![D’oh! Facepalm](/design_picker/fa16d26efb42e6ba1052f1d387470f643c5aa18d/graphics/icons/comment/facepalm_48.png)
Forget One Windows, Microsoft says it's time to modernize your apps... Really?
Skype.
Outlook.
Office.
Visual Studio.
Windows.
You get the point.
Remember when Microsoft first hyped the Windows 10 development platform? "One Windows" was the theme. "Just one API and one package to reach all Windows 10 devices – PC, tablet, phone and more," said Windows developer corporate VP Kevin Gallo at the time. That was in April 2015. Just two months later, everything was different …
Seems like modernizing apps would not be a good idea for MSFT. Drop those Win32 apps and people can start dropping Windows.
Even for people who wanted to run UWP apps; just make a UWP-runtime for Linux. It's my understanding it would be significantly simpler than Wine.
As the author notes, "Microsoft has done remarkable work in modernizing the PC platform."
Yes, once he explained what he means by the term "modernize" (US spelling, interestingly), that statement is quite true. It's also why I, like millions of others, am avoiding Windows 10 like the plague that it is. Microsoft has without a doubt done remarkable work in making Windows as stupid and unusable as it is.
Progress isn't really beneficial if you're standing on the edge of a cliff; sometimes staying put or reversing course is preferable. The idea that we have to keep doing the same thing and going in the same direction even after it has failed because "that's progress" and to refuse to recognize failure and reverse course because that's anti-progress is is insanity.
This ill-conceived "app" crapp on Windows is one such instance of that insanity. Can't MS just admit that "One UI to rule them all" was a bad idea (like Canonical did) and reverse course to a time when we had a desktop OS that was actually designed for the large majority of PCs running Windows? You know, with keyboards, mice, and non-touch, large monitors. You can just hear the strawmen being erected even now... "Why don't you just go back to DOS and its 640k barrier?"
Some proponents of "modern" seem to believe that the entire field of OS development can be reduced to something akin to a railroad track, with cavemen drawing on cave walls with rocks, and whatever their particular vision for the future may be on the other end, and if you don't support their vision of the future, you must then want what's at the other end of that track. It's both a strawman fallacy and a false dichotomy all rolled into one.
Of course, my example would be a strawman of its own if it were a distortion of what they say, but it's not... I've had that argument, repeatedly. The only thing that really varies is the particular relic of the past they choose.
This whole idea of "modern" and "progress" and all of that is kind of silly anyway; who is to decide what is modern? Why is a flat UI more modern than a skeuomorphic one? They're different, and we can evaluate them both on their merits, and when that's done, the flat UI loses (referencing that study again).
The reality of "modern" in the context that it is used here is that it just means something that's following the latest fashion trend, and fashion changes regularly for no logical reason except to sell more stuff. It doesn't make it better because it's newer... if it did, Windows 10 would be the best Windows ever in reality, not just in Microsoft slogan-making land.
It's all BS anyway. What MS *really* wants is to create a different and incompatible version of Windows inside Win32, one based on a closed wall garden that allows them to finally kill Win32 and have absolute control over the platform.
This way you can only sell through the Windows Store and MS gets an automatic 30% cut over any application being sold, as well as a say on what they allow to be published and what not. At the same time they want to turn Windows from a stand-alone OS into a service, and profit from that too. All at the expense of everyone else.
Yeah, right. If Windows became popular in the first place is because it was an OPEN platform. Perhaps MS should be reminded of Steve Ballmer's on-stage shouts: "developers, developers, developers!"
... "modernize" (US spelling, interestingly) ...
That is NOT "US spelling". British English allows the use of either 's' or 'z' in words which have been verbed by adding an "-ize" ending, and the OED prefers the 'z' spelling.
Verbing in this way follows Classical Greek, in which the suffix is spelt with the letter Zeta, which is conventionally transliterated to 'Z' in English.
Some words in English whose "-ise" ending is not formed in this way are properly spelt with an 's' (e.g. "revise", where the 's' is already present in the word "(re)vision"), Many writers prefer to use 's' spellings throughout, to save having to remember when 'z' is more appropriate; but that does NOT mean that the 'z' spelling is wrong for those words verbed, as "modernize" is, by adding "-ize" to a noun.
However, the word "modernize" comes, in this article, from Microsoft's Kevin Gallo, who seems to be an American. In that context the use of "US spelling" is far from interesting.
I think part of the issue is that Windows forms however great it was, was developed decades ago. It wasn't designed with hi resolution, designers or modern hardware. They have probably baked in hundreds of fixes which make things run slower than they could have. Many people complain why windows uses more resources and one part is that without rewriting windows forms all over and somehow making it compatible with all the business software written ever from Windows 95 onwards (over 20 years).
