Hey Microsoft – what ever happened to 'Developers, developers, developers'?

As Microsoft approaches its 50th birthday next year, it can look back with satisfaction at having created the first era of universal corporate computing, and of having ridden successfully on the coat-tails of the second. It is one of the companies that pop in and out of the quantum state of richest in the world. And if ever an …

[jemmyww]

I haven't dealt with MS for a long time. However, recently I decided to put together an app that required native libraries, and I needed it to run on Windows and Mac. So I signed up to both companies developer programs so I could get signing certificates. Apple's process was straight forward, and you pay the annual fee and you have access to what you need. Microsoft... I really don't know what I've signed up for, I seem to have gone through three separate flows to get my account and add things to it. I can now make an app for the MS store but I'm very unclear if I can just get a signing certificate for my own distribution. The documentation indicates that I might need to buy one from a "partner" third party, and they're very expensive, and confusing. That's probably fine if you're an organisation, but for a solo dev it's starting to look a bit out of reach. I do seem to have been given thousands of $$ of Azure credits though, so I guess I could move my online stuff there for a year. Shame I can't swap those for the thing I actually need.

[9Rune5]

Code signing certificates

I believe you're talking about code signing certs.

There was a change a few years back. It used to be that you could just buy a code-signing certificate from a trusted third-party and sign your executables with that.

Today they do not trust us with storing the private key safely. Some of us would simply check it into our source repositories (I once joined a team that used to do that) or keep it around in various places (the build computer being one of them). I am sure you've seen stories of CSCs escaping into the wild. Those incidents affects the entire ecosystem.

One approach is to keep what is essentially the private key on a USB stick. Some vendors offer this together with some crappy software that guard the key. One solution I tried didn't seem to work, until we realized that using remote desktop into the VM where the USB was plugged in made the key appear dead. We had to use remote access software provided by the VM vendor which was a little bit closer to the metal I suppose. (by the time I figured that bit out, the nimcompoop who had ordered this key had forgotten the password and I couldn't proceed)

The best approach is to keep your build pipeline online. E.g. Azure DevOps have third-party tie-ins that will manage the private key for you. I have not had a chance to try this myself, but it looks like the path of least resistance. There are many, many advantages to not having to mess with your own build server -- I do not want to go back.

HTH.

[druck]

Re: Code signing certificates

Today they do not trust us with storing the private key safely.

Hardware security modules are still available, and that is what they are for.

[9Rune5]

Re: Code signing certificates

Usually implemented on a USB stick, no?

In my case, with a build server hosted in a VM, I had to talk my way around an irate sysadmin who did not savour the idea of inserting a USB stick up in the rear of one of the VM hosts he had in a cluster. As I understood it "my" VM was taken out of the cluster because of this.

AFAICT the hw approach is untenable. The documentation was verbose but not very informative (meaning it was downright wrong in some aspects). The vendor we chose may be exceptionally bad, but I would not bet on it.

[druck]

Re: Code signing certificates

Hardware is the ONLY tenable approach, anything in the software domain on a general purpose machine can be compromised.

Most HSMs are either PCIe cards or separate boxes connected by Ethernet.

[9Rune5]

Re: Code signing certificates

For bigger organizations where you have people dedicated to running their own iron, sure.

Most developers I suspect do not find themselves in such places. In the past we've certainly seen some big companies loose track of their certs. So even the big ones aren't heeding your sensible advice.

The cloud is a much more logical answer. With plugins from the guys who issued these certs in the first place, presumably the cert resides on devices akin to the one you mentioned.

(And... The vendor I dealt with did not offer a device like you mentioned. They offered a specialized USB device that I also see advertised by other bastauhm...vendors. So... what the h-ck are you even talking about? Did you even see all the references to _code signing certificates_? Have you compared any prices?)

[Pete 2]

Times change

> what ever happened to 'Developers, developers, developers'?

It developed.

It's now money, money, money.

(there could be a song in that!)

