back to article Ballmer once yelled: Developers, developers! Today it would be: Docs! Support! Certificates!

Technology platform companies depend on third-party developers to such an extent that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously turned his company's codependence into a mantra, repeating "Developers! Developers! Developers!" as a sign of appreciation. Almost two decades later, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think they'd be happier...

    ... if they stopped being outsourced to offshore

  2. BaronMatrix

    OMG, Monkey Boy

    The day they said that developers got shoved into the back seat... Win7 took away Virtual Server, Windows 8 created a huge mess of my workstation and now I have a phone OS that thinks I'll be talking to it.. It has made it difficult for me to work the way I do... I MAY reboot my machine once every few months, not when MS wants to give me phantom updates...

    And now I have to probably get a server version or MAYBE the so-called workstation version of 10 I still haven't seen... I put off my Theadripper upgrade because I dread the experience I've had on my laptop...

    1. Notas Badoff

      Re: OMG, Monkey Boy

      "About two decades ago ..." I gave up on Microsoft as outreach program after outreach program was withdrawn or put behind a steep paywall. For quite some time I had _gushed_ about the various ways Microsoft _enabled_ developers.

      By the time of "Developers! Developers!", with a wry smile what I heard them say was "Come back! Come back!"

      I've kept my "Dr. GUI" t-shirt to remind myself that when companies turn to navel-gazing, they see only short-term dollar signs, and starve the feet and legs. Time to walk away.

    2. Mayday
      Windows

      Re: OMG, Monkey Boy

      "Monkey Boy"

      Does anyone know where the aftermath of that wonderfully grand entrance is? I've never been able to find it. I'd just like to know what kind of speech could be performed after such a performance (or was an ambulance called?) and how the crowd would receive it.

      Every clip I've seen ends with "I love this company" with raised arms displaying extremely sweaty armpits from overexertion.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Re: OMG, Monkey Boy

      "The day they said that developers got shoved into the back seat..."

      not quite so fast. Windows development was well supported until Ballmer took the helm in the early noughties.

      It was the ".Net Initiative" where everything started to go horribly wrong. It's when Micro-shaft decided to DRIVE everything THEIR way [not lead, DRIVE, like cattle].

      Prior to this point we had:

      * DevStudio '98 with its keyboard-friendly resource/dialog editor

      * LOTS of 'backward compatibility' via shippable components, so that the 'latest thing' could be installed onto an older version of Windows [with some limits, obviously].

      * MSDN docs could be loaded onto your computer or private LAN, avoiding intarweb performance problems

      * Windows beta programs in which Microsoft actually WORKED WITH YOU for hardware and software compatibility.

      Since then, we have:

      * DevStudio that's 2D flat/ugly and _STILL_ requires too many 'mousie-clickie' gyrations to do just about ANYTHING in the dialog/resource editing department, and has a somewhat clunky UI. It gets in the way too much, supposedly while trying to "help".

      * MSDN docs that can no longer be loaded on the local computer. It's *Cloudy*. Oooohhh!

      * An Operating System that FORCES YOU to update it, spies on you, and shoves ads in your face by default, and ALSO tries to strong-arm you into using a "cloudy" login.

      * 3 major paradigm shifts since then: The '.Net runtime' with C-pound, 'The Metro', and UWP. Not to mention Silverlight or a couple of other 'flash in the pan' fads that went nowhere and were abandoned. And rumor has it, they want to ABANDON THE WIN32 API by 2022...

      * A toll-booth to anyone who wants to support their devices (or write software-only device drivers) on Windows [starting with Vista] - the certificate requirement

      * A schizophrenic attempt to embrace/extend/extinguish Linux that doesn't really implement Linux

      * A windows 10 beta in which ONLY "the fanbois" were "listened" to by Microsoft (and, towards the end, opposition was SILENCED)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OMG, Monkey Boy

        .NET was a response to Java...to make sure Microsoft had a foot in at least a comparable space. The WIN32 API is a hodge podge of separate APIs with different rules, different error handling, etc, etc. It's nice and low-level, but that's precisely why you had to have the MFC layer on top to actually work in an object oriented way.

