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Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

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Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#151

Post by cptskippy »

Pigo wrote: post #137
marricks wrote: post #15

I was going to rag on this article for touting the the same non-specific garbage we've seen the past couple days like, "more mac users switching to surface than ever!" without any hard numbers, did is go from 20 to 25? But this article is actually pretty interesting. It focuses on how Satya Nadella has respected the leaders of Companies he's bought out and invited them to key meetings. Using their insight not only fo…

As a developer there's been so many times that I've gotten tired of MS solutions, and get excited about new emerging platforms elsewhere. Then I smirk when MS incorporates that new platform's ideology. Then I'm pleasantly surprised when it turns out to be cool, and often surpassing the original. I've heard some devs claim they cherry pick from other people's work, and others that they work hard to remain progressive…

> I don't know if .NET Core will catch up with Node, probably not, but I respect their effort and believe competition drives the best products and technology.

Comments like these always remind me of the vast the software development landscape is and how each stack is sheltered into it's own little cloister. People live and breath their stack and everything is framed against or in comparison to it.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#152

Post by ryandrake »

marricks wrote: post #15

I was going to rag on this article for touting the the same non-specific garbage we've seen the past couple days like, "more mac users switching to surface than ever!" without any hard numbers, did is go from 20 to 25? But this article is actually pretty interesting. It focuses on how Satya Nadella has respected the leaders of Companies he's bought out and invited them to key meetings. Using their insight not only fo…

> It focuses on how Satya Nadella has respected the leaders of Companies he's bought out and invited them to key meetings. Using their insight not only for product and company direction, but importantly creating culture as well. Very key to Microsoft and any tech company's success.

Sometimes people forget the second part of the Borg's "You will be assimilated" announcement: "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own." Looks like this is being adopted as well.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#153

Post by Shengbo »

Camillo wrote: post #110
dpark wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not entirely gone but it's dying. I'm still in a private office. Lots of devs on my team are doubled up, though. Many teams have already moved to open spaces. Demographics are a factor. Lots of devs, especially younger devs, and especially devs who've worked at other younger companies are asking for open floor plans. Not all of them, but a sizable chunk. That plus reduced cost for providing office space to devs…

They are asking for open floor plans? Is there anything young people won't ruin?

I promise not to ruin your Bingo nights.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#154

Post by dispose13432 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #144

I recently bought a Lenovo sporting Windows 10 and decided to give it a fair try. I've been using Windows exclusively on my personal laptop for about 2 months and so far it's a good experience. This is after 16 years of running linux (or briefly a mac) on the desktop. The window manager is tolerable (not as good as Xmonad, but equivalent to Unity). Windows subsystem for linux is letting me get my work done with no pr…

>Windows subsystem for linux is letting me get my work done with no problems

While it's not bad, they blew the terminal completely!! Why couldn't they at least use something like cygwin's terminal?

You can't delete text properly.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#155

Post by erentz »

mikestew wrote: post #60
manyxcxi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment. My personal experience, having worked on a few skunkworks projects over there with a couple of different teams was that there were two people to an office that was probably ori…

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment. Note that the post you're replying to uses the past tense. The vast majority of my tenure at MSFT was in a private office, but that was over ten years ago. It is my understandi…

As of 6 months ago when I was still there we had an office per two engineers. They were changing in other parts of the org to open plan as buildings were being updated. Which is a sad reversal.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#156

Post by PNWChris »

Zaheer wrote: post #117
digler999 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love my Surface Pro 4, I'd love one if I could put linux on it. or if I could buy an OEM pc without an OS (and yes I know there are some vendors that "allow" (just that word makes me cringe) you to do it, but it should be a right). If, by their own definition, it's "intellectual" (and not material) property, then if I dont use it I shouldn't have to pay for it. If they want to sell Surface because it's an awesome…

You're not their target demographic. 99% of people don't want to put linux on it.

Beyond that, I find those that want to run Linux on a Surface often put it in Hyper-V and use putty + WinSCP + $TEXT_EDITOR_OF_CHOICE wired up to WinSCP. Heck, now there's the Windows subsystem for Linux.