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Times change

The O'Jays: "For the Love of Money" (1973)

On YouTube @:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GXE_n2q08Yw&pp=ygUQdGhlIG8namF5cyBtb25leQ%3D%3D

[m4r35n357]

Re: Times change

OK, we're obviously discounting Abba and the Beatles, so try this one from the vaults ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P2qL3qkzk

[DJO]

Re: Times change

Well Microsoft get Money for Nothing and their users are in Dire Straights.

[TReko]

Re: Times change

As Bob Dylan sang:

"Money doesn't talk - it screams"

[this]

Re: Times change

'money doesnt talk it swears' actually. Much better.

[harrys]

Re: Times change

the irony that is modern day mr dylan :)

[NoneSuch]

Re: Times change

"It's now money, money, money."

It's actually subscription, subscription, subscription, now.

What's better than money? Money every month until you die and for a few more months after that until your estate shuts off the taps.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Times change

And being able to go easy on developing new versions and updates because the money flows in regardless.

That's why I've always resisted software subscriptions, because it makes it fortuitous for ISV's to not improve their software.

[Sudosu]

Re: Times change

Now it is called low code, no code.

Enjoy your first Power Automate consumption bills!

[John Miles]

Re: Times change

Money Talks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o0rAvZtM7w

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Times change

It was always money, money, money. The focus on developers was part of Ballmer's short-lived focus on mobile devices. It was never convincing and failed quickly. Since Nadella took over with the "mobile first, cloud first" strategy, third party developers continually lost importance as Microsoft seeks to own more of the value chain by forcing customers to use its services.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

The issue with Micros~1 is that they can't be relied on any more. You can't deploy something one way to Azure today and have that still work tomorrow. And if you can't rely on them, maybe it's time to detach from their ecosystem. Problem is, there's nothing really that can end-to-end replace it, and managers love having a contract where if something goes wrong there's just a single throat to choke - not that that has ever worked in the past, but it's nice to have the illusion.

[9Rune5]

Longevity

A bit difficult to predict what will happen tomorrow, but I will offer the following observation: The stuff I developed for AKS (Azure Kubernetes) three years ago is probably still running without much adoption. The AKS environment requires updates (not much work on your part, but may incur a few minutes of downtime), but mostly it runs. I can go back to those projects and deploy them as Azure Container Apps without much (if any) modification.

Some caveats:

- Third-party libraries require regular updates. GitHub has its dependabot service that will scan your source code and post pull requests whenever this happens.

- Yes, some packages are sometimes made obsolete. E.g. .net apps are now supposed to use OpenTelemetry with Application Insights. The old way is still supported, but it is a good idea to make the transition to OT now rather than later.

But no, you cannot deploy a public service and leave it running for a few years unattended. At the very least you need the security updates. That is regardless of what ecosystem you're using. (maybe a 'hellorld' app would be able to do that, but anything with any complexity will require some attention)

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Re: Longevity

I'm not actually talking about code changes, more the fact that you can create an Azure pipeline one way one day and then the next that way of working has disappeared. It's still there for your existing pipeline, but you can't rinse and repeat. And there's no documentation that explains why anything has changed or why you can't do today what you did yesterday.

[9Rune5]

Re: Longevity

Your pipeline is considered code.

E.g. github recently deprecated Node v16 upon which many actions were based. So, when I mentioned third-party libraries that must be updated, this certainly include github actions. It has been a while since I used Azure DevOps, but GH workflow is based on the same engine, so I'm guessing they've faced similar issues. In any case, if you find yourself having used a github action from an obscure source, there's a chance your pipeline would be pestered with github warnings until you've replaced or updated that action.

And the longer you go without updating something, the more painful it will be to figure out the changes needed. Whether that 'something' is a javascript UI framework or a github workflow... There will be some pain involved.

[Doctor Syntax]

"And if ever an outfit qualified for full understanding of its market, it's Microsoft.

So when it causes what looks like random suffering to its customers, we must assume it's deliberate."

Obviously - except that it's not random.

The understanding is simple. Having established a monopoly and terrified its victims customers about the prospect of jumping ship it can then screw them as hard and as often as it likes wherever there's a chance of increasing revenue.

Developers are just collateral damage.

[Antron Argaiv]

Vendor lock-in. 'Twas ever thus.

[Charlie Clark]

And, as long as there is no liability for their stuff, they will continue to do this.