So the new system was designed to have a clean break yet still have backwards compatibility with the old system. They can not go fully with no backwards compatibility, just look at what happened to BB10, Palm Pre, Windows Phone OS. And they can't go the Apple iOS route of slowly yet surely killing off apps which aren't compatible.
Generally if you want to write windows forms it's much more difficult to write as XAML is much more easier to read, especially if you know how to read HTML .There's a reason why Windows form apps look mostly the same, and that's because it's really difficult to customize, but because it is the most compatible with Windows 7, we'll probably see it being used for a little longer.
Many older programmers and admins were just fine with the command line, but when GUIs became a thing many luddites hated it with a passion. And the hate was mainly because it was slower, which was true but it was much easier for people who weren't used to command line. Just because it doesn't match your tastes doesn't mean that other people liked it, I think if this matters so much to people, they should just move to Linux as it was designed for customisation. I know a few people new to computers who find Windows 8/8.1 far easier to use than Windows 7/10 since it is closer to how mobile phones work, but that could just be my sample.
Resizing, etc on forms was a big thing in 1996. That was solved a long time ago.
I dont need crap "non forms slick resizing, etc". If I wanted that, I would use one of the myriad js frameworks (and that is what I do), make web apps with a backend and charge by subscription or because that is the portal to our company services.
If we use .NET it is because it runs native on windows, if they break that, why bother? they seem keen on destroying their bread and butter in order to sell more azure.
"Many older programmers and admins were just fine with the command line, but when GUIs became a thing many luddites hated it with a passion."
Programmers and admins are luddites?
See, there's that thing I mentioned. If you're not in favor of whatever ($person) thinks is the future, you must be a caveman. Only two choices; progress toward one person's vision or the stone age (or somewhere along that timeline).
"I know a few people new to computers who find Windows 8/8.1 far easier to use than Windows 7/10 since it is closer to how mobile phones work,"
How are Windows 10 and 8.1 closer to how mobile phones work? Installing a new OS does not make your monitor turn into a touchscreen and make the mouse and keyboard vanish. It still has the same mode of operation, just with comically oversized controls (intended for a 5" screen) and a lot more drilling to find the option you want in various menus, since that's the norm for screens too small to include more than a small handful of options.
Not only that, but that's only in the half of Win 8 or 10 that looks like a phone (but isn't)... if you want to do anything useful (that is, use a win32 program), the entire UI changes to something that isn't much like what they're used to. That's not more like a phone at all... it's more inconsistent and confusing than a phone or a proper PC UI. An interface that looks like it should be touch-enabled (because it was designed for that) but isn't, with a jarring inconsistency between modes... that confused a lot of people who were adept with Windows 7 and their mobile phone.
"Programmers and admins are luddites?"
I didn't mean to generalise, but I do think as a developer sometimes things were better in command line, but since I was brought up on Windows 3.11 I knew many people using GUIs who otherwise couldn't use computers. I generally feel that Microsoft made a mistake pandering to the tastes of old users when being able to train a newer set of users would be a big deal. I got used to Windows 8 fairly quickly and actually preferred it to Windows 10 and Windows 7, because it was easier to layout items in 2 dimensions than in folder layout, compared to Windows 7 and below where you could have unlimited folders, it felt like it wasn't organised.
"How are Windows 10 and 8.1 closer to how mobile phones work?"
Windows 10 is not closer to how mobile phones work, but Windows 8/8.1 is because it behave based on swipes for right side bar, menu bars will bring up a fresh screen of icons in full screen mode. Yes I know that people who have really short memories felt that they cannot do two things at once such as remember what was previously on screen whilst searching for something in "Start" on Windows 8 but I felt that was a good thing, since it meant I wasn't constantly being distracted and also meant I had to think like I would in command line and actually remember things. In iOS, Android, Blackberry, Palm, Nintendo DS/3DS/Wii/Wii U/Switch, Nokia Symbian/Maemo, Sony Playstation, Xbox, and Android you always see a full screen of icons. Only OSX, OS/2, Windows and Linux have non full screen use, I would hope people could learn to use many different systems, but in real life most people like to have consistency among their system. Makes it easier when I have to teach my mum how to use Windows when they are already used to how iOS/Windows/Android works. As I said previously if you really wanted a custom environment Linux is much better for this.
I know i'm in the minority but that minority can grow to a majority if Microsoft had the balls to see it through. I still like going into Linux/Dos command line as I can do file manipulation much easier and faster.
I agree having an inconsistent look to apps is bad, but do you think Android was able to force older apps to use the new design aesthetics, nope they just said if you can't get up to a certain version, you just can't use the app. Microsoft doesn't have the same luxury as they aren't hip like Apple and Android and also seeing how all the other OS like Nokia, Blackberry and Palm not being backwards compatible basically meant the older user base had no reason to upgrade to the next phone since all their existing apps weren't compatible, regardless of how much better the newer operating system was compared to other systems. I am a self confessed luddite, I still use a Blackberry and Windows. But I also had used iOS, OSX, Linux, Maemo, Symbian, Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox operating system, and there seems to be a trend towards have more simpler interfaces.