X11 and VNC help if you want a Linux desktop, but that's admittedly a less than ideal experience.

Of course, virtualization generally precludes USB peripheral access, so my suggestions are a pure software and web development solution.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#157

Post by scotty79 »

Microsoft feels now, from software developer perspective, as if they finally leashed their lawyers and peddlers, that were running the show for previous decade or more, and let the engineers have a saying in what should be produced.

Express/Community versions, VS Code, typescript, open source, github, browser standards, Windows 10. So many good signs. I can't name the other company that have shown so many good signs in recent past.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#158

Post by dispose13432 »

hsitz wrote: post #134
suprgeek wrote: post #108

The young'uns here probably have not lived thru the Microsoft era in the 90s when "Embrace Extend Extinguish" was the operating motto and any Market where MS entered would send competitors quaking in fear. They were late to the internet party and then under the disastrous leadership of Ballamer (mindshare wise, not revenue) they completely lost the plot. Now they are indeed enjoying a resurgence, less evil, more rele…

The counterpart to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" was spreading FUD: "fear, uncertainty, and doubt". This was the strategy they took towards Linux, which as open source was not susceptible to embrace, extend, extinguish. So the Microsoft propaganda machine was used to make people afraid of open source, in many different ways. The current course of Microsoft appears to have changed a lot, with open source being acc…

What will happen if programmers feel "comfortable" on WSL and MS doesn't implement (or worse, breaks) a system call?

Or, what about if MS decides to make a "nice" "new" system call, whose implementation is closed source.

Will Apache now have to maintain a fork for Windows WSL and Linux?

Will Linux now have to create a Wine-like project to reverse-engineer and fix all the WSL bugs and copy features?

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#159

Post by tcoff91 »

dispose13432 wrote: post #154
yummyfajitas wrote: post #144

I recently bought a Lenovo sporting Windows 10 and decided to give it a fair try. I've been using Windows exclusively on my personal laptop for about 2 months and so far it's a good experience. This is after 16 years of running linux (or briefly a mac) on the desktop. The window manager is tolerable (not as good as Xmonad, but equivalent to Unity). Windows subsystem for linux is letting me get my work done with no pr…

>Windows subsystem for linux is letting me get my work done with no problems While it's not bad, they blew the terminal completely!! Why couldn't they at least use something like cygwin's terminal? You can't delete text properly.

You can install Xming and then you can use a linux GUI terminal emulator.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#160

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

supernovae wrote: post #44
anon987 wrote: post #5

Microsoft continues to try to convince us that they are great with press releases and non-organic stories such as this. I, my peers, and my co-workers just don't see it. With billions in reserve it's no surprise they are trying to buy popularity.

I find these kind of comments depressing mostly because they scream "group think". (my inner circle says this, so I repeat it) The new MS is much different than the MS I grew up with in the 90s. It's time for the community to recognize this and just let people bask in positive news that is worthy the bask in. I love my Surface Pro 4, I love the fact .net is cross platform, I love that Azure is fast and easy to use, I…

I actually suffered through corporate pressure against my use of Linux for applications I developed (and users LOVED), because of the press onslaught in the trade magazines about the ridiculous SCO trial. (And then I see from a comment above that this is being appealed. Still. 13 years later. OMG.) So, my cynicism may be intractable.

You may see a "new" Microsoft, but all I see is a Microsoft which is making moves they HAVE to in order to survive. In this world of "the cloud" and the utter dominance of Linux in everything with a CPU that ISN'T a desktop computer, what else can they do but the things they're doing?

That Microsoft is executing WELL is a byproduct. If they didn't, they'd have become the IBM they defeated 20 years ago, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. (They'd offer legacy support for Windows XP, and we'd all wish we could cut them out of the budget, along with the mainframe.) I credit Nadella for this, but none of this is due to some sort of newfound egalitarianism or philanthropy. It's just business.

I find the bright and cheerful comments like yours depressing. They seem to belie a belief that the upper management of Microsoft has somehow been knighted with a sense of civic duty. I see it as the same business shrewdness they've always shown. They no longer have the power to dictate absolute terms to corporations, and must play nice with the rest of the IT world.

And I bet it chaps some of the old guards' asses.

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