[AndrueC]

I was a software developer for 40 years (including the four or five first years when I was just messing about with home computers such as the Sinclair Spectrum and Amstrad CPC). I retired in August '23 for two reasons.

The owner of our small company decided that after four three years of letting us work from home he needed us back in the office for two days a week. I checked my pension statements and politely pointed out that I didn't feel that I had to do anything. So we parted ways. I since hear that almost the entire development team has now left for more amenable employers.

Visual Studio. I might possibly have stayed on despite those two days (or at least fought harder to work from home) if hadn't been for all the angst and irritation that VS caused throughout the last five or six years. Every feature they added was 5% buggy. Except for those that were 10% buggy. Reporting a bug (you've got to laugh) required me and others to fight past a credentials verification bug that they had started to fix some two years after I reported it. And that was interesting because the chap trying to fix it clearly cared. He just didn't seem to be able to devote all his time to it but it's possible that it is by now fixed.

But even if/when you got past that the likelihood of them fixing the problem was almost nil. Even getting them to acknowledge it in a useful way seemed like a victory.

And of course there was (and obviously still is) their killing off of viable platforms and trying something new. How many UI frameworks has .NET had now? Maybe if they designed them properly in the first place they wouldn't have to keep throwing them away or spreading themselves thin trying to maintain them all.

Microsoft gave me a career..but they also pretty much took it away. I am now happily retired so it's turned out for the best. Just a bit of a shame that the industry lost a further decade of my experience and effort.

[SNaidamast]

I am in a somewhat similar situation as yourself.

I retired in 2014 after 43+ years in the profession. For me, I just couldn't take the utter incompetence of technical management any longer.

Nonetheless, I am still working on my own development projects full-time... Or just about...

I would like to consider moving to LInux and have gone ahead and installed the latest version of Ubuntu, which has come a long way since I first began tinkering with it.

I am slowly learning Python simply because I want an environment that I can develop with on Linux that is native to that ecosystem.

However, I still use Visual Studio quite heavily as I do a lot of work with WPF. As a result, I m still waiting on JetBrains to complete their WPF environment for the .NET IDE, "Rider". After years of waiting for this, JetBrains has barely been able to provide a decent toolbox so one knows which controls are available to use.

I imagine this delay in such an important development aspect of "Rider" is a result of some issues they are having with Microsoft, whose most requested Visual Studio feature is a version for Linux.

However, I imagine that Microsoft knows that if they create such a version, their ball-game for Windows will have a finite lifespan since many of us would then abandon Windows altogether.

I imagine that JetBrains will get its act together someday, considering that other vendors have already completed similar environments for Windows developers. So the question is, why can't JetBrains do this implementation faster?

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

"Marketing Marketing Marketing! Whooooooo!"

"I have for words to say!"

"I love this marketing YEAH!"

There is a reason why I prefer Ballmer's version...

[Howard Sway]

what ever happened to 'Developers, developers, developers'?

Simple answer : 'cloud, cloud, cloud'.

Once upon a time you could buy a full Visual Studio license and then develop as much software as you liked. This meant MS sold lots of OS licenses because lots of software was developed for the OS. 10 years ago there was lots of talk from MS committing themselves to open APIs, web services and easier interoperability. That's all been forgotten now that the idea of cloud software subscriptions has been accepted : a new benchmark for expected revenue has been set, and you can pay $250 a month for the privilege of being able to develop software that locks you even further into the same cloud you made yourself dependent on.

Of course you don't have to accept any of this at all, but in much of the corporate world doing stuff simply and not being bound into all this ever changing, bloated and expensive cloud shit is considered to be living in the past and for losers. I'm sure many developers would ditch a lot of it, and make better solutions themselves if they were allowed to, but their employers have got the cloud habit and won't be shaking off the addiction very easily.

[ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo]

Yeah, but the EULA does even guarantee that it works as intended, at all

Imagine cars or appliances would be handled similar

[AndrueC]

Re: Yeah, but the EULA does even guarantee that it works as intended, at all

Cars and appliances are goods. Software is a service. It's not reasonable to apply the same rules to both because for services you are paying for the effort not the results.

