Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The End of Windows

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 617 posts

Re: The End of Windows

#31

Post by someguy1234567 »

bigmanwalter wrote: post #14
eric_b wrote: post #6

I'll be interested to see how this bifurcation of the Windows team plays out. Windows 10 has been a mixed bag - some nice new features but also a lot of half baked buggy stuff. The evergreen nature of Windows 10 feels like the right move, but I'm worried they're going to let the OS stagnate. There's already a lot of low hanging fruit they could clean up with an update, but haven't. I'm not a huge fan of using my tabl…

Linux on desktop is pretty amazing. Haven't looked back in 3 years.

Same. Linux desktop all day every day.

Re: The End of Windows

#32

Post by mrisoli »

holtalanm wrote: post #20

i would have stopped using windows years ago if i could get games to run decently on linux.

I think people underestimate this issue. One of the reasons Windows is so dominant in the business landscape is because it's the OS people are used to since early years, mostly because it's bundled with most PCs people buy, but kids love to play games, and while a lot of games also come out for mac these days, Windows is still dominant in the PC gaming market.

It's a bit of a reach to say this, but it's a little bit similar to McDonald's selling toys with meals to entice children.

Re: The End of Windows

#33

Post by asveikau »

I still can't wrap my head around everything that was wrongheaded about Windows 8, and I was working there for most of its dev cycle.

One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7's trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT/UWP/store.

Even though Win10 attempted corrective action it always struck me that it was still accepting the fundamental thesis of Win8. They still kept with the Orwellian redefinition of phrases like "Windows app" to mean very recent, immature and unproven technology. They were still talking about ARM devices that don't let you do a straightforward recompile of old code. They were still pushing the Store as the only means to distribute software, where even Apple has not succeeded in changing people's habits on the desktop.

I hope that with a weaker organization, people keeping the lights on for Windows will know to not shake things up too severely and ease up on pushing some of these silly ideas. I somehow doubt it. I've been hoping for that for... 7 years?

Re: The End of Windows

#34

Post by gr3yh47 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #5
twoquestions wrote: post #2

So are mom and pop businesses using Chromebooks and Ipads to do their accounting now? Last I checked Windows was still pretty dominant in both Enterprise and midsize businesses, though I could see a food truck being run from a phone (theoretically).

Windows 10 is really difficult for businesses entrenched in Windows to deal with. The work that you need to do in order to unwind from legacy Windows stuff like fat apps, IE-optimized websites, and legacy Office-based workflows makes it pretty easy to move to an iPad to Google, etc. The only thing that Microsoft has going for them is that every other vendor is also fucking up client computing in different ways.

I know I'm in a minority here, but having used every windows since 3.1, IMO windows 7 was the absolute pinnacle of windows design, and from a ux perspective I think the best desktop os period (could still be improved, there's definitely individual features that are better in other OSes). I really wish they had stuck with the UX/design and mostly just improved performance/added useful stuff rather than throw it all out and start over.

Re: The End of Windows

#35

Post by someguy1234567 »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #25
holtalanm wrote: post #20

i would have stopped using windows years ago if i could get games to run decently on linux.

There are many games that run well in Linux, including a large portion of the Steam library! If you meant a specific game to run, well then you need to weight your pros and cons and stop whining when you make your decision. Alternatively, dual boot.

I do that for GTA5. The only time I switch back to Windows. I don't even restart, I just hibernate linux and then everything is still there when I come back!

Re: The End of Windows

#36

Post by pjmlp »

andybak wrote: post #28
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General Purpose Computing using PC's is a thing because of Microsoft (and IBM). Without those two there would have never been a PC in the first place. The forces against general purpose computing are to be found on 1 infinite loop and 1600 Amphitheatre parkway.