  3. deadlockvictim

    Stress & Deadlines

    The developers I see suffer often from unrealistic deadlines and the stress these deadlines bring. Most of developers are young men in their 20s. Then they leave and are replaced by more young men in their 20s. Now, it maybe that they are being underpaid (by current market standards) and are finding better paid work once they have some experience notched up, but I am not so sure.

    In such an environment, why would anyone want to get into development?

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Stress & Deadlines

      Stress and deadlines: These are the realities of the business world. Young-uns need to adapt or they'll be 'Natural Selected' out of the work force, ya know?

      It means you "code for the deadline". It means you ONLY work on those features that are necessary, and get them 100% right, by the deadline. Hit the 'quicky' stuff first. Do what makes it look like you're accomplishing something as soon as you can. THEN you can negotiate with the people who underplanned the project and say "look we've got this much done now, but we need more time to do the bells/whistles".

      This has been going on in the engineering world for, like, FOREVAR. It's not a snowflake-friendly "safe place". It's a cutthroat profit-motivated world of competing interests, and NOT meeting the deadline might be the same thing as capitulating to your competition...

      And of course there are budgets, sales force overpromising things, managers squeezing the timelines too close, and so on. And at the mid-level you sometimes have to "manage the managers" a bit...

  4. ijustwantaneasylife
    Stop

    Really?

    "Its findings, published on Monday, indicate that developers are more interested in learning new skills and keeping existing skills current than in making money through a given developer ecosystem.

    The surprising thing that came out across the board was that learning was the number one choice..."

    That should read "...developers are having to learn new skills and keeping existing skills current, in order to get the next job..."

    If we could use our current skills and earn a reasonable living, why would we seek the pain of constantly upgrading our skill sets?

  5. RyokuMas
    Stop

    Programmer, not developer...

    I got into programming as a kid in the 8-bit days. It was a lot of fun: making the computer tell rude jokes, make noises at random intervals, or appear to crash upon pressing a key (got kicked out of my local computer store for putting that one on their display machines). Then I discovered game development - which at that time was still some way off becoming the 3D-fully-orchestrated-days-to-play-online-DLC-fest that it is now... yeah, I had to pick up some art and design skills, but I was still writing a lot of code.

    Fast forward 25 years to now - "developers" are expect to be "full stack" - back-end, front-end, this JS framework, that ORM, these server architectures, those cloud infrastructures, agile methodology, continuous integration and deployment... the list goes on. And - here's the real kicker - nine times out of ten, we're expected to learn this all on our own time; either because promised training has never materialised, or time to train simply doesn't make enough profit.

    Sure, I've learned enough to keep my head above water. Some of it I've continued to enjoy. But this expectation that all "developers" want to spend the entirety of their waking lives trying to keep on the bleeding edge of everything is a blight on the art of creating software.

    1. HmmmYes

      Re: Programmer, not developer...

      Software development is a big bad world now, software is in every nook and cranny (fanny if you allow for porn streaming ..) now.

      Universal.

      Pick a few areas and get good at them. Read 6-10h a week. Kindles are good for this - whitepapers an all.

      My only comment/conclusion of my time in development is that, fundamentally, my job is managing state. Pick any tech that makes managing state easier - good languages, test tools.

      I don bother with IDEs - if a language needs an IDE then its got its abstraction level wrong. cough Java cough.

      I alwys give any new language tool or whatnot 10 years before learning it proper. This way you avoid junk like silverlight.

      My prediction for the future? Itll be wrong so I wont embarass myself. Itll probably be written in mainly C though

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Programmer, not developer...

        "I don bother with"

        "I alwys give"

        "learning it proper"

        "Itll be wrong"

        "I wont embarass myself"

        "Itll probably be"

        Given your appalling typos & syntax. I'd hate to see your code!

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Programmer, not developer...

        "Read 6-10h a week" he says.

