Microsoft Project Siena (Beta) • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#31

Post by undoware » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 8:40 PM UTC

kitsune_ wrote: post #26

undoware wrote: post #25

This product is aimed at fledgling entrepreneurs with an interest in accruing the benefits of technology, but without the expertise or in-house resources to leverage the FOSS chain. Remember: From our perspective, MS is a bunch of evil-empire joykills: lock-in, licensing, lucifier. But for most businesspeople, especially the non-startup bootstrappers, they are promethean, stealing fire from the mandarins of software…

And the Mac equivalent to Access here is FileMaker. Entire kingdoms have been built by using one of these applications as a foundation.

Right. Which is why my first advice to a non-tech person starting a business is still 'go out and get Access'. Because I can pitch as hard as I like for Node and Angular, I'm never going to make callback-passing and dependency injection as intuitive as 'New Access Database Wizard'.

Come to think of it, 'use Access' is pretty good advice for businessy techies, too. It's a lot harder to rabbit-hole when the earth is actually molded plastic. :)

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#32

Post by yareally » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #11

rshlo wrote: post #4

Looks nice. The problem with M$ is that over the years they've always offered simple tools for creating software, and then abandoning it somewhere along the way. Access is a great example.

I don't know why you were voted down. Had I invested heavily in learning Silverlight a couple of years ago, I would find myself with my thumb squarely secured up my own ass. I can't imagine spending so much time and effort learning how to use a framework only to have it discontinued in it's infancy. Silverlight dying was a good thing and ultimately it's a win for everybody as HTML is more open, but still - I feel for…

> I don't know why you were voted down.

Probably because they had to go out of their way to describe them as M$. Googl€, App£e and ¥ahoo work just as well, but are never used.

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#33

Post by undoware » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

jsmeaton wrote: post #28

undoware wrote: post #25

This product is aimed at fledgling entrepreneurs with an interest in accruing the benefits of technology, but without the expertise or in-house resources to leverage the FOSS chain. Remember: From our perspective, MS is a bunch of evil-empire joykills: lock-in, licensing, lucifier. But for most businesspeople, especially the non-startup bootstrappers, they are promethean, stealing fire from the mandarins of software…

Unfortunately, it's not just small business. There are some very, very large players that still use Access that I'm aware of. Every thing you said still applies though.

I'm aware of this too -- there is a standing wave of businesses with technical debt from their smaller days. Much of the North American economy is underpinned by a volatile mixture of Act! ~2006, MS Access ~2003, and QuickBooks. None of these products like each other, and they are all obsolete.

This is at least a big a deal as, e.g, South Korea's eternal love affair with Windows XP. It shapes the whole technoeconomic apparatus.

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#34

Post by Poiesis » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 9:32 PM UTC

If this was recently released, they sure have poor timing. If this has been around a while, seems like poor marketing.

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#35

Post by concise_unicorn » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 9:50 PM UTC

Is it just me or does it fail to explain just what it is, exactly?

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#36

Post by Spearchucker » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 10:13 PM UTC

TheAnimus wrote: post #13

sergiotapia wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you were voted down. Had I invested heavily in learning Silverlight a couple of years ago, I would find myself with my thumb squarely secured up my own ass. I can't imagine spending so much time and effort learning how to use a framework only to have it discontinued in it's infancy. Silverlight dying was a good thing and ultimately it's a win for everybody as HTML is more open, but still - I feel for…

>I don't know why you were voted down. Had I invested heavily in learning Silverlight a couple of years ago, I would find myself with my thumb squarely secured up my own ass. Not really, as someone who specialised in WPF since it's latter beta stages, I still am finding plenty of work at a very good rate. Same thing goes with silverlight, even in a discontinued state, it still is going to have years and years of bug…

It's better than that - WPF and Silverlight skills are directly transferrable to Windows Phone and Windows RT. Yes, there are differences, limitations and in some cases more complete features, but the jump is negligible, with a herd of good resources on MSDN, StackOverflow and so on.

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#37

Post by pbreit » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 10:22 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #11

rshlo wrote: post #4

Looks nice. The problem with M$ is that over the years they've always offered simple tools for creating software, and then abandoning it somewhere along the way. Access is a great example.

I don't know why you were voted down. Had I invested heavily in learning Silverlight a couple of years ago, I would find myself with my thumb squarely secured up my own ass. I can't imagine spending so much time and effort learning how to use a framework only to have it discontinued in it's infancy. Silverlight dying was a good thing and ultimately it's a win for everybody as HTML is more open, but still - I feel for…

> I don't know why you were voted down.

Possibly because access is a lousy example being hat it remains after 20+ years.

Silverlight would have been a much better example.

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#38

Post by NicoJuicy » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 10:23 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #11

rshlo wrote: post #4

Looks nice. The problem with M$ is that over the years they've always offered simple tools for creating software, and then abandoning it somewhere along the way. Access is a great example.

I don't know why you were voted down. Had I invested heavily in learning Silverlight a couple of years ago, I would find myself with my thumb squarely secured up my own ass. I can't imagine spending so much time and effort learning how to use a framework only to have it discontinued in it's infancy. Silverlight dying was a good thing and ultimately it's a win for everybody as HTML is more open, but still - I feel for…

and you could have used your skills to create xaml applications..

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#39

Post by gecko » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 11:05 PM UTC

randomfool wrote: post #17

What's the relation between this and LightSwitch? Both are from DevDiv and it seems like there's a good deal of overlap in goals. Is LightSwitch being de-emphasized (put on life support) because it doesn't fully encourage WinRT?

LightSwitch is going web-only, as far as I can tell, so this may simply be splitting off and rebranding the Win 8 side of things.

Re: Microsoft Project Siena (Beta)

#40

Post by rjd » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 11:34 PM UTC

emmett wrote: post #2

I found this page most incomprehensible, so I looked around. A reasonable summary of what they're trying to build here is "HyperCard for the internet", which is actually a pretty cool idea. This article had the best short summary in my opinion: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/19/5227140/microsoft-project...

Ha, I read the page for a moments thinking "What is this?... a cooking app?". Definitely a gold star in the incomprehensible awards. Thanks for the link.