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How Windows Everywhere finally happened

arstechnica.com

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Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#61

Post by ekianjo »

joosters wrote: post #57
feelin_googley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3070460/windows-pcs/mic...

I despise Microsoft for this. Two days ago, my dad accidentally triggered an upgrade to Windows 10. In a panic, he switched the computer off, and now it no longer boots. It's now down to me to repair the computer. Apparently, months of dismissing the pop up invitations to upgrade to Windows 10 were not enough for Microsoft, they had to go and practically force it down people's throats. And my family is paying the pri…

Time to consider an OS change maybe?

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#62

Post by cm3 »

userbinator wrote: post #17
Maarten88 wrote: post #9

Operation successful, patient dead... It's kind of tragic that much of this effort may never pay off: in the process of merging platforms and restructuring API's (that started with Vista and is still going) Microsoft lost the connection to many of its developers, who went to build Web, iOS and Android apps. WPF, Silverlight, WinRT, XAML, UWP: there were too many changes, rewrites and deprecations. Windows Phone, bril…

As a long-time Win32 programmer (over a decade), I can safely say that the vast majority of existing applications still remain (for the time being) forward-compatible. Here's some examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOj-bAZBhnE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfn4M5DXTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqFWuNmWbHk The reasons people hold off on "upgrading" Windows versions is not mainly because of compatibility…

That's the problem. If Windows was more like Linux or BSD, you could take the good parts and omit the bad parts. They're doing genuinely good and - for mainstream desktop systems - innovative stuff in the kernel and surrounding subsystems, but once you reach the Windows shell, the desire to change stuff "willy-nilly" rears its head. Classic UI as found in Server 2003 or XP was great and if you wanted you could use themes, but now it's one highly questionable and user-unfriendly style after another, with the waste of screen real estate on top. Microsoft as a whole doesn't get it and the teams doing the good stuff must be in pain, seeing what's put on top of their creations as user-facing bits.

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#63

Post by 0xFFC »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #29
blackoil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment has some merit, if we ignore the fact that now same kernel is running across devices, with same subsystems and same applications, with possibility to write one application that works on all. While it is difficult to write UI to scale across screen size and input types, it is possible to build responsive UIs and people are doing so.

>"with possibility to write one application that works on all" I'm not sure this is such a good thing. Maybe I'm in the minority but my phone and my desktop OS have vastly different use cases and I'd expect apps running on each of them to be different. I'm not interested in a converging UI. I want a user experience tailored to the platform I'm running the app on. I'd rather a solid desktop experience then having to p…

>I've seen it in the Linux world where toolkits/desktop environments tried to chase the idea of converging UI's and we ended up with the worst of both worlds - miserable to use apps on a phone/tablet and miserable Desktop Apps.

I abandoned Linux just because of this. Some people just don't get it. I don't want mobile UI in my double 1080p monitors which I do development on them.But people like gnome developers just don't get it.they push for various kind of animation without properly optimization and at the end we have gnome 3 debacle.

I am not against animation or touch UI.But if you want develop touch UI do it simultaneously with desktop branch, not by ruining desktop. After so much debate just look at ridiculous ui for classic shell in recent gnomes. Are they fucking kidding people? Is that notification and tray icon for real?

(I know there is extensions,but I am talking more broadly,about core developers mind sets.)

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#64

Post by bad_user »

pavlov wrote: post #54
bad_user wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumptions hold for OS X and iOS even though they are not the same OS and never claimed to be. > Won't it just be easier, as a developer, to create a singular platform with two XAML (one for small screens, one for large screens) that share the same codebase? In theory yes, in practice changing the UI isn't the only problem. The problem is that a phone is much more limited, both in hardware and in what it is all…

For a lot of people, "desktop" really means laptop these days. Laptops are much closer to mobile than the traditional desktop PC you describe. Limited storage and battery life are important considerations on a MacBook just as on an iPad. Also the Mac desktop software environment is more like iOS these days, if you want to go through the Apple-sanctioned route of using the Mac App Store. For example direct folder acce…

> Limited storage and battery life are important considerations on a MacBook just as on an iPad.

No, I don't believe that's true.

Laptops are bigger, so they can afford bigger batteries. My Macbook Pro's battery holds without problems for 4 to 6 hours of intense work, which is not something I can say about my phone and I'm talking about working on and compiling Scala code and few things are more intensive than that.

Also, most of the time, laptops are used while sitting on desks for actual work. Oh, I know, you might pull your laptop at your coffeeshop to write an email or write comments on HN, or you might need it for work during a flight, which is cool, but overall laptops do get used pretty near an electrical outlet.

But the biggest difference is one of expectations. Phones are still communication devices which we rely on. If my laptop's battery goes out during a flight, I don't care because I do not need my laptop to make phone calls or to orient myself using maps or to call a cab or to open my travel documents or whatever. Whereas I do really need my phone. So the Scala compiler running on my laptop doesn't need to be battery efficient. But my phone needs to last for 12 hours while traveling, otherwise I'm fucked.

