Ask HN: Will Microsoft ever become cool again? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Will Microsoft ever become cool again?

#51

Post by rbanffy » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 12:48 PM UTC

CyberFonic wrote: post #41

rbanffy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xenix on the Lisa was kind of cool.

Really? People forget that Microsoft sold more copies of Xenix (A UNIX operating system) for both PDP-11 and PCs than all the other Unix boxen suppliers of that era. But then marketing decided that they didn't need a real OS, so they sold it SCO and then later bankrolled them into suing Linux suppliers, etc. That was all Steve Ballmer's watch, during which MS shares also lost half their value.

The thing is that Microsoft could not corner the market with Xenix the same way it could with DOS and Windows. They wanted a monopoly they could abuse.

Re: Ask HN: Will Microsoft ever become cool again?

#52

Post by kazinator » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

akulbe wrote: post #8

They're doing a hell of a lot more cool things than Apple, these days. Windows is moving. macOS is terrible. (Says the guy who's been a Mac user for >15 years and bought every new product Apple has come out with.) Apple is doing this to themselves. As a dev platform, their appeal is waning. (Stop making shit laptops, and make your macOS stable again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) Microsoft, under Nadella, is making the right moves, li…

The last thing anyone wants is for Windows to be "moving".

Re: Ask HN: Will Microsoft ever become cool again?

#53

Post by Something1234 » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

nullpunkt wrote: post #31

Something1234 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be able to know what my machine is actually running. It gives me some nice warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I have that option. I probably won't but still, I like having that option.

The option of spending a lifetime reading the Windows code in order to 'know what your machine is running'? it's such an old argument but no one ever talks about how fucking cumbersome is to read code, even in work itself, moreso outside of work, unpaid.

You know it's actually really important to be able to read code. Reading any code makes you a better developer, even old fortran which makes no sense, and has bad practices.