"that confused a lot of people who were adept with Windows 7 and their mobile phone"
You're just being elitist by keeping people who are adept with the old system. The less time I need to train other people because the operating system gets in the way the better it is to focus on the task at hand, which is why most games run full screen and remove all that OS chrome. Windows 8 was removing more and more chrome but I guess people are happy to keep the status quo. Whether you like it or not more and more computers will be touch based, even toddler know how to work their way around a tablet but would require lots more training to learn how to operate traditional desktop environment.
Try writing a program with Windows forms and another with XAML, XAML is far more easier to read and is more flexible.
iOS, Android, Blackberry, Palm, Nintendo DS/3DS/Wii/Wii U/Switch, Nokia Symbian/Maemo, Sony Playstation, Xbox, and Android you always see a full screen of icons. Only OSX, OS/2, Windows and Linux have non full screen use
Mobiles have a small screen so can't usefully have a UI with windows (see first ever Windows Mobile up to version 6.5 as to why).
Devices with big-screen UIs need large simple UI and usually have simple input devices to control them so again, they don't have a UI with windows.
Notice that a mobile UI and a big-screen UI are different from each other. Stock Android runnning on a TV using an air mouse for input is a crappy experience.
Computer screens are neither small nor far away (Dougal) and have two input devices capable of finer control. You can have different apps side by side and switch between them and copy daya between them easily. TIFKAM doesn't allow you to do that, it's a step backwards.
This ill-conceived "app" crapp on Windows is one such instance of that insanity. Can't MS just admit that "One UI to rule them all" was a bad idea (like Canonical did) and reverse course to a time when we had a desktop OS that was actually designed for the large majority of PCs running Windows? You know, with keyboards, mice, and non-touch, large monitors. You can just hear the strawmen being erected even now... "Why don't you just go back to DOS and its 640k barrier?"
I shall attempt to answer this, in the reality of how Micro-shaft *REALLY* sees it.
a) We at Micro-shaft believe that the 'app' model is the future, and "the Store" is the only way you should be able to deploy them.
b) We at Micro-shaft continue to listen to our customers, who we *FEEL* are generally shifting to a more 'mobile' platform, and as such we must ensure that we are "jiggy with it" by making our platform look more like "mobile".
c) We at Micro-shaft don't give a RAT'S ASS how many PC makers are losing sales because our desktop operating system STINKS ON ICE. We want to leverage everyone into doing things OUR way using OUR model so we can have a perpetual revenue source. It's a slow process because a frog in hot water won't notice the temperature change until he's cooked.
d) We at Micro-shaft are selling touchy-feely computers to go with our touchy-feely attitudes, and if you don't buy a Surface, we have no sympathy for you. The other manufacturers can eat our scraps if they want to, but if you can't touch the screen, we don't give a crap about your computer, or YOU for that matter.
and of course if I must go back to an MS-DOS like thing, let's just shift over to Linux, shall we? BASH is a great command line interpreter, and it works best when you run THE REAL THING [or BSD] and not Micro-shaft's crap-clone version.
Agree, except that "modernize" happens to be the UK English spelling as well (it's the French who write "moderniser"). Cf. OED and Fowler(sub -ize): 'the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in origin the Greek "-izein", Latin "izare; &, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic.' (He goes on to instance some exceptions e.g. surprise, and remarks that the difficulty of remembering these is probably why there is confusion.)
I'm with Dan 55. Azure/cloud is just being pushed to make more money for Microsoft. On the UI front, the new apps seem like mostly a flop. This is after Microsoft threw WPF under the bus. .NET has also been somewhat of a fiasco with .NET Core. I can't say I'm a fan of what they've been doing with ASP.NET Core either. In general, I think they have realized that they are losing ground and need to support platforms other than Windows. As such, they have had to get .NET running on other platforms. Too bad they hadn't done this originally. They would be a lot better off now. Now they are playing catch up. It is pretty ridiculous how many different versions of .NET they have also that are incompatible with each other. I.e. Silverlight versus .NET Framework, etc. I always thought it was ridiculous that they didn't just have a unified base that worked everywhere. We will see if they ever get to that point. I will take .NET over Java any day, but, I think Microsoft has been screwing things up and making things more complicated that it should be. There are a lot of other really annoying things they have done as well. Such as the idiotic Office bar UI and eliminating menus. All in all, there has been a lot of flailing around. And then they waste time on cheesy things like augmented reality.
I've seen the term 'Modern' used in SUCH pejorative ways by the coolaid addicts and incorrigible Win-10-nic fanbois, it's almost like "the M word" now.