I doubt that software could be reclassified as a good since it has no physical existence. I'd also - sadly - argue that it isn't reasonable to expect software to be free of bugs. Not unless it's being used in a life critical system such as an aircraft (did someone say Boeing?).

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Yeah, but the EULA does even guarantee that it works as intended, at all

What about the software in the car that causes it to crash?

[Julz]

Hum

Software is a goods (that sounds awful). There are services around the goods such as maintenance, installation etc. but the delivered software is most definitely a goods. It does have a physical instantiation, it does have set of delivered features, it must deliver on those expectations. The instantiation is the material that it is delivered upon. In ancient times that might be a tape or a disc but nowadays it's more likely to be a download, which is instantiated on the receiving device. The set of features is the definition of what the software is expected to do. The expectation is that it delivers those features correctly and without prejudice.

The rules that apply to goods apply to software, it's just that most don't seem to know or care. Mostly the problems around fitness for purpose stem from a lack of clear definitions or changing expectations. We have been bludgeoned over the years into accepting very poor quality software. Free software has also muddied the waters and lowered expectations. To use your example of cars. There are well defined systems for recalling cars to fix defects that have caused the delivered goods (the car) from not performing to either the expected specification or to regulation. This includes the software components of the car as well as the more physical components. Such pathways should also be available for software only goods.

We just live with poor software and throw our collective hands up as if saying. "it's all far too complicated" and "what do you expect". Well, how about expecting well engineered software that correctly deals with the complexity. Oh, you would probably have to pay for it but who expects a free car?

/EndRant

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Yeah, but the EULA does even guarantee that it works as intended, at all

good too see you bought the bullshit terminology to support the unfair terms of use for softewware.

[Bebu]

MS Got My Red Card....

thirty+ years ago. :)

Early unadopter I suppose. :)

While Cory Doctorow might have coined the word, Microsoft patented the recipe decades before.

[Vincent van Gopher]

Abusive relationship

I haven't allowed my self to be abused by M$ for a long time, they can go and - what is the term? - fsck themselves, I'll never go back.

[I like fruits]

Re: Abusive relationship

I'm in the same boat. I wish more people had self-respect and did not allow to be abused.

[jonsg]

Same old...

This is the same company that decides your work-in-progress is far less important than their minor bug-fix, and reboots your machine for you whenever they feel like it, without your consent. How much anguish and lost effort has that caused? Far more than the bugs and malware they're supposedly protecting us from, I'll guess.

Microsoft treats its retail customers (and, only slightly less, their enterprise customers) with uncaring contempt.

[david 12]

Re: Same old...

and reboots your machine for you whenever they feel like it, without your consent.

So why don't you de-select that option? It's a local policy on your Windows PC, or a global policy on your Windows Domain Server.

Not knowing this after 24 years is ... mind blowing. OK, you're Dev, not OPs, but ---

when it causes what looks like random masochism, we must assume it's deliberate.

[jonsg]

Re: Same old...

You're making the assumption the Windows PC in question is running Pro.

Plain Ol' Home Edition doesn't have the option to deselect it, unless you rummage around in setting the average Jo(e) User hasn't even heard of.

But sure, be rude and patronising if it makes you feel superior.

[david 12]

Re: Same old...

You're making the assumption the Windows PC in question is running Pro.

At The Register? In response to a comment about work in progress and how MS treats (and, only slightly less, their enterprise customers) ?

If your enterprise users are losing work-in-progress because they're on Windows Home, I don't think that's only MS's fault.

[NoneSuch]

"Microsoft treats its retail customers (and, only slightly less, their enterprise customers) with uncaring contempt."

As long as people pay them monthly, regardless of the quality of their software, there will be no improvements to anything. There is no incentive to improve if doing nothing for 30 days gives them another subscription fee in their account.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Novell Netware

If only Novell hadn't succumbed to Microsoft's competition, the world would be a very different place.

Whereas Microsoft migrated from the desktop to the Network, Novell started with the network and worked towards the Desktop, with for example the idea of a Desktop's Registry being stored on the Netware Server.