> Mac desktop software environment is more like iOS these days, if you want to go through the Apple-sanctioned route of using the Mac App Store ... the Mac desktop app in your example would have to use the Dropbox API too

Oh, I don't know about that and the reason is the Mac App Store is a wasteland and I can't think of a single app I installed from it. Also, the Mac App Store isn't the "Apple sanctioned" way and they know it's a wasteland too, it's not like they are blind.

No, the Apple sanctioned way is to sign your app. Signing apps needs an Apple developer account, which is fairly costly for open-source devs, but at least I can see the benefit to it. And as long as your app is signed, OS X gives you no problem in letting it be installed.

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#65

Post by creshal »

copperx wrote: post #42
piyush_soni wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great! I didn't know about it. Would anyone happen to know how does it compare with the applications on Linux? Are they similarly forward compatible?

Oh, in no way, shape, or form, unless the application was statically linked, which is uncommon.

Closed source programs usually are, exactly for that reason. (Or at least ship all libraries they link to, up to and including the libc.)

Go also makes it relatively easy to statically compile everything, one of the reasons why it's gaining popularity.

Apart from those two it's highly uncommon: You're supposed to ship sources and compile them on the target system.

To get a sort of forward compatibility you'd need to find compatible sources for all involved userland, or ship them with your sources. The latter is sometimes used in larger projects, to work around distributions having wildly incompatible versions of whatever library you need (Samba, Firefox, LibreOffice e.g.).

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#66

Post by creshal »

pjmlp wrote: post #46
Maarten88 wrote: post #9

Operation successful, patient dead... It's kind of tragic that much of this effort may never pay off: in the process of merging platforms and restructuring API's (that started with Vista and is still going) Microsoft lost the connection to many of its developers, who went to build Web, iOS and Android apps. WPF, Silverlight, WinRT, XAML, UWP: there were too many changes, rewrites and deprecations. Windows Phone, bril…

> Microsoft really needs to stop introducing "upgrades" that require application rewrites in Windows for the next 3-5 years, and focus on getting the Windows Store going. You mean like the "Framework of the day" on web land? Or the "rewrite your app with each Android version" that you cannot get? Or "your language just got replaced" on iOS land?

Android actually has reasonable forward compatibility. 2.x apps still work, they just look ugly and don't support newer features.

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#67

Post by creshal »

taneq wrote: post #60
statictype wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think developers prefer a crappy but stable technologies with a proven market over uncertain and fast-moving technologies. Businesses - yes. Developers - my experience says no (myself included).

I'd prefer to use a functional API with a few warts and limitations over having to learn yet another goddamn 'fast-moving modern' interface which will disappear within five years. Churn might be great for job security but it's a huge waste of everyone's time and efforts.

Five years? I'd be glad if we stopped moving to a new Javascript stack every six months.

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#68

Post by creshal »

thebigshane wrote: post #13
mmastrac wrote: post #6

> Microsoft has still arguably achieved something that its competitors have not. Rumors that Google will somehow merge ChromeOS and Android have been circulating for some time, but it hasn't happened just yet Uhhh.. ChromeOS and Android are both Linux. This is just as merged as running a stripped down Windows kernel.

I think you might be underestimating just how aligned Windows 10 is across these devices, certainly more than Android vs ChromeOS is. (Then again, from what I hear, ChromeOS is starting to creep more toward Android... So maybe that is changing). This is more than a shared stripped-down kernel.

Google is experimenting with an Android Runtime for Chrome:

https://developer.chrome.com/apps/getstarted_arc

Assuming this does take off, ChromeOS (and any desktop OS running Chrome) will have direct app sharing.

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#69

Post by daemin »

userbinator wrote: post #19
pjmlp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For long time Windows developers like myself, the underlying model of WinRT is what the original .NET was supposed to be. It was called Ext-OS and based on an improved COM API, called COM+ Runtime. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dsyme/2012/07/05/more-c-net... So with C++/CX and .NET Native built on top of WinRT, Microsoft has gone full circle back to the original idea. Personally I enjoy developing UWP (started rig…

I'm a "long time Windows developer" and personally my opinion seems like the exact opposite: I enjoy pure native Win32. All that new stuff never interested me much, and felt like too much added complexity and learning curve for little gain. MFC looked more like a bloated make-work scheme, I was very much not impressed when I tried playing around with .NET for the first time, and I can still discern clearly which apps…

I've found that WTL is a good level of abstraction for pure Win32 API. It's not free (in terms of size and speed costs) and does contain some kludges but you get an object oriented system to control the Win32 API.

Re: How Windows Everywhere finally happened

#70

Post by StevePerkins »

dingo_bat wrote: post #27

I don't like the Universal apps or whatever they're calling them this month. They are limited, slow, crashy and buggy. They regularly just disappear after a sleep and wake. I have been left questioning my sanity wondering if I closed Messenger. Also, they are clunky and slow. For example, switch to a desktop with a universal app open and for the duration of the desktop slide animation, the app window will be complete…

Agreed. I WANT to push back against the recent trend of using Electron to build desktop apps with HTML and JavaScript, as they "don't look and feel native". Then Microsoft goes and develops a native desktop framework that looks and feels like Electron apps.
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