"Modernize" ==> get with the program you throwback, ex-hippy, old-fart, stick-in-the-mud, "get off my lawn" refuse-to-change'er, like there's something WRONG with YOU for NOT "loving it" with Win-10-nic.
"Thoroughly Modern Microsoft" needs to stop co-opting the English language for their own evil purposes.
/me is old enough to know what REAL hippies are/were, and not the pretenders who live 50 miles outside of Silly Valley along the left coast of the USA...
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Their strategy is to shift strategy continuously... how long this one will last? Until their next Great Idea? "Modernization" is mostly a synonym of "dumbing down" today. Oversimplified mobile UIs with too large widgets on a desktop too.
Moreover beware of making UI design and implementation too difficult with animations, materials, lights, whatever - most users needs relatively simple applications with a relatively simple UI able to display the data then need and act upon them. They don't need videogame styles applications difficult to interact with.
To keep on working on something everywhere I just need a simple VPN. I did that when the sun was shining and there were no clouds.
"Microsoft have one ?"
Yes - didn't you hear? It's "Mobile First, Cloud First". Mobile is a critical component of Microsoft's strategy. They have invested heavily in mobile and expect it to be a large and growing part of their revenue stream going forward, possibly even overtaking sales of Windows, Office, Windows Server, and SQL Server combined. It is foundational to Microsoft's future and they won't be able to survive long-term without it. </sarcasm>
"Microsoft is endeavouring to improve manageability and security by making it behave more like a mobile operating system, including Store-delivered applications"
Just how the hell SECURITY is being improved by making a PC more like a bloody mobile phone ?
And as for manageability, don't make me laugh. Just put the UI back to Windows 7 and a PC can be managed just fine.
Finally, keep your stupid Store. I will not have myself locked in on my PC. It's MINE, Microsoft, not yours.
"Finally, keep your stupid Store..."
The golden age of windows computing, you wanted an application, you searched for it, downloaded it (or possibly got the CD) installed it. It always worked for me, and probably several million others.
Then along comes Apple with their locked down mentality and their 'App Store'. They make lots of money. Microsoft see apple making money from their 'Store' and want some. So they they then trot out the 'manageability / security' stuff, as it's the perfect excuse for them to peddle their wares. Another tactic : remove useful stuff from the OS by default, but make it 'free' to download from the 'store'. I'm thinking Solitare, paint, that kinda thing. You then get to show off other paid for stuff, and get to try to up sell.
The Windows Store (or whatever the fuck it's called) is about envying apples billions, and wanting in. Nothing more.
It's also very strange that even though they've abandoned mobile, they're still peddling this "store" and "universal" crap upon us.
Just give us a decent desktop, that keeps out of my face and lets me do what I want, without telling anyone about what I'm doing - that's what everyone wants.
Until then, I can't use Windows.
"The Windows Store (or whatever the fuck it's called) is about envying apples billions, and wanting in. Nothing more."
I'm not convinced that there's nothing more. I do think that M$ has its share of true believers who honestly believe, misguided as they may be, that filtering all apps through "the company store" will somehow protect users from malicious apps. Why they believe that they can detect security flaws in third-party store apps when their own apps are riddled with security flaws is beyond me.
Sorry, but not in the eyes of Microsoft. You may have bought the hardware, and that parts yours, but you only have a license to run the software, which remains Microsoft's property. MS allow you to run their software on your hardware, and that's about it. If you agree to their EULA, you're then committing yourself to Microsoft's laws, restriction and control. If you don't want any of this, then don't run Windows on *your* hardware. There's plenty of other choice out there.
"If you agree to their EULA, you're then committing yourself to Microsoft's laws, restriction and control."
So if they wrote in there that they had the right to come to your house and take stuff from your house anytime they wanted, that would be okay too? I mean, you did agree to it, right?
The whole "license" thing is nonsense too. A license, in the non-governmental sense, is a particular negotiated exemption of copyright or patent law granted to a given person or entity. A license cannot impose any restrictions; once the person is granted the exemption to the copyright law, that's the extent of what a license can do. Anything beyond that is a contract, not a license. I signed a contract when I bought my house, and my car too.
The software companies have been picking and choosing from both baskets (contract and license) for far too long, and it's a shame that in the US at least, the government has chosen to pretty much let them and others like them (MPAA, RIAA, etc.,) do whatever they want. It doesn't mean it has any basis in law or in simple ideas of right and wrong; they get away with it because that's how it is in a corrupt system.
Still, it is what it is, and choosing to not use Windows 10 is a very good idea.
My personal favorite is how every Windows Store app automatically opens up inbound ports to everything. It is a complete joke. Check your firewall rules on Windows 10. You will see. Delete or disable them and they will comeback within a day. How this is considered acceptable is beyond me. It tells me that Microsoft isn't serious about security. Whatever happened to their whole Trusted Computing Initiative? Apparently, they modernized it away and gave up on it.
