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

If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

devblogs.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 356 posts

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#261

Post by _Algernon_ »

The only reason an X-box doesn't support printing is because Microsoft has defined it as such. A x-box is just as capable to print as the Windows machine in the next room over from a hardware perspective.

Which means this "solution" to a stupid, self-created problem is stupid. I bet this workflow will lead at least a handful of people to ask "How do I add a printer to my X-box?" instead of "Fuck the app crashed, better not do that again."

Microsoft has so much stupid, corporate driven decision making. Can't wait for it to follow in IBM's footsteps.

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#262

Post by yungporko »

"The idea here is to have the printing functions all behave in a manner perfectly consistent with printing being fully supported, yet mysteriously there is never a printer to print to."

this is exactly the kind of stupid shit that makes me hate using anything from microsoft. on what planet is this desirable behaviour? is it beyond microsoft's capability to just show a message saying "Printing is not available on Xbox"?

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#263

Post by yungporko »

kentonv wrote: post #30
tsimionescu wrote: post #2

I find nothing quite as frustrating as UIs that suggest a device could exist, but it's not there right now. I then have to spend time to discover that these devices are not supported, and that screen was just some mock someone came up with.

Sure, but you'd be more frustrated if your app just crashed. If the app is not prepared for printing not being supported, and printing just throws an exception, the app probably just crashes. That's bad. If the app is prepared for printing not being supported, it should be calling the explicit API to check if printing is supported, and then not displaying the UI for printing if it isn't. The article is not about thes…

these aren't the only two options.

first of all, i certainly wouldn't be more frustrated if the app just crashed, but how about just letting the user know that the xbox can't print? why does everybody seem to think that's out of the question?

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#264

Post by lloeki »

jacobgkau wrote: post #155
pjerem wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry, maybe the article used the wrong example but the main issue comes from the fact that an Xbox app is trying to print something. It should fail, not for the developer experience, but because to start, there is no way the user would want to print something on an Xbox. Something is already really wrong with your app if it tries to do things like this. Also he says that apps are developed and tested on PCs and…

The point is that the UWP allows running apps developed and tested on PCs on an Xbox. It's for the user's convenience (not having to wait on developers to port to Xbox) as much as the developer's (not having to port to Xbox). If a user wants to run an app on their Xbox, telling them "no, the developer didn't test this on the Xbox, so I'm not going to let you do that because you might try to print and get confused abo…

> The point is that the UWP allows running apps developed and tested on PCs on an Xbox. It's for the user's convenience (not having to wait on developers to port to Xbox) as much as the developer's (not having to port to Xbox).

It's interesting because that's true in some way (in the sense that PC and Xbox are different), and also not true in another (in the sense that a Xbox is in a way a PC, only with a different UI paradigm)

So in the latter sense UWP allows developing apps for that universal platform, and it only so happens that some apps are only designed, developed, and tested for one system (PC) these apps can run on.

In a way I can see working from the Xbox up being a better way to have a robust, secure, uniform platform than the Windows 8 attempt of slapping a secondary paradigm on top of the Windows 1.0 / OS/2 descendants.

I mean, the facility that underpins e.g WSL2 is exactly the same as the one that underpins Xbox game/apps segregation and Quick Resume. In a way the Xbox OS is very much like Qubes OS! In a way the OS UI we see on an Xbox device is a UI for the hypervisor itself.

I would certainly be interested in a "PC" that is so stable, restores state exactly upon updates, "it just works", allows to play games, allows to run a bunch of Linux VMs, with forever perfect backwards compatibility across hardware arch changes and OS evolution through virtualisation/emulation, and has a UI that allows many kinds of inputs and scales from big screen (gamepad, that accessibility input device I can't recall the name) to desktop (kb+mouse) and possibly laptop or even tablet/phone.

I mean it's not that far fetched (technically) that MS would announce tomorrow that an Xbox can run Linux, Windows 10, or even Windows 3.1 in a VM: all the facilities are there and you can even plug a keyboard + mouse today.

