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Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#171

Post by dismalpedigree »

twobitshifter wrote: post #98
Maarten88 wrote: post #85

Long ago Microsoft had MSN Messenger, which was one of the leading messaging apps. It worked well, and many 'normal' users were using it. Then Microsoft dissolved the team behind it and screwed up the product so bad with bloatware and ads that everyone moved to WhatsApp (except in the US where people went back to texting). Then Microsoft came out with Communicator, renamed it to Lync, which was a corporate messenger/…

I started a new job and decided to go all in on using o365, including keeping notes in onenote. They’re launching a new version next month and I’m hoping that things go in the right direction and they keep the features i’ve just started to use.

I wish you well, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#172

Post by enlyth »

Simple answer:

It is a badly coded mess of spaghetti code, written with an ancient framework (AngularJS, currently running version 1.5.15), then ported to different platforms with Electron.

Have a look at the source code in your browser, it is not obfuscated in any way.

It is a single file of almost 17MB (!) of minified JavaScript, and I'm surprised the browser doesn't outright crash and actually manages to parse this, run and display a web application.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#173

Post by dismalpedigree »

Kukumber wrote: post #60
yawnxyz wrote: post #40

This happens because of how Microsoft approaches product development and design. On many product teams, PMs end up doing not only the product design decisions but even designs much of the products themselves. This works for them because it focuses product cycles on releasing what "matters" to the customer, but it ends up cutting craft and quality. This makes their products poor to use, but is also what drives revenue…

For this reason the US military said NO to Microsoft [1] The more the deep state (nothing about conspiracy theory, it's just the people at the oval office, and their surroundings, mostly industry lobby) want to trust and push Microsoft, the worse it's going to get in the coming years were AI, software and hardware will be the deciding factor for the civilization war we are currently living > Microsoft insiders worry…

Military didn’t say no. Congress stepped in and demanded accountability. Military is still having wet dreams about IVAS (military version of hololens). Last I heard was an initial purchase for 1,000(?) units to continue testing. Also the military loves Office 365 and Teams. Everything is done through it now, of course nobody knows how to use collaboration tools and there is no training, so they still email PowerPoints all over the place.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#174

Post by colordrops »

akira2501 wrote: post #151
midoridensha wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the problem. Orkut was successful, but that doesn't stop Google from shutting down services. Trusting a Google service to be around long-term is folly unless it's Maps or Gmail.

IIRC the other major problem was that Orkut was invite-only for a very long time. That's partly was it was so popular in a few South American countries, it was very difficult to get yourself on the platform, and even if you did, it was difficult to use it to communicate with anyone locally. Google was not the giant then that it is now.

Google has had more than one product that I've been excited to use but was invite only, and then only got the invite after interest had died both for the public and myself. Ones I can remember are Orkut, Wave, and Ingress.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#175

Post by cjbgkagh »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #11

It isn't because Microsoft lacks good programmers. My guess would be that someone believes they need to have every feature from slack, zoom, WebEx, meet etc, and also integrate tightly with every Skype/SharePoint/OneNote feature, and also run on at least four platforms. But they aren't willing to give people time to do this.

That’s what they get for consistently paying less than other FANG companies.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#176

Post by BuckRogers »

oneplane wrote: post #128
twobitshifter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right and it’s integrated with Sharepoint, Outlook and OneDrive.

And those are in the same boat as Teams: it came with the bundle. (well, one could argue that plenty of people enjoy Outlook, but OneDrive is nothing special and SharePoint is just a bad Wiki going the SAP integration hell route)

I use OneDrive as my cloud storage provider. To me cloud storage from the top-tier vendors seem to work well enough at this point. I probably would’ve used Google Drive, but once I learned they take it out of your Gmail storage space I declined. To Microsoft’s credit, your OneDrive storage space does not come out of your app Outlook email storage.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#178

Post by analog31 »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #61
jagged-chisel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest that Teams only gets used because it’s included in the enormous license that companies buy for Exchange and/or Office and the most popular alternative has its own fees. Large companies don’t want to fork over another licensing fee in the tens of thousands of dollars for Slack when they’re getting Teams “free.”

Exactly. Nobody likes it. We use it because we have to. We have to because it was already paid for.

Also, most users haven't ever experienced software that's any better, with a few rare exceptions such as Excel. We programmers have it so good. "How can people put up with such bad software" is a recurring theme, and not unique to Teams or even Microsoft.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#180

Post by pxc »

nwallin wrote: post #150
bluedino wrote: post #36

Can't even copy and paste code etc What a joke.

Three backticks then a space. Then paste the code. then hit enter 4-5 times until it sends it. I don't know where I learned this eldritch incantation--it certainly wasn't in the documentation--but it works.

> this eldritch incantation

It's the spawn of an unholy union between Markdown and WYSIWYG. Triple backticks is the opening (and closing) sequence of characters used to denote multiline snippets of 'preformatted text' or code in Markdown.

Pressing enter 5 times is what happens because Microsoft insists on preventing you from writing actual Markdown, even as an option.

Single backticks works (and you can use a second backtick to close 'exit' that formatting mode), but delightfully, it only works if you're typing, and not if you copy and paste.

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