Lucky you!
Office 2016 has improved thankfully but isn't perfect. When I first used it earlier this year, Outlook crashed once every day or two, and Excel would also crash at least 2-3 times a week. With some updates, it is more reliable now, but it still crashes more regularly than Office 2010 ever did for me.
Re: Visual Studio.... Could you pause all the esoteric stuff that only 2% of users are even bothered about just long enough to fix the code editor formatting that EVERYONE uses? With all the vastly over complex formatting controls switched off, editing a Razor file (.cshtml) is like watching a ballet dance. Nothing stays where you put it, particularly if you have the audacity to copy and paste a bit of code from one section to the next. Basic stuff, you'd think. Easy enough for the world's biggest set of software experts, eh? So prove it. Fix it. THEN you can get on an sort the fluff out for the big boys.
--Thank you
(A Visual InterDev/Visual Studio user for the past 20 years)
Bit of a side step but they even managed to mess up minecraft by imposing the PC UI on the xbox version. It's bloody awkward and has fewer options and fetures than the orginal. It's amazing how MS manage to make or buy a good product and then proceed to shoot themselves in the foot with a cannon.
Lovely themes, all of which make some effort to add depth to the UI controls. However, I'm not sure that it's true to say this is reflected in W10 or many of the other Microsoft apps. They still seems to be stuck in the metro mindset of everything being flat 2D with no contrast, so it's impossible to know what's a UI control and what's not, which is the complete opposite of the "Fluent Design System" principles proposed here.
Yet another flip-flop reversal guaranteed to confuse users who have just started getting used to the last UI design "revolution".
Hey, they've updated the W10 Calculator app with the fluent design system - it's not just flat anymore, but flat with some annoying animations every time you put your mouse near it.
Oh great, so it's like some of those annoying *nux Window Managers that everybody stopped liking ten years ago then?
It also now crashes / hangs with great frequency, consuming 30% of the CPU time while doing nothing until you kill it, whenever I hear my fans ramping up I know where to look.
The Windows 7 version was great, this is an abomination like the new Solitaire game.
*slow clap*
we haven't made any real effort to repackage all of our applications and change distribution methods. How could any large organisation be expected to put in the time/effort to do so when Microsoft continually change their 'best practice' approach.
First it was App-V, with a dedicated streaming server and terminal services
Then it was back to desktops but with App-v packages deployed through sccm and roaming profiles
Then Appx and the horribly unreliable UEV
Now they want us to 'store' all of our applications or deploy via Intune to desktops as if they were mobile phones.
No thanks.
Same here.
We've spent some time investigating (wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't MS), and have zero interest in any of it.
It's also anti cross-platform (surprise!), and that's what our customers are now demanding - not a link in the store, under the control of another untrustable and indecisive company.
This just adds to the technical debt that we'll find ourselves in a few years.
It's no wonder people are writing web based stuff these days. At least iOS and Android you don't have to throw away six months work and rewrite it from scratch every six months.
Right now, it honestly looks to me like Microsoft are intent on killing off the concept of third-party software for Windows and allowing everyone else to go away and develop for other platforms while retaining Windows as their personal fiefdom. I can see the logic, as they're trying to be more like Apple, and they want those high margins as well, but the truth is there's only room for one Apple and there's a whole lot more people who don't want to Apple money and not get Apple stuff.
Till now that happened only if you used blindly every MS "new technology" instead of keeping on writing plain Win32 applications - those have saw a good deal of forward and backward compatibility.
But I agree with you now MS is in full "me too!!!!" mode - on one side with a Google-like data slurp effort, on the other with an Apple-like dream of a store, which Apple anyway enforce on iOS and not yet on macOS, where it would probably see resistance as well.
Nor power users needing desktop systems welcome the dumbed now "mobile experience" on their systems. But Nadella is really not capable of looking beyond his nose. He see the hype about "big data", "cloud", and "mobile" and has to fit everything inside it - even if customers feel the products become less usable.
Lets look at UWP apps.
Your app can be suspended (and maybe later terminated, playing safe have to assume suspend = terminate, as get a suspend event to hook into but not a terminate one)
There is a 5 second deadline for dealing with suspend - this seems a lot, but with a complex app and distributed cloudy data sources then potentially lots of network lag time, and if 5s deadline happens to coincide with low bandwidth / other network issues then you can be totally stuffed.
Which essentially means UWP apps (if they are classic complex db backend apps) must be "always" trying to save state as they go along, which can be a pain if your UWP app is a "classic" DB backed app as have to store ongoing changes (and depening on "backend" db, you might not be able to "cheat" by just opening transaction and leaving it open until user backs out or OKs their changes (and then roll / commit) - as can exceed max transactions available, long running transactions could have lock / concurrency issues, etc. So you end up with all sorts of temporary local state storage solutions, adding needless complexity to teh app just to workaround UWP.