One may philosophically balk at the idea ("How dare you touch at my very open IBM PC! Where are my floating windows! Freedoooom!"), but I think it makes sense technically, and it makes sense as a product, and MS has all the bricks to make it happen.

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#265

Post by Joker_vD »

xp84 wrote: post #114
bitwize wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, no, absolutely no - what the author is describing is a hack to support a shitty client. If you were on the Windows team and I was your manager, I might fire you for that. This is Windows. You do not break applications that users depend on. Ever, ever, ever. If you have a "shitty" or misbehaving client application, you use whatever workarounds, shims, and compatibility hacks it takes to make the application work…

I really appreciate this approach. It actually takes, in my humble opinion, much more discipline (and requires checking ego at the door) to implement this idea, compared to the “my code just throws exceptions or a 400 Bad Request anytime you aren’t following the most recent revision of our API” mindset. I work on Web apps which are much closer to that second approach usually, but if I were working on a platform (NT)…

> “We’ve decided software that operates your 100 ten-million-dollar-each CNC machines is ‘shitty,’ so buy new equipment so you can get Windows 11”

...and then you'll also have to re-write your software to support Win 11, of course.

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#266

Post by Too »

dalai wrote: post #257
Tainnor wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had that experience for a single job that I ever applied to. Always sent in PDFs without any issues.

Recruiters and large firms tend to ask for a Word file. I sent the plaintext file (minimal markdown) I used to generate the pdf to a recruiter recently. They directly asked for a docx instead.

Recruiters probably edit the file before passing it on to the actual business... Add some more buzzwords, remove direct contact information, obscure exact project details. Some recruiters play quite dirty business and likewise assume the worst of their customers.

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#267

Post by reddalo »

PaulHoule wrote: post #115
mey wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Error design depends on context. For most of the systems I work on, fail fast on request for anything out of spec is the correct design. B2B/Microservices/API focused systems. Windows however has focused on bending over backwards to provide compatibility (including memory patching popular software that was broken, like Simcity https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/windows-95-went-the-... ). In the context of a user…

It's hard to overstate how hard Microsoft has worked to maintain backwards compatibility. Recently I had to read an old Access file and where I work we still keep Office '97 around for this purpose and it is quite amazing that it installs and works just fine on Win 11, Clippy works just fine, in fact all the other lame-ass things Office '97 does to take over your desktop all still work even if they don't quite visual…

> all the other lame-ass things Office '97 does to take over your desktop all still work

I'm curious about this. What do you mean? I remember using Office '97 on a Windows '98 machine, but I don't remember Office trying to take over all my desktop.

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#268

Post by reddalo »

apetresc wrote: post #116
gruez wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>With Word you can't even guarantee that reopening the file on the same computer & version won't change its formatting. Source? This seems utterly bizarre.

Before the new '.docx`, '.xslx', etc. formats, when it was still just .doc, .xsl, etc., the document format was (as I've heard it told) essentially just a memory dump of Word/Excel's state for that document at the time you saved. And since it's easy to imagine that serializing/deserializing such a complex thing might not be always 100% perfectly idempotent, it would indeed happen that just the act of opening a file w…

You're right, Office documents were essentialy a memory dump, but only for Office Starting from Office 97, they switched to an improved .doc, .xsl, etc. file format (even though it was still binary).

That's why modern software such as Office itself or LibreOffice call the .doc format "Microsoft Word 97/2003"

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#269

Post by chrisjj »

Arainach wrote: post #226
chrisjj wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deception is concealment of the fact printing is unsupported. Nk printers is merely a cover story. "Not­Supported­Exception" is there for a reason.

Nothing is being concealed. If you want to know if printing is supported, call IsPrintingSupported. The information is there, the API is there.

The one deceived is the user. He does not have the option of calling an additional function.

Re: If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

#270

Post by chrisjj »

Arainach wrote: post #241
chrisjj wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the first option is not "this app can't run on your Xbox". It is "This app possibly cannot run after trying to print".

Code like this often runs during application startup. It's not just printers.

The situation is "What should happen if an app tries to print on an Xbox?". I do not believe code that tries to print often runs on app startup.
Post reply on HN