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Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

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Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#531

Post by fredsanford »

pjbrunet wrote: post #364
primelens wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! Many hackers who were growing up in the nineties had their opinions of Microsoft negatively affected by the strongarm tactics applied against Linux and open-source/free software. I'd say this strategy continues - e.g. "secure" boot, but the late nineties was when the animosity between the two groups peaked and it has never quite gone away. And I'd add the antitrust case and IE's intransigence to web standards a…

Yes, growing up in the 90s with awesome software that didn't need Windows. I loved DOS. And somebody else mentioned Amiga, probably the most awesome computer and community ever, too bad they went out of business. And OS/2 2.0 really impressed me, the ability to multitask Windows and DOS applications on the screen at the same time. So many interesting applications, too many to list here. So Microsoft in the 90s was li…

This is pretty much exactly how I feel... I started learning to code in 1988. DOS + Desqview, OS/2 1.x, OS/2 2.x, Some Early '90s Unix with 2 3foot x 3foot boxes of documentation...

Texas A and M Linux, Yggdrasil...

In all that time I used and tried to function with Windows, starting with 3.x. It didn't really work for me. Add to that the bundled aspect (which pissed me off greatly, I had to pay for a DOS/Windows license only to wipe the machine and install OS/2 or Linux)

I spent ~$2000 with Microsoft for their OS/2 SDK only to have it abandoned a short time later with no refund available.

Microsoft has earned my dislike. But still, it's hard to get a quality laptop without Windows, unless you want to way overpay for Apple or deal with not getting exactly what you want (Linux based laptops).

Microsoft has, without a doubt, the best overall bunch of development tools but feels the need to break things every year or two...

sigh

Idiot child indeed. :)

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#532

Post by _pferreir_ »

acheron wrote: post #412
_pferreir_ wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find people that "like" companies quite amusing. I think they pretty much account for most of the hate you see on HN. Brand identity is the new opiate of the masses.

"Endorsing products is the American way to express individuality." -- Calvin and Hobbes http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/08/27

20 years old and still so true.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#533

Post by nspattak »

I do not think that hate is the appropriate word for it, though I have found myself almost hating this company in the past. I have thought about it, as it is not a rational thing to "hate" a company and I came to the conclusion that there is a reasonable explanation:

This company has caused me pain time and time again, so this is the first reason I strongly dislike them.

That aside, this company may have had successful agreements and marketing strategies but for a range of technical people they are more of a pain and problem than a solution. They give attitude, they do not respect their users, they do not innovate, they charge for ridiculous things (eg starter, home, professional), they haven't managed to build an os+GUI in the last 25 years!

You (or a lot of other people) may not agree with the above opinion. The truth is that a lot of people agree and it looks like a lot of them can be found around here. This is my explanation.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#534

Post by im3w1l »

xradionut wrote: post #485
im3w1l wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what grounds do you confirm his speculation?

Occam's razor. Either Microsoft is incompetent or promoting/retirement of APIs is more profitable.

A, in my opinion, simpler explanation is that they change their product to try to make it better.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#535

Post by jitix »

Be what it may, MS is still a great tech company. Windows many not be very good for computing in general but it still is the OS that we write reports on and play games on. And its stability with home computers is unmatched by linux (the kind of systems with crossfire and SLI). And even now there is nothing that can match MS Office in functionality.

