Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

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Well, I run Elementary on my laptop, OS X on my iMac, have an iPhone, a Nexus 7, and a BlackBerry Playbook (quite an underrated tablet for it's time). I'm a developer, and build apps for all of those devices.

And you know what? WPF _is_ nice. I _liked_ Silverlight (but am frustrated that it doesn't work under Linux, though not surprised). Microsoft make _good_ developer tools, in my personal humble opinion.

The problem I see are they still make a large amount of missteps, and don't engage the "tastemakers" of tech anymore. Any goodwill they once had has been squandered, and if you look at Yahoo! you can see that it's super difficult to get it back.

Now that Ballmer is leaving, it will be interesting to see what happens in the future -- will they get a CEO that isn't afraid to take big, bold risks? To cook the golden goose in the short-term, perhaps, to allow for growth into new markets?

Somehow I doubt it, but I wish they would.

Windows 8 has been really good to me; I've installed it (and Office 2013) on all the devices of my family and (ex)girlfriends, my ex has a Windows Phone on my recommendation. They all love it, and find it easier to use than anything in the past. Just today, I purchased a touch-screen HP All-In-One for my Grandfather, and he loves it (and is super excited about using the Kindle app while in his lean-back chair on the 22" screen, synced with his Kindle itself).

When I was working at Harvey Norman, I sold $15 000 worth of Surface and Surface Pros to customers in one month; They were easy to sell as long as you knew how to appeal to the consumers _actual_ needs. They didn't suit everyone, but for those that did no other Tablet came close.

Basically, they have more potential than nearly any other tech company out there. Something has been holding them back, and they've succeeded in spite of themselves. I hope that they can turn it around moving forward.

What did you try to accomplish with this post? The parent post talks about the perceived mono-culture of Microsoft, and the effects this has on his "friend Greg" when Greg later tries to seek a new job.

Your post is all about how much you like Microsoft. It could likely be replaced by the words "But I like Microsoft developer tools", and still get the exact same message across. There is no sources to back it up, or arguments against or in favor of the parent post. Its the exact style of comment that creates flame-wars which HN want to eliminate.

Please, if you reply to a commenter about mono-culture and job seeking, focus your comment on that subject. Do not fall into "but I like X" kind of replies, or all you get back is "you are wrong, X is bad".

I find people that "like" companies quite amusing.

I think Microsoft has potential, but currently there is a reason I don't use any of their products nor plan to personally. Doesn't mean they don't have their place, like any product.

Also, an argument could easily be made that OP's post, which I found really interesting, is just another way of saying "Microsoft sucks", as it is merely anecdotes without sources again.

Regardless, I merely posted my opinion, like many others here. Sorry that it doesn't conform to your ideal.

Anecdotes is better than pure opinion. They can be poked at and questioned as any other unreliable evidence, and has a place in discussions (if somewhat far down).

However, saying "I _liked_ Silverlight" is not an anecdote. I can't discuss it, poke or question it, as it is without doubt true that you do indeed like Silverlight. As substance for a discussion, it as empty as it can be. At best, I can ask you to write a new comment which explains why you like Silverlight, in which you maybe then end up using anecdotes to support your view. That would then be the actually comment of substance, in which debate, research and discussion might flow from.

In the hierarchy, "I like X" and "I don't like X" is at the bottom. As such, my "ideal" is that comments should indeed strive to be above the lowest of the lowest, even if that means just going a step above into the realm of Anecdotes.

With all due respect, anecdotes vs opinion? A blurry distinction if ever there was one. Who gets to be the arbiter of that distinction, and placement in "the" hierarchy of HN comments? It's plain as day that girvo's comment as much as jeswin's included first hand accounts of real world events (Greg and his myopia regarding non-MS tech, and satisfied friends/family/grandfather/customers that demonstrate MS' market viability). jeswin's comment as much as girvo's included personal opinion.

There was a recent HN discussion about anti-MS bias on the site. I wonder if that may be relevant.

> I find people that "like" companies quite amusing.

I think they pretty much account for most of the hate you see on HN. Brand identity is the new opiate of the masses.

"Endorsing products is the American way to express individuality." -- Calvin and Hobbes

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/08/27

20 years old and still so true.

I recently installed a new version of Office on my dad's machine and was shocked to see that you can start using Office pretty much right away, even while it's still installing. The more complicated features (e.g., making charts) are locked out, but will be available as those bits are streamed in. Basically it bootstraps a bare bones document reader and advanced features become available as they are downloaded.

Awesome, but really brings to light how poorly MS handles advertising.

Microsoft are doing the same thing for Xbox One games- install them and play while extra levels/assets are downloaded. Sony are doing the same

The whole point is that although WPF / Silverlight may feel nice, they are a very rare exception that isn't crossplatform. For any non-MS development platform and language currently I've been able to trivially get a working environment on my company Mac, my home PC, and remote Ubuntu servers, where all the environment just works. (And if it doesn't 'just work' then it's on Win.) With MS developer tools, well... you sort-of kind-of can, but generally it's a basic 'hygiene factor' that they don't have.

And if you're stating '_good_ developer tools', then what is your opinion on MS-supplied basic tools - ssh app? copy/paste in Powershell? Connection libraries for their SQL server in all common (including non-MS) languages? Unicode support in console? I mean, theres a bajillion tiny, insignificant things that add up to a death by papercuts, since on Mac or Linux all third-party development environments for common languages Just Work the way they should, but I've seen numerous cases where getting up the same perl/haskell/whatever package on windows requires jumping through a dozen hoops.

C# is a quite nice language - but can I get one-click setup of it's tools on all major OS'es, and deploy code on non-windows servers as easily as with java or ruby?

Surface Pro seems like really nice hardware - but for any development needs, I'd rather want Ubuntu or MacOS on similar hardware.

MS problem is not, in general, poor tools - the problem is that it doesn't play well and integrate with the rest of the world; and in the rest of the world good integration with everything is a basic assumption even for low-quality recently started tools.

Two quick notes:

1. s/for it's time/for its time/

2. Instead of using _underscores_ for emphasis, on HN you can use asterisks, like this:

    asterisks, *like this*

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