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Comment by angersock | Hacker News Reader

So, if you're still using cmd instead of PowerShell (which we are, sigh...), you deserve the misery.

Why would turning Windows into a Unix have helped anyone? Pike and Plan9 tried to save Unix better then ten years ago, and nobody gave a shit.

Also, why do you even want something like Maven? That's like bitching that Windows doesn't have autotools--or was that next on your list of complaints?

Tell me about how the MSDN is less helpful than man pages. Tell me about how the Windows API is worse documented and more poorly designed than POSIX (lol). Tell me about how executables compiled on one Windows machine don't transport to other Windows machines easily.

I'll stand by my statement, thank you very much.

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> if you're still using cmd instead of PowerShell

PowerShell is a shell, not a CLI, one starts PowerShell inside cmd.exe.

> Why would turning Windows into a Unix have helped anyone?

It helped OS X ;-)

> Also, why do you even want something like Maven?

Because you have to rely on Visual Studio for automating your build, testing and deployment process, it it's not doing a good job and again, is like going back to the nineties.

> Tell me about how the MSDN is less helpful than man pages.

Well, MSDN isn't competing with man pages, but with readily available source-code at the click of a button and with libraries documented like this one is - http://akka.io/

> Tell me about how executables compiled on one Windows machine don't transport to other Windows machines easily.

Never had a problem with OS X. And on Linux, people automate the shit out of the build process so it isn't much of a problem, hence the need for tools ;-)

One does not, in fact, start Powershell from inside cmd.

"It helped OS X ;-)"

Have you seen what they were coming from? Apple is a fucking joke when it comes to systems and software engineering--it's their industrial design and UX that everyone loves.

"rely on Visual Studio for automating your build"

msbuild.exe and PowerShell.

"It's not doing a good job" compared to what, exactly? It's super easy to set up compiler options in C/C++ on MSVC, pretty easy to add other things. You'd prefer makefiles?

"available source-code at the click of a button"

because when we're hacking we want to stop and read somebody else's code instead of, you know, just using a cleanly documented API.

"And on Linux, people automate the shit out of the build process so it isn't much of a problem"

bahahahahahha

hahahahaa

haha

(no)

It seems like you're trolling or you've never worked on a project outside of your bubble.

> One does not, in fact, start Powershell from inside cmd

I'm talking about the Command Prompt, that window with which you get access to a shell. I really don't know what you're talking about.

> Apple is a fucking joke when it comes to systems and software engineering

That's not an argument I can reply to.

> msbuild.exe and PowerShell

MsBuild.exe is Ant. PowerShell is, well, a shell language. This combination is not a substitute for Maven, hence my argument that it felt like going back to the nineties.

> You'd prefer makefiles?

No, I'd prefer something like Maven.

> Because when we're hacking we want to stop and read somebody else's code

Yes, precisely.

> It seems like you're trolling or you've never worked on a project outside of your bubble.

Note that I never resorted to ad-hominems. That's very unprofessional and very unlike the HN attitude. Chill.

And if you do feel the need for personal attacks, I'm also public about my identity, it's not much, but here you have my resume and my GitHub profile, no need to guess - https://www.bionicspirit.com/pages/about.html

> I'm talking about the Command Prompt, that window with which you get access to a shell.

You mean "a console window". Command Prompt is the name of the baked-in shortcut which starts cmd.exe in a console window.

FYI http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0k6kkbsd.aspx

MSBuild is not Visual Studio

Anybody that ever edited a MSBuild file without Visual Studio, step forward.

tentatively raises hand - jokes aside, I have, an I know that the produc I was working on involved supporting a custom build target - we maintained te XML files by hand.

Hello. Do you have any questions about the process? I used emacs (MSBuild files are just ordinary XML) but some of the people I was working with used - I think - Notepad++.

(The entire process in question ran outside Visual Studio - it was a hellish mix of PowerShell, batch files, MSBuild, C++ tools and C# tools. Somebody had even implemented a getopt-type affair, using the batch commands, so the batch files all responded to /? and everything. May I never see its like again.)

That would be almost anyone who's automated a build for, say, a CI server.

I also use it to compile outside of VS, because 1) it's often quicker on large solutions and 2) it mirrors the CI build (sometimes VS is too smart and papers over issues).

Hi, I do this often. MSBuild is actually very good.

That being said, the new stuff coming with ASP.NET 5.0 (vNext), where the build is a simplified JSON file is interesting

That would be me, and I vastly prefer it to maven scripts. Once written you can then basically forget about it. All I do now is type:

msbuild build.msbuild and I get full-rebuilds of 32-bit and 64-bit executables, tests run, and upon success, everything packaged up in an installer and ready for deployment.

I have too. I find it a great tool once I understood it.

It helped OS X ;-)

OS X benefited from the labor savings of forking somebody else's existing project, dramatically reducing cost & time compared to a) continuing to support OS9 b) starting from scratch.

The technical nature of its status as a Unix derivative is, to my knowledge, basically nothing to do with its current market success.

The Navy's practice of stripping old ships and building a new ship with the old hull comes to mind.

I used to complain about Maven but in the past couple of years it has made some significant usability improvements especially with regards to Eclipse projects.

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