        I could do that in my sleep. In fact, I'll have to because I sure as hell haven't got that much free time to dedicate to reading. And if I did I wouldn't be reading programming books, I'd be reading some SF.

    2. quxinot

      Re: Programmer, not developer...

      Stop faffing around with the UI, then.

      That'll save you 90% of your workload.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Programmer, not developer...

      ""developers" are expect to be "full stack" - back-end, front-end, this JS framework, that ORM, these server architectures, those cloud infrastructures, agile methodology, continuous integration and deployment"

      well... ONE aspect of software development is "that".

      There are OTHER areas, however, that show a LOT more promise. And from what I can tell, there are a LOT more of THESE:

      * microcontrollers and embedded - this is where I decided I should focus most of my attention. it's working.

      * 'traditional' GUI applications - yes we still have them, and a lot of them need maintenance

      * Mobile - a lot of noise here, but there are still some good opportunities. A "mobile app" that goes with an enterprise solution, for example, is a nice add-on for the enterprise system, and an opportunity for devs willing to learn how to code for that mobile platform. The Android Dev environment is free...

      * new product development - a 'jack of all trades' might do well in this environment. You wear a LOT of hats.

      Doing IT slave-labor for a large mega-corp is NOT the only job out there. MOST jobs are created by small businesses, in need of a 'jack of all trades'. Getting short-term gigs through a labor-pimp (aka contracting agency) is a good start for this kind of thing, and PROBABLY earns you more money and gives you more [unscheduled, though] free time than a traditional 9-5 wage-slave job would.

      And 'Agile' can go PACK SAND.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They don't make 'em like Ballmer anymore

    thank heavens

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They don't make 'em like Ballmer anymore

      They wear clean-cut suits, and have MBAs, and work at the C-suite level, but they exist, and do far more damage to companies than Ballmer could ever have dreamed of.

  7. Nimby
    FAIL

    Playing a game of 20 questions does not a full answer make.

    There are so many problems with this survey and analysis that I hardly know where to begin. I think the largest faux pas is bunching all "developers" into one category, as if "I'm playing with my Rpi" or "I'm taking programming for my elective this semester and this project is a part of my grade" is in the same category of "I do this for a living." Of course the endless purveyors of crapware care more about usable documentation than money, because they aren't trying to make money. And it shows.

    Anyone in the business long enough learns one simple truth: documentation always is and will always be horrible. Would be nice if it were better, sure, but it never is. Which is where open-source helps. Can't figure out what a function's arguments are? Or WTF an argument means and does? Look at the code! Living in a closed source walled garden? Better hope there are some good online tutorials. Because API is always poorly documented.

    At the end of the grass-is-always-greener day, every garden sucks in its own special way. Where you plant your seeds is really more about what interests you than who does what better. Eg. If you own an iPhone then you're probably not going to write an Android app. And no one has a Windows phone. People tend to write software for themselves first and the rest of the world second.

    Except for those who are paid to write software, which apparently this survey addressed not at all.

    So the first step in luring developers is making something that people want to use. The second step is everything else. You'll attract tons of crap, but apparently that's all this survey was about.

    If you want to attract QUALITY software ENGINEERS, then the quality starts at home. Lead by example. Show them you mean business. And show them there's enough market to form a lasting profitable company around.

  8. JLV

    documentation matters

    No affiliation besides being a happy customer, but one reason I ended up on Digitalocean is because, in many cases, some of the best information about challenging software configuration was to be found in their docs. They're short, well done and either well-maintained or written with durability in mind. And they're generic enough that Google searches often return them, even outside of Digitalocean-related scenarios.

    When it came time to go to a VPS, it seemed logical to choose them against equally competitive offerings, but to which I had had less exposure.

    Some other areas where clear docs led to my interest: Vue.js, Django, Python, among others. These were products where I spent 3-4 hours working through some basic examples, vaguely understood what was going on and decided they were worth spending more time on.

    So, yes, public-facing documentation is a big signal. MS and its practice of never updating their docs, even as they churn through GUI navigation changes at high rate between versions, take note.

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