.. or you just don't bother writing your big, complex, DB using app as UWP, but as a old school, win forms where you have more chance to get everything tidied up on controlled closedown as the arbitrary 5s deadline is not present.
UWP model is fine for small, non complex apps, but not so good for a "big beast", and many a business critical win app is a big beast
I am starting to wonder what on earth is in all of these .Net development packages because I can't keep up any longer.
I am thinking of finding something like Borland C that runs on Windows 7 and just using that from now on because I am tired of finding all my applications being obsolete and it's time to find the simplest code set possible.
I have really had enough with Microsoft. Once they had a good and simple vision and now I haven't got a clue what they are doing and, thus, I haven't got a clue as to what I should be doing.
Unluckily Borland screwed up spectacularly, and what is left now (at Idera/Embarcadero) are overpriced so-so tools requiring also a pricey subscription to receive updates. Their C++ compiler is now mostly a front-end for CLang/LLVM, as they try to be cross-platform as well.
Very little remains competing with VS under Windows. Sure, you can try some cross-platform tools and compilers, but to develop Windows applications only they aren't great. The web killed a lot of the market for native applications, MS and .NET did the rest.
This is just one of the reasons why I consider the VC#2008 installer one of the most valuable bits of data in my personal archive - not only is is pretty much the last version that provided a decent UI of its own before thing started going downhill towards the monochromatic flatness hell we currently inhabit in Windows-land, it's also old enough to not have the ability to even suggest that I ought to try creating anything that might resemble a TIFKAM UI.
Free Pascal + Lazarus is also a good bet if you want to remain firmly old-school when it comes to developing desktop code, particularly if your path to developing Windows applications began with dabbling in Delphi, as well as if you really don't want to be dealing with any of the stuff in .net that tries to protect you from yourself and just want to hack out a quick and dirty bit of code in 5 minutes to do one simple task.
FreePascal too is part of those applications which aren't really great for Windows development. Usable, but not great. Especially because it lacks those good third party libraries Delphi had in its best days, i.e. those from Developer Express. FP was never a good market for such libraries.
Delphi still exists, but besides being become very expensive, it's became a strange tool with cross-platform ambitions, and having lost a lot of the core developers - first development was moved to Spain/Romania, after the Idera acquisition it was moved to Ukraine - it lost a lot of internal coherency. Regardless of the developers' skills, you need a good architect and a strong core to keep everything in line and design new features properly.
It started to borrow heavily and blindly instead from Java and .NET, and started to become a Frankenstein language, while chasing the fashion du jour. Trying ro support Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and now Linux from the same product doesn't help either - especially it's a all-or-nothing, you can't buy, say, just the tools for Windows development.
Its past attempts to ride the .NET wagon as well lead to nothing, just a scorched field and higher prices.
I've been doing Pascal since '78 and it's done my head in too many times over the years. I did enjoy Delphi when it came out as it was something right clever for the day and age. And I will never forget that renaming a control also meant that the event handler's name was updated by the IDE.
I think that my first Pascal on Windows 3.1 was something like Borland Pascal.
And, yes, I have seen Embarcadero. Or, rather, its pricing and said NO.
Microsoft used to do a good C/C++ compiler. I remember the pile of books that came with it which weighed in at about twenty five pounds. Simple it wasn't.
I don't know. But it seemed a lot simpler in the old days when the centre of the Windows was a nice simple loop that one interrupted. No idea how it works nowadays if it does and perhaps it's a horrible dream.
I have heard of a COBOL.Net and an APL.Net and that really does take the biscuit. Perhaps I should retire to a cabin in the Welsh Marches with a weekly postal delivery, a monthly oil delivery and just go off-grid until the madness goes away because this isn't funny any more.
It can run your legacy *Nix stuff too.
I run *Nix stuff because I want security (not just in the malware sense but that my OS will stay the same and my apps will remain), privacy, reliability and speed.
None of these are available from MS, not even in their much rootedtouted "store".
I don't think developers are really using it.
Not at all. No mention of it in any job ads, either.
There was a small wiff last year, when Windows Mobile was ready to take over the world... so I learnt a bit about it (I'm a contractor), but in reality the only thoughts about it are from Microsoft. It's only them who benefit from it.
There's no advantage of it over .NET, now or future. .NET is portable, and can run on more platforms (even if you exclude non-Microsoft). If you're distributing clients, who wants single-platform by design in this day and age? (I'm not asking you, MS).
And .NET would be hard for MS to drop (as in, it would piss a lot of people off).