I rode a PC wave that nearly completely bypassed IBM/Microsoft: 1. The "home" computer boom: ZX Spectrums, Acorn, Commodore, Atari with maybe an Apple II or a CPM machines for more serious use. 2. The Atari ST or Amiga wave. WIMP and productivity software as well as gaming and content creation 3. At this point I did switch to Windows but I could just have easily switched to Mac. Apple didn't cease to be a force at an…

> Apple didn't cease to be a force at any stage. They maintained a strong base in home use and content creation only losing the enterprise.

They almost went bankrupt around 1994.

If it wasn't for Microsoft money and the merge with NeXT bringing Jobs back, they would have been gone.

Up to iPod's success Apple was meaningless pretty much everywhere outside US.

Re: The End of Windows

#37

Post by laumars »

eric_b wrote: post #6

I'll be interested to see how this bifurcation of the Windows team plays out. Windows 10 has been a mixed bag - some nice new features but also a lot of half baked buggy stuff. The evergreen nature of Windows 10 feels like the right move, but I'm worried they're going to let the OS stagnate. There's already a lot of low hanging fruit they could clean up with an update, but haven't. I'm not a huge fan of using my tabl…

> There's already a lot of low hanging fruit they could clean up with an update, but haven't.

In all honesty that's been my impression of Windows since its inception. The only time I can recall ever feeling like Windows was deserved market leader was with Windows 2000: Linux wasn't mature on the desktop, OS X wasn't yet released or literally only just released and OS 9 was god awful (worse than the Win 95 in my opinion). The only platform that really competed in technical merit was BeOS and we all know how that ended up.

Win 3.x felt like a huge step backwards from what Atari, Amiga and Apple were doing. Windows 9x was an improvement but slow and buggy. Windows XP took a long time to mature - years and two service packs in fact. And before then it was basically just a slower (bar start up time), uglier version of Win 2000. And by the time Microsoft recovered from the cluster fuck of Longhorn OS X and Linux were both streets ahead in terms of stability, usability and even just basic features.

There are obviously people who genuinely warm to Windows and prefer that as a platform - good for them; variety is the spice of life and all - but from a technical standpoint Windows has always felt like it's had a multitude of low hanging fruit which aren't trendy enough for Redmond to invest development time in (case in point: why did it take until Windows 10 before shortcut keys were added to cmd.exe? And then why did MS stop there? The terminal emulator still totally sucks compared to nearly every other ever made!)

Re: The End of Windows

#38

Post by GlitchMr »

twoquestions wrote: post #2

So are mom and pop businesses using Chromebooks and Ipads to do their accounting now? Last I checked Windows was still pretty dominant in both Enterprise and midsize businesses, though I could see a food truck being run from a phone (theoretically).

For me, the experience is that it's harder to find an accounting software that is Windows-only. Pretty much many of those are running inside of a web browser. Your experience may vary depending on where you live however.

Re: The End of Windows

#39

Post by Philipp__ »

bigmanwalter wrote: post #14
eric_b wrote: post #6

I'll be interested to see how this bifurcation of the Windows team plays out. Windows 10 has been a mixed bag - some nice new features but also a lot of half baked buggy stuff. The evergreen nature of Windows 10 feels like the right move, but I'm worried they're going to let the OS stagnate. There's already a lot of low hanging fruit they could clean up with an update, but haven't. I'm not a huge fan of using my tabl…

Linux on desktop is pretty amazing. Haven't looked back in 3 years.

You gotta be kidding me. Good luck using multiple HiDPI monitors. The only reasonable way to use Linux is tiling wm with as less graphical interface as possible, in my case only xterm and emacs. Which is crazy, since it’s 2018. and I am using modern computer with modern OS like how computers were used before I was even born.

Re: The End of Windows

#40

Post by prolikewhoa »

arcbyte wrote: post #19
bigmanwalter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on desktop is pretty amazing. Haven't looked back in 3 years.

Is there a laptop you would recommend?

Dell XPS 13.

Works with Linux out of the box as Dell made all of the driver's work for their developer edition's in Ubuntu. Battery life and and the 3200x1800 screen are phenomenal. Well made and Dell's warranty process is actually fairly good. It's no Apple warranty, but does the job.

Post reply on HN