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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#431

Post by nikanj »

bhauer wrote: post #243
cpeterso wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see a nice graph showing (Firefox) users steadily upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 from Mozilla's Firefox telemetry: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architectu...

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

I find it extremely sad that us developers really have no idea what our sites are used on.

Works great on my iPhone X and iMac Pro? Perfect!

Re: The End of Windows

#432

Post by WorldMaker »

ryandrake wrote: post #339
asveikau wrote: post #33

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 correctiv…

As a developer, the Windows target is baffling. I briefly considered porting a few apps I wrote over to Windows just to re-learn the platform again. Might be fun! Back in the day, the choice was easy: MFC/Win32 Now, I have no idea where to even start! C#? C++? .NET? Win32? MFC? WPF? XAML? WinForms? UWP? What a rat’s next! How did MS let the development ecosystem get so muddied? I know I can go online and research all…

Here's how simple I think it is:

Out (but not gone/forgotten): Win32 (hand-coded C, C++ MFC, C++ ATL and related alphabet soup [aka back in the day the choice wasn't easy, either], VB6, .NET WinForms, etc), WPF/Silverlight (a .NET only XAML platform)

In: UWP (C++ with XAML, C#/.NET with XAML, JS with HTML/CSS)

Just three UI platforms to consider (Win32, WPF, UWP), two of which are mostly deprecated and not recommended if you are building a fresh application or porting one to a new UI. The remaining platform (UWP) gives you language choice (C++, C# or other .NET languages, JS), but not UI design framework/markup language choice (XAML, unless JS and then HTML).

If you are doing a fresh port of a C++ application from another platform, the choice seems pretty simple to target the UWP and use XAML to define your UI.

Re: The End of Windows

#433

Post by 21 »

willtim wrote: post #270
p0nce wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as an desktop developer, often Linux is 2% of the user base, very vocal, used to software being free, and with infinite OS variations. That's not very compelling.

If I was in the market of workstation software such as CAD, Music DAWs, industrial automation etc. I would much rather have control over the base OS by shipping a customised version of Debian or similar. This would be very compelling for professional users also, who don't want the consumer-oriented cruft and bloat associated with Windows and Mac OS.

And what do you do when your customer wants to use on the same machine two professional apps from different vendors?

How do you reconcile Adobe Linux for After Effects/Photoshop/Premier with Autodesk Linux for Maya/...?

Re: The End of Windows

#434

Post by vxNsr »

MichaelGG wrote: post #412
bayindirh wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who reads text all day, going up to a 27" 150 PPI monitor was huge. You're right, however not everyone has the same desktop space to accomodate a 27" panel. I can barely fit a 24" on my desk. 1440p monitors start at 25". > The other footnote should be that display prices have been crashing recently. When I was in the US at the end of 2014, one of my friends said the same thing about flash drives when I p…

Lenovo still sells 768p screens in their high end X-series laptops including the very recent X280.

Which imo is criminal, if the laptop is starting at >$700 they should "splurge" on the nicer display.

Re: The End of Windows

#435

Post by pmontra »

gruez wrote: post #354
pmontra wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I won't touch anything with less than 32 GB and 1080p, but people that use a PC like a tablet with a keyboard and a larger screen have different needs. They are the vast majority of buyers. A friend of mine is thinking about buying a new laptop. We were looking together at what's available in the sub 400 Euro range, basically everything is 4 GB and 1366x768. Add some 200/300 Euro and 8 GB and 1080p start t…

>I won't touch anything with less than 32 GB why would you need that much ram? are you running 3+ VMs all the time?

I had 16 GB, got close to the limit working on a project with many containers, upgraded to 32. I leave open projects for 4/5 customers now which is very handy, no need to close and open. That alone is worth the cost of the extra GBs.

Re: The End of Windows

#436

Post by manigandham »

ynniv wrote: post #427
dragonwriter wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Established businesses aren't going to put their data in someone else's datacenter. No, established enterprises (both private and government) are, in the real world, important customers for cloud offerings like Azure, GCP, and AWS.

It seems like my comment is being evaluated without proper context. Sure, some companies are moving some of their data into someone else's datacenter. Is that 50% of companies? Are they moving their core business data? Like when there's a network outage, they can't do business? When there's a partial data loss, they close their doors? When we're talking about an entire ecosystem going away, the new one has to have al…

Those 2 statements are completely different issues.

And yes, companies are entirely moving their systems and data. Salesforce runs their sales team. Oracle and SAP runs their ERP and finance. And now AWS/Azure runs their IT infrastructure. They use email from Google or Microsoft, along with hundreds of other SaaS products used day to day by employees. New startups are even more invested and start using other vendors for every non-core activity from day one. This is what a strong global business ecosystem enables and is a massive advantage for everyone.

Re: The End of Windows

#437

Post by sjapkee »

bhauer wrote: post #243
cpeterso wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see a nice graph showing (Firefox) users steadily upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 from Mozilla's Firefox telemetry: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architectu...

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

There is no real need in 4K resolution, so that's why is's not so popular.

Re: The End of Windows

#438

Post by candybar »

I'm surprised no one mentioned this but the biggest takeaway for me is that it moves Windows one step closer to becoming open source. We're still many steps away and it's going to be more like the hybrid model of Android or even OSX/iOS/Darwin and but it seems much more feasible now, even if it starts with baby steps.

Re: The End of Windows

#439

Post by pmontra »

rconti wrote: post #355
pmontra wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I won't touch anything with less than 32 GB and 1080p, but people that use a PC like a tablet with a keyboard and a larger screen have different needs. They are the vast majority of buyers. A friend of mine is thinking about buying a new laptop. We were looking together at what's available in the sub 400 Euro range, basically everything is 4 GB and 1366x768. Add some 200/300 Euro and 8 GB and 1080p start t…

Those numbers seem out of whack to me. 1080p is pretty bad in this day and age, and 32gb is massive overkill for virtually everyone. My daily machine at home is still a 2011 Macbook Air with 4GB of RAM, which is admittedly not enough. My work machine was a 2012 Retina MBP with 8GB which was PLENTY for all of my everyday needs except when running VMs. To this day, 8GB is enough for 'most' uses, and my work machines on…

In Mac world 1080p is bad. In low cost Windows laptops 768p is normal. It's one of the reasons why they are cheap. One random laptop under 300 USD:

https://www.amazon.com/Performance-HP-Quad-Core-Processor-Gr...

Re: The End of Windows

#440

Post by shados »

zanny wrote: post #375
bayindirh wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. Most of the tasks in the real world doesn't need multiple 4K displays, including…

As someone who reads text all day, going up to a 27" 150 PPI monitor was huge . There is a tangible improvement in how that text looks, especially on an accurately colored monitor. The other footnote should be that display prices have been crashing recently. You can get an IPS 24" FHD monitor for like $90, and a QHD version at 27" for about $150. Those would have been twice as expensive a few years ago. That being sa…

2560x1440 on a 27 inch at a reasonable distance is pretty darn close to optimal IMO, so 4k, to me, is for 34" monitors (but 27 inch I feel is optimal on 60-75 inch desks, which is what I usually work with, so 4k rarely matters).

I'm with you on accurately calibrated monitors though! God most of them suck out of the box.

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