[oliverw24]

The only thing you need to know about Microsoft's appreciation of developers this: The sign-up page for the Microsoft App Store Developer Program has been broken for more than FOUR months and nobody as Microsoft seems to care.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Care? We're not paid to care."

[Gene Cash]

Microsoft just does random sh*t now

My Windows 10 VM updated, and they changed my Edge homepage to microsoft.com and my screen background from my selected picture to Windows Spotlight.

Apparently just for the f*ck of it.

I no longer assume there's any direction or strategy behind the company at all any more. I feel it's random middle/upper managers fighting for their turf.

[navarac]

Re: Microsoft just does random sh*t now

Mainly because the Advertising Dept is in charge, not the engineers. It is a case of "what can we dream up to make more money?"

[ecofeco]

Re: Microsoft just does random sh*t now

"I feel it's random middle/upper managers fighting for their turf."

Has been for twenty five years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes please

I have a long list of gripes, from undocumented limited to straight dishonesty over cloud sovereignty

[StrangerHereMyself]

User interface frameworks

I believe that Microsoft is deliberately sabotaging Windows UI frameworks to prevent people from switching to multipplatform frameworks like wxWidgets and Qt. Developers are perennially waiting for the UI frameworks like Xamarin, WPF, WinUI, MAUI and UWP to stabilize but they never do.

My advice would be to use wxWidgets to write your Windows programs. It's supported by all Windows platforms from Windows 95 all the way up to Windows 11, and you build your iOS and Linux application from the same source code.

[druck]

Re: User interface frameworks

They've got form in not being able to decide to stick with an API for more than 5 minutes, remember the number of database APIs; DAO, ADO, ODBC?

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

Re: User interface frameworks

That did settle down. ODBC is an open standard base layer and has non Windows implementations. You can still use ODBC if you wish to. DAO appears to be tied to Access/Jet, ADO is more generic so there were reasons to change.

I must admit that over a decade ago when I was writing a mail server with back end database access in Windows C++, I found ADO unnecessarily complex with a number of caveats (the performance limitations of certain APIs are not always spelled out, I found that an initial approach that worked then ground to a halt as the database size grew). I probably should have learned ADO properly, but instead I developed my own abstraction layer - it wasn't actually that difficult and was tremendously fast.

The nice thing about ODBC is that it's quite low level, and you know exactly what you're asking the database server to do.

[JRStern]

As it ever was

Microsoft has never had great developer support, outside their own walls.

Things are somewhat better than "DLL hell" back in the day, anyhow, LOL.

[AndrueC]

Re: As it ever was

Yeah. Now we have Nuget hell. Far worse in my experience.

[Tron]

Large tech companies are poisoning the computing ecosystem.

We need to start using less and simpler software. And we need an alternate, stable platform. That is a platform that does not have or need regular updates to be secure or viable for as much as five or even ten years through careful design.

[Boris the Cockroach]

A better question

to ask would be

"Quality assurance, Quality assurance, Quality assurance" what ever happened to quality assurance at m$

[TReko]

Re: A better question

Microsoft fired 60% of their QA dept in 2016 - end users now do it for them.

[druck]

Re: A better question

And since then they have fired the other 60%

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: A better question

where do yo uthink the money for bonuses comes from ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft top management have bet their credibility on "AI", and they are starting to get a little worried about this so they're refocussing all the company efforts on generating "AI successes".

So if you want their attention as a developer you need to make sure they think you are actively developing "AI" products/services.

[ByterBit]

The MS company ethos: "We don't care if you get work done or not".

The MS company ethos: "We don't care if you get work done or not".

I started using their software sometime in the mid 80's, and made my living with it (DOS, networking, VS, VB6, VBA, C#, MS Access) up till 2010 or so when the constant bugs and utter lack of *care* about them drove me first to Linux ( thank god for that) and then PHP and Node.

My feeling was: *anything* to get away from MS trash.

I now use Teams on a daily basis, and this works well - and have been thinking MS must be getting better, but reading these replies convinces me nothing has really changed there.

[druck]

Re: The MS company ethos: "We don't care if you get work done or not".

Teams works well, in what universe?