Dismissing something just because it is related to MS is just discrimination. Nokia tablet seems to be quite promising.. and unless its priced like 30-40k INR I would like to get one. (btw I am a Hadoop/BigData developer working primary on linux)

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#536

Post by mhartl »

girvo wrote: post #186
jeswin wrote: post #163

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…

Well, I run Elementary on my laptop, OS X on my iMac, have an iPhone, a Nexus 7, and a BlackBerry Playbook (quite an underrated tablet for it's time). I'm a developer, and build apps for all of those devices. And you know what? WPF _is_ nice. I _liked_ Silverlight (but am frustrated that it doesn't work under Linux, though not surprised). Microsoft make _good_ developer tools, in my personal humble opinion. The probl…

Two quick notes:

1. s/for it's time/for its time/

2. Instead of using _underscores_ for emphasis, on HN you can use asterisks, like this:

    asterisks, *like this*

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#537

Post by jorisw »

mattwallaert wrote: post #502
antonpug wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably the least biased person when it comes to technology - I love Apple's hardware and software, I hate Apple maps and iTunes, but I love Google Maps and I hate Google Search. I like Bing as my search engine - Bing is nice, I'll give Microsoft that. Most other products, historically are crap. Microsoft always half-asses things and comes up with products that are irrelevant to the end user. Windows 8? I'd say…

Sorry, I'm a little confused as to how you think Microsoft has historically made products that are "irrelevant to the end user", when Microsoft powers the majority of computing activity worldwide and has for more 20 years. What it feels like you may instead be trying to say is "I don't like Windows 8 and think Linux/OS X are better", which is certainly a valid opinion statement. I wouldn't, however, labor under the m…

The market share of Microsoft in the desktop computing business in no way represents any kind of quality. Nor does it in any way mean that your users like your product. If I look around me in any office, I see people constantly fighting their computers as a result of the worst user experience on the planet.

The main reason for Microsoft's market share is a historical one: They partnered with IBM in the 80s, then PCs (IBM compatibles) became the de facto standard.

Add to this the abuse to the progression of the Web that is Internet Explorer. As many of the HN readers are web developers, well, do the math.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#538

Post by shanselman »

jcbrand wrote: post #401
shanselman wrote: post #327

This article nails it...the Worst Part about Working at Microsoft http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/10/09/what-is-the-wor... It's the number of people who doubt us. We suck, we hate OSS, we are evil, we are incompetent. Thing is, Microsoft isn't a monolith. It's little startups, small groups and big groups. I went there 5 years ago to do open source and I'm doing it. I can't speak for the other gajillion groups…

Oh, you mean the article that claims MS should get credit for the chair I'm sitting on? Uh, ok... Making OSS that only works on the MS stack doesn't really count.

Ya, his article jumped the shark there and went downhill from there, but the essence is there. We dropped the ball on Smart Watches, Tablet PCs, Pens, etc.

Agreed on the OSS thing, that's why my group doesn't do that whenever possible.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#539

Post by petit_robert »

im3w1l wrote: post #534
xradionut wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's razor. Either Microsoft is incompetent or promoting/retirement of APIs is more profitable.

A, in my opinion, simpler explanation is that they change their product to try to make it better.

>A, in my opinion

mmmh... I thought about this too.

However, MS is anything but stupid marketing wise, I find. So I dismissed incompetence.

Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?

#540

Post by petit_robert »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #516
petit_robert wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Problem was, MS was churning out the "next great thing" >faster than I could learn the last great thing. Same here. I design databases, and MS kept bringing new data access methods every three years; I never could wrap my head around the ADO/DAO difference, but that did not matter for long because both were replaced by .Net I sincerely wondered if this was not a deliberate tactic by Microsoft : while developpers are…

> Meanwhile I learned how to use an OSS lamp stack and have been happily using it for the last 10 years. Very stable and reliable, I could not be happier. I find that Java's biggest problem (stability/stagnation depending on who you ask) is also the JVM development ecosystem's benefit. There's not one body driving adoption of technologies by deciding what's supported and what's not, so technology choice is less dicta…

Not sure what you mean exactly, but in any case I know nothing about Java; my LAMP stack is :

Linux, Apache, Mod_perl, Postgresql

All very pleasant to work with (1) and stable; mod_perl has a rather steep learning curve, but worth it for web work. Very powerful _and_ low cost.

( 1 : if you like Perl, obviously )

[Edit] asterik in note caused weird formatting; replaced with 1

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