"And .NET would be hard for MS to drop (as in, it would piss a lot of people off)."
it's very existence kinda pisses ME off. It was an early attempt to turn senior Win32 developers into "junior .Not developers" by essentially CHANGING THE ENTIRE GAME. I won't write any application that uses it. EVAR. And C-pound stinks on ice.
Win32 API made sense. Everything "new, shiny" since the 'turn of the century' has pretty much STUNK, except a handful of stuff that ended up in the Windows 7 UI [though I think I prefer XP or 2k, given the choice].
...about the Store thingy.
On the one hand, I recognise all the downsides everyone here has already mentioned, and agree with most of them.
On the other hand, running Debian (or a derivative), it's always been fantastically convenient to have almost every piece of software I need ready, pre-packaged and compatible in my distro's AppStore^W repositories.
OK, they're not completely equivalent. For one, Windows Store's apps are limited in ways DEB packages aren't.
But there are a lot of similarities too.
The difference being that the repositories are maintained by the distro makers as a courtesy to their users, usually at no cost to the end user.
Whereas Microsoft's Store is intended, in the long term, to be only for the benefit of itself.
Last time I looked the cost of Visual Studio (which you probably will, at some time in the future if not already, need one of the paid versions to submit to the app store) was pretty eye-watering. The cost of, say, kdevelop or netBeans? Not so much.
The goal appears to be NOT a "modernised" GUI, but post-Modern GUI that looks like laser printed sans-serif with loads of white space, no coherent structure and no clues where to click.
Just scrap UWP / Metro / Fluid Design* and everything like it.
[* I no objection to forms / windows intended to be resized doing it in some sort of "responsive" fashion compatible with screen readers, or GUIs that handle high DPI large screens and 800 x 600 screens properly]
I don't know about Win 10 but what gets my goat is Win 8s patronising dialogues. Things like "We are searching for blah", "We are just setting up blah". FFS it's a computer not a dating site!! I don't want a personal relationship with a fecking computer. How many people are actually inside the box? [A likely MS response would be: Our name is Legion, for we are many]
Remember the little drum and sticks animation in Win 98? That used to drive me crazy when,"Searching for drivers", but I'd rather have that sort of impersonal dialogue back now thank you very much!
While I'm in the middle of a good rant, Cortana, Siri, OKG and Alexa can all feck off as well!
<goes off to cuddle baby rabbits :) >
For the youngsters, here's a link: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_pX_L3XoAAn8bX.jpg
It's all just symptoms of the main point:
MS have never understood that the best OS is one that can be ignored.
People do not want any kind of relationship with their Operating System. No-one, in the history of ever, has booted up a computer purely to use the OS. They want to run programs that sit on top of that OS, and they want those programs to interact with them. If they could get to the programs without an OS at all, then they would.
MS has, instead, always wanted to make using Windows 'an experience'. They constantly inject shit that jumps up and down in front of you screaming "LOOK AT ME, I'M MR MESEEKS AN OPERATING SYSTEM, AREN'T I FUN AND EXCITING?!?!". To which the answer will literally always be 'no', because there is nothing exciting about operating systems. Even to those of us who like computers, OSes are an unfortunate necessity rather than an objective in themselves. Well, maybe not including some of the more extreme Linux fans.
It's pretty simple. Be configurable, be secure by default, and be unobtrusive. Don't go looking for applause because you've successfully loaded the networking driver, or pop up with 'helpful' notifications to point out that you've started installing an update at the most inconvenient time ever. Even the 'good' versions of Windows (98, XP, 7) tended to fail on these points.
The informal 'chummy' messages and dialogues are part of Microsoft's 'grand strategy' to connect with the youths, and in turn endear them to Microsoft's products and the Microsoft brand.
If you want further proof: the revamped Skype and the smiley on Win10's BSOD. Also, the acquisition of Minecraft.
By youth I mean the millennial generation.
Long ago, I remember reading a Microsoft Style Guide for technical writers, and using an informal personal tone in technical messages was a big no-no. You got to keep it formal, clear and concise.
I guess there is a paradigm shift to 'humanise' technology now. Hell, they're even giving girly names to voice assistants now.
"The informal 'chummy' messages and dialogues are part of Microsoft's 'grand strategy' to connect with the youths, and in turn endear them to Microsoft's products and the Microsoft brand."
Their strategy ONLY works if you expect your customer base to be BABIES.
Everything I've ever learned about management techniques tells me that this is *WRONG* on too many levels.
If you expect your customer base to be ADULTS, then the children will RISE to the occasion.
if you expect your customer base to be IDIOTS, then _ONLY_ _IDIOTS_ will want it.
I lost it with the new HMRC's voice activated phone system so wrote them a strongly worded complaint. They phoned me up and offered me £20 compensation. If you wondered where the waste was, now you know! Not only developing a totally unnecessary system but doing it badly and then paying the nation compensation for doing it in the first place!
yet another complete pivot in strategy.