I spent about 17 years writing programs that ran on Windows, and 17 years writing programs which don't run on Windows, but 9 of them using tools on Windows. Two years when I first started we developed on Unix, and the last 6 years on Linux - thank god I'm now completely Windows free so I can do the thing I love without that shit (except the Linux version of Teams, hence the comment above), or I would have left the industry.

[david 12]

And if ever an outfit qualified for full understanding of its market, it's Microsoft.

A good article, and an interesting proposition, by why start with crap like that?

This is the company that brought us MSN as an alternative to WWW, and Pocket PC 2000, Windows Mobile and Windows IoT. And Windows 8 and Windows Vista. The company that has dropped WordPad, and is now in the process of converting Notepad into Wordpad.

At year 2000, I attributed this to their 'stack ranking' employment policy, which split the company into warring competitors directed by managers with the primary skill of 'not getting fired'.

That era has gone, but the company still brings out a new model every year, some years it's a F1000, some years it's an Edsel. There are always people working on new models, and the direction is determined by internal company politics.

[DownUndaRob]

SMTP Auth

/rant on

Consider SMTP AUTH,, you used to be able to enable it for a mailbox with a basic license and have at it, but apparently SMTP AUTH is insecure and deprecated.

Except it isnt, you can now pay, by the email, in Azure Communications instead..

[Anonymous Coward]

Points usually mean prizes

I'm wholeheartedly behind the idea - provided that each quarter the accumulated points get converted into "cattle-prod seconds" to be shared-out and applied to the top 100 managers.

[CowHorseFrog]

Its ceo ceo ceo nowdays...

just read all the articles in the media... all they ever seem to mention is ceo this or that... the same ceos that know jack shite about tthe topic they are bullshitting about.

One wonders why the media re-enforces their media value when they have zero knowledge.

[darcher]

Had to redevelop a number of LightSwitch Applications to Blazor ...

Had to redevelop a number of Xamarin Application to MAUI ...

Currently migrating Blazor applications to .Net 8 Blazor (major architecuture changes in .Net 8) ...

Moved development environent off Mac due to killing VS2022 for Mac ...

All with no real perceived benefit to the end user, and making my life a lot harder. I would rather be taking a product forward than spending time re-developing in a new framework.

[CowHorseFrog]

Always wondered how many software engineers are rewriting stuff to the latest version because ?

From my own personal experience atleast 1/4 of the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Many many years ago, we had a page-locking problem with Visual Basic 3 connecting to Access 1.1 databases. We contacted MS via their support teams but got no help what-so-ever. We only found out that the problem has been resolved - by migrating to Access 2.0 - when we read an article in Computer Weekly.

[Jeff Jones]

MS is getting more and more dev-unfriendly

The separation from dev (paying customers) by MS's development tools part of the organization has been going on a while.

MS abandoned Rapid Application Development (RAD), in which MS was dominant in the 1990s and into the 2000s, when the script-kiddies that rose to management positions decided that drag-and-drop UI designers (like the WinForms one that works so well, and was inherited in Visual Studio from Visual Basic) were unnecessary (Xamarin/MAUI, Blazor, WinUI3). The significant increase in development time as compared to the use of a RAD designer led to companies having to spend more on initial UI development time plus the inherent increase in layout errors and bugs from hand-coding the UI. The use of "Hot Reload" as a substitute is a joke. It does nothing to remove the time spent hand-coding the UI.

It is ironic that MS's Visual Studio that set the standard for visual UI development no longer has the "visual" aspect in UI development.

Alan Cooper and his small team did not take long to develop the first WinForms visual designer. Apparently, MS no longer has that caliber of developers to produce an up-to-date RAD UI Designer. It is not like they do not have the money. A team of the right people (a "Skunkworks" type team), 10 to 12 in number, could have a single RAD UI designer extension done within a year that services WinForms, WinUI3, MAUI, and Blazor. How MS does not see the payback in market share from providing this RAD tool, like they saw it in the late 1990s, is beyond me. It seems like they are looking at finding excuses not to build one to whine about, instead of real leadership that figures out how to get it done, and then does it with excellence.

There are several other areas within how Visual Studio works that show MS not being concerned with developers.