to work with their Apple-specific tools+tech.

Yeah, there's been complaints about some Apple's old polish and consistency being lost, but it's usually very nitpicky stuff, nothing compared to the complaints about Win11.

Have you actually tried out Tahoe with Liquid Glass?

It's my daily driver. I have zero problems with it. I don't mind the Liquid Glass UX. I'm not blindly anti-Apple though, neither am I a fanboi. I've just legitimately not had any problems. There have been minor bugs, etc., but nothing broken. Definitely night and day from Win11....

I personally think this is a symptom of tech companies hiring leetcoders.

You're only half right, a lot of these devs probably use Windows but since JSwhatever is the current lingua franca of programming it's easier to hire for

Do they hire from US universities?

I thought most work is outsourced now.

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