171–180 of 556 posts
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Apple maintains many of the same positions, yet they are loved. Apple actually uses a lot of open source, yet rarely contribute back. Microsoft Research contributes a ton to computing research. Note: writing this in Google Chrome on my Macbook
Well Google Chrome as of last year was based on Apple's open source Webkit so that's not quite true.
So you posted a real classic flamewar topic here... heh. Enjoy the war. But here's my take on Microsoft Corp, since you asked nicely.
You guys don't play nice. You've never played nice, and the fact that you've gotten better lately seems to be more due to the fact that you've lost dominance and have to interop with other operating systems. I'm not really going to provide significant examples, there are lots out there for a quick search. Things like file formats, threading models, frigging slash directions in filenames, deviance in compiler standards. Not to mention that MS had a terrible rep for being aggressive and with bad ethics in the 80s and 90s (leaving aside the F/OSS fight).
Technically, I find MS offerings to still be catching up in automatability to Linux. Still. Not only that, but you have had since the 90s this obnoxious habit of having "moving targets" for your APIs. So learning one API just meant that I'd have to learn a new one to do the same thing in a year.
I've recently had the opportunity to do heavy .NET development, and my opinion is that as a developer whose worked for years in Linux, Microsoft technologies wasted my time comparatively. Everything from Windows 8 out to the shenanagins with IIS to actually get my webapp deployed. I was able to do equivalent work in Ruby on Rails (a language and framework I didn't know) in a fraction of the time I spent fighting C#, MVC API and IIS; this experience was repeated with Caveman and Common Lisp (a framework I didn't know, a language I did). I can not believe how painful it is to develop on Microsoft tooling, and how meekly people accept it as the way it is. I don't like having my time wasted.
I'm not going to say Apple or Google (or Oracle, SAP, etc, etc, etc) is blameless, okay? But I don't really like Microsoft policy and technologies, as a rule of thumb. Note that I really respect your arm of the company - MSR - and think that it does great stuff like F#, Pex, and others. That still doesn't obviate my dislike of MS as a corporation.
Regards, Paul
I'll tell you the story of my friend Greg. Greg has been a believer in Microsoft. He went to all the Tech-Ed conferences, attended every MSDN event he could. Conferences are grand stages that leave an impression. He drank all the cool-aid that was served at these conferences. Things were really good early on, this was the last decade. The computing scene at that time revolved around Microsoft like the many moons of J…
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Pleasingly ambiguous phrasing. The first two times I read it, I got that this was the smartest anyone had ever looked (no one has ever looked smarter). Apologies for going off-topic, but I hadn't come across this particular cramp in the language before.
I doubt anyone would disagree that triple negatives aren't easy to parse.
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Speaking only from my own experience, the Microsoft shops I worked in were quick to regurgitate the FUD talking points that Microsoft had been spreading. This strengthened my Anti-MS resolve instead of weakening it, and the shops since then have increasingly enjoyed the benefits of that resolve, creating a positive feedback loop in the process. I owe Microsoft a huge debt of gratitude for stoking the fire. As much as…
They created a useless debate as FUD. There is no real debate about e.g. GPL vitality any more than MS stack virality. There is no real debate about Linux copyright or patent legitimacy.
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HN is the new cool piece of playground equipment, the old cool piece of playground equipment has been overrun by losers and is now lame. Eventually HN will become /. or reddit and we'll move on. It's essentially nerd fashion.
This comment made my day. It is all about your community and once it becomes too biased one way or the other, everyone else moves on.
Or perhaps I'm just projecting my own experiences with /., digg, reddit, et al.
In that particular thread, I was accused of being a shill and an astroturfer by 3 members. All of the accusers had karma greater than 1500, and atleast two of them were on HN since at least 2 years. Why? Because I posted the spec list of the tablet. And I do not have allegiance to any of the tech companies at all, except having used their products one time or another. MS hate is vicious on here. I remember recoiledsn…
That article was not flagged off the frontpage. It set off the flamewar detector. As for recoiledsnake, that is one of many accounts created by a group or individual who is either an astroturfer or indistinguishable from one. Part of his/her/their m.o. is to talk constantly about there being an anti-Microsoft conspiracy on HN. Sometimes he/she/they would use multiple, separate accounts in the same thread.
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With all due respect you're just another OSS evangelist comparing RoR to Visual Basic, Classic ASP and ASP.NET. It is a silly comparison but it is so unbelievably common here. Try comparing it to ASP.NET MVC and you'll see that Microsoft actually has a modern and compelling offering. They really haven't sit still since you've been gone.
The funny thing is I never mentioned RoR in my GP, so you inserted that comparison in your own head. I'm talking about a complete OSS ecosystem - dev language, servers, VC, deployment tools, monitoring etc. I work at enterprise scale in FIRE, and there is so much more to successful project delivery than just language/IDE. BTW I had to bandage up a limping ASP.NET MVC app about three years ago for a large Canadian tel…
Crappy work can be done in any language/framework
Why the past tense in so many of these posts? Windows and especially Office are still an efficiency and $$ tax on businesses and consumers around the world. I would guess that 1% of Office sales are for folks who "need" the functionality of (most likely) Excel over what is offered by OpenOffice, Google Docs, etc. All the rest are driven by the effective monopoly of the Office file system "standard." I am happy to pay…
It's not just that Excel is powerful (and it is...). It's that as a user, I have access to all the pre-made macros and VBA tools from an army of other users. I have the availability of help from a plethora of well-staffed volunteer forums. I have the ability to natively open any XLS, XLSX, XLSM, and XLSB file that a colleague or customer sends me.
I think it is unwise to underestimate the power and privileges gained by working in the dominant ecosystem. People don't part with their money that blindly or lightly - it is the easy choice to go with the herd on many of these decisions rather than paving your own road with a (relatively) un-tested marginal player.