I've no idea how Microsoft still exist when they can't stick to one strategy for more than 12 months.
I've also just read elsewhere that they've officially killed off Kinect now. Yet another Microsoft product that showed huge potential but they just gave up on prematurely.
But same shit, different day.
This type of thing used to affect me. I've had two decades of MS development, always churning. "This is the future - and we promise not to can it this time". Then by the time you're at v1.5 you're already "legacy".
Glad I jumped of the MS treadmill. *smug*
The Standard Brush
Clearly there is only the need to purchase one general-purpose brush. This can be manufactured to the lowest common denominator design so that it can adequately perform all of the following functions:
Clean floors
Remove cobwebs
Brush teeth
Groom dog/cat
Unblock drains
Brush suit
Dust kitchen surfaces
Clean toilet
Clear leaves from gutters
Brush hair
I just can't understand why people don't seem to accept such an obviously practical suggestion. Although I agree the 'standard profile brush' may not actually be ideal for any of these tasks, I can't seem to convince people of the convenience factor and ease-of-use benefits.
and they wonder why people still use VB6. In fact, without a logical upgrade path VB6 is almost all that's left!
I think that I use VB6 for about 70% of my development these days.
The forms may not be pretty but for most things: it just works.
And my VB6 IDE runs about two million times faster than my $YEAR .Net IDE which helps. In fact, I would say that for most tasks I can get into VB6, do the coding, test, compile and release it whilst the .Net IDE is still starting up and sorting out the form editor for the one simple form that I am editing.
Upvote from me.
Ah Microsoft's latest and greatest plan for developers. I love these moments.
I get to sit and watch everyone fret and worry about how they will deal with this massive change to their working system, and I carry on churning out Win32 apps.
As long as MS allows win32 apps, I will be here, when they don't... I'll probably never turn a computer on again.
Until last week Portable Class Libraries (PCL) were the way to 'safeguard' your code so you could move to Xamarin/Mono, or whatever in the future. Now its deprecated, and they have .NET Standard 2.0 (after everyone already gave up at around 1.4 or so).
Except, they haven't updated their other tools. So Click-Once deployment. Nope. WebDeploy, nope. Even using Prism/Unity, nope. Stuck on PCL there (or .NET native, but why would you use that when PCL did most of everything you wanted anyway).
Oh, and the poster above who talked about the UWP apps suspend, and getting 5 seconds to save state. We have some scanners with Windows 10 Embedded in them, and when you push a new app via inTune, or MDM, it just kills the app, no suspend event called! Users love it when they loose an unknown number of barcodes so have to start from scratch again.
The same could be said of many websites today, especially after a major layout revamp.
Gotta make it trendy and hipster. Wasted space means 'mobile friendly'.
Case in point: the new Youtube website UI layout. I always revert to old/classic. The wasted space and the hipster font really makes me disgusted.
They always change the tech, making it uninteresting to invest time and energy in learning it.
In Creator Update they removed the ability to even have UI fonts bold etc, requiring one to use AeroTweaker to fix it. Very annoying for accessibily. I wonder how grandpa can actually see those super fine characters (actually, a lot of managers have the same issue as far as I can see).
I've got a 4K screen and having all of that font stuff right in Win10 is doable, despite Microsoft actively being actively blocking the abilities.
So, it is all nice to have the super goodies but get the basics right first.
I always end up thinking that there are various groups inside MS that have their view on things should work and this ultimately gives that pile of historical leftovers (read more or less failed experiments).
FWIW I am writing this from a box running MATE on CentOS.
Microsoft, here's an idea.... Try sticking with some fucking thing. ANYTHING.
Microsoft is taking on the worst characteristics of Google...just tossing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks instead of being a forward thinking organization that lights the way to the future.
They are done. They have let shareholders drive the bus for so long that nobody actually knows where the company is going. Now they just send out hoards of VW Beetles and claim the one that goes the farthest was what they were planning all along.
God help you if you were in one of the shorter roaming Beetles. You'll just be left to walk, crawl or hitchhike to the next Beetle launch location. And good luck guessing which Beetle will go farthest then.
Picking a product to go forward with from Microsoft or Google is like buying scratch off lottery tickets, only buying into one of their experiments can cost you thousands (maybe millions) in lost hours to a dead technology, re-tooling and re-training....and can possibly doom your small business to bankruptcy - all for trusting that they actually knew what they were doing.
They don't. This should be well evident by now to even the most strident supporter of Google or Microsoft.
They constantly change course (easy for them because investors keep shoving cash at them to blow in whatever way they see fit). And, while this certainly works to continue the scams that they roll out every 2 years or so, it is not viable for small businesses.
It's time for a business that is built for small business and home users again. And Microsoft ain't it.