Introducing Surface Laptop

I think the windows store just did not fit the usage patterns: People were used to download stuff right off the net, or use platforms like Valve's Steam.

On a chromebook-style laptop, expectations might be different.

I personally don't like the walled-garden aspect of app-stores, but I like that there is someone who can effectively respond if malware is reported. Sometimes malware is even proactively removed.

For non-power-users this is definitely an advantage. I hope in a few years I can just tell my parent to only install software from the app store, and they will be fine. Additionally, they don't have to do anything to stay up-to-date.

Even for power users there is a (theoretical) advantage, which is explicit dependency management. Once you know that all your software is distributed through one channel, libraries and versions can effectively be shared. This is what happens in the Free Software version of app stores: All major distros have them, and without them dependency management would be impossible.

So what is the potential gain here? In some version of the future, we might hope that apps don't include hard-copy versions of the libraries they are using, but just tell the app-store which versions they like to use. Security updates can then be pushed by the app-store vendor vs the app vendor.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#8

Post by iamNumber4 » Tue, May 02, 2017, 2:29 PM UTC

We should all be taking offense by this.

This is the drug dealer play book, Hook the kids early, so that when they are adults they go with what they know, instead of being critical thinkers and evaluating the available products to pick the best technical solution for the needs at hand.

this is why small to mid-sized companies are struggling with MS server products, and are locked into this merry-go-round licensing fees. Other products that could alleviate are ignored because of F.U.D. Thus giving us Camps of Pro Apple, Pro Microsoft, anti open source, pro open source.

We should be teaching kids at a young age about all platforms, what they are good for, what they are not. So that we can educate the next generation of workers about computers in general. while not trying to indoctrinate them into a particular platform.

So educators and decision makers please take heed, and realize life is about choice., We should be teaching about choices, and then evaluating the choices once made. Then regardless of the choices we make, we learn from the outcome. If you make a poor choice, you are free to make a different choice the next time around.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#9

Post by dade_ » Tue, May 02, 2017, 2:32 PM UTC

MrZipf wrote: post #3

Clickbait. No story until unveiling event.

The live streaming video is at the link.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#10

Post by jlebrech » Tue, May 02, 2017, 2:34 PM UTC

might be able to install steam on this?