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Windows 11: Just say no

computerworld.com

511–520 of 539 posts

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody gets paid to leave things alone and maybe that's a big problem with the world.

It's definitely a big problem with software. This "need to constantly pay developers" is part of the justification for moving towards subscription payment instead of one-time payment. The logic goes: One-time payment won't pay for future changes, and developers are always making changes, and they need to be paid for. But, what if I don't want future changes? For almost all software I've ever paid for, as a user, I ju…

> But, what if I don't want future changes? For almost all software I've ever paid for, as a user, I just want the goddamn software exactly how it is today, forever. I'd maybe be willing to pay for security updates, but that's it.

Problem is, most software doesn't exist in a vacuum; it is part of an ecosystem. Security updates that you might pay for are not enough, because the ecosystem is constantly changing around the program you bought.

I'm author of HashBackup. It uses remote object storage services so if there are incompatible changes made on the storage side, the software has to adapt. What if IP4 is no longer supported? Adapt. A library like Boto2 gets rewritten and the old version loses support. Adapt. Google Sites decides to force you to migrate to a new version that looks like shit. This just happened to me, and it's so bad I'm having to do a whole new documentation site.

Just keeping software working has become a big challenge because of ecosystem changes.

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#512
post #7

I have to agree, even though I have plenty of pro-Windows comments. To me Windows 11 feels like Vista, and to everyone that got burned with the rewrites on the WinRT side, just using plain Win32/MFC/Forms/WPF feels liberating. Multiple teams are fighting UI politics over WinUI, MAUI on top of WinUI, React Native with WinUI, and classical UWP is not going away (Windows 11 Store is written in it), then ASP.NET team is…

I can't even track these UI techs anymore. I thought WinUI is the new version of the UI layer of UWP and all apps who use WinUI are actually still considered UWP apps? I genuinely don't know, can somebody enlighten me?

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and UI elements that haven't been updated since Windows 2K. Also known as "the good part"... Everything else about Windows UI since then has only gotten less usable and more hostile.

This is what drives me nuts. Why do they keep messing with the UI? Nobody wants that! Even Apple and Google have both figured out that screwing around with UX every release is a recipe for making your customers HATE you. What I, and probably non-power users want out of windows is for it to be faster and use less power. I'd honestly be happy to go back to a Win95 interface with the latest kernel. Microsoft needs to fi…

> It's not broke, stop trying to fix it.

I completely agree.

But look on even HN, if anyone mentions a library they're using you get the inevitable comment about how there's not been a PR in 3 months so the project must be dead. Do a search of HN for the word "Modern" and look how many projects assert themselves as such.

> Nobody wants that!

Apparently, they do. It's just you and I that don't and we aren't enough.

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#515
post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've had 4 years to settle on a GUI for .NET Core and completely failed. At this stage, the 3rd party gui libraries are looking better and better i.e. Electron.NET https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/2021/08/electronnet-cross-p...

Here is the joke, MAUI with incompatible XAML is now delayed to post .NET 6 release, while with UNO you can go cross platform today, on .NET 6 and without having to rewrite XAML yet again.

I will go take another look at UNO then.

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#517
post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a big problem with software. This "need to constantly pay developers" is part of the justification for moving towards subscription payment instead of one-time payment. The logic goes: One-time payment won't pay for future changes, and developers are always making changes, and they need to be paid for. But, what if I don't want future changes? For almost all software I've ever paid for, as a user, I ju…

> But, what if I don't want future changes? For almost all software I've ever paid for, as a user, I just want the goddamn software exactly how it is today, forever. I'd maybe be willing to pay for security updates, but that's it. Problem is, most software doesn't exist in a vacuum; it is part of an ecosystem. Security updates that you might pay for are not enough, because the ecosystem is constantly changing around…

Great point! It's an ecosystem-wide problem. I'd go even further to argue it's a problem baked into the very psyches of software developers. Your remote storage service should not be changing, particularly in ways that break backward compatibility. Nobody should be dropping IPv4. Nobody should be rewriting a library in such a way the new one is incompatible unless the old one retains support. Nobody should be forcing you to migrate to some crappier version that looks like shit.

Stop changing things just to change them. But if you're actually changing for a good reason, consider the downstream effects of your changes.

I can take a bash script from 20, maybe 30 years ago, and know that it will still do what it's supposed to do, and all the standard commands it calls, like sed, awk, and grep will also do what they are supposed to do. Bits don't rot by themselves. Careless developers in the ecosystem make changes and don't consider backward compatibility, and we euphemistically call it "bit rot."

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#518

Windows 11 is half-baked. But it isn't just half-baked because it was rushed out while ignoring all the feedback (although it absolutely was). It is also half-baked because Microsoft's management has no particular strategy or plan for what they want Windows to be. So Windows 11 just feels like an "and kitchen sink" where someone picked up an iPad, noted down a bunch of random features without rhyme or reason and then…

>Windows Search being objectively worse than the Power Toys Run 'Everything' is a freeware tool that should be installed by every Windows user. https://www.voidtools.com/

Those are completely different products. Run and Everything search for file names only. Windows Search searches in file's content too, and understand a lot of file formats.

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#519
post #49

Proton[1] is the reason my next machine will be Linux. [1]: https://www.protondb.com/

I'm a happy user. I only have one game currently, for which I reboot into my win10, but only because it has BattleEye anti-cheat.

I suspect that Valve is actively working on anti-cheat solutions because of the upcoming Steam Deck console.

Re: Windows 11: Just say no

#520
post #49

Proton[1] is the reason my next machine will be Linux. [1]: https://www.protondb.com/

Yup. I've been running EOS ( https://elementary.io/ ). It's almost as pretty as my MBP, and vastly more usable than Windows. And I have everything I really need (with first class Linux support): * Gaming - Steam + Proton * Digital Audio Workstation - Bitwig * Video Editing - DaVinci Resolve * 3d Modeling - Blender * 2d Image - Gimp (this one could be a lot better) ----- The only thing I can imagine dual booting into…

web based solutions are getting crazy good. Pixlr in the browser probably works better than Gimp for simple use cases.

https://pixlr.com/

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