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Microsoft is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#171

Post by saturdaysaint »

tshile wrote: post #145
jey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG addresses this criticism here: http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html

Yeah, he was right, people that design software no longer had to worry about Microsoft. Except that it's 2014 and Microsoft is still relevant. The techy bubble on the west coast may all be using Mac's but microsoft products can still be found throughout the rest of the world. I like PG, and love his essays, but this one was just bad. I'm not even talking about his prediction, just the way he puts it out there. It's j…

How are they still relevant exactly? They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I can't think of a must use piece of software that launched on an MS platform (outside Xbox) in the last 5 years. That puts them pretty low on the relevance totem pole.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#172

Post by tanzam75 »

gnaffle wrote: post #114
primitivesuave wrote: post #18

The most common form of Microsoft-hate usually centers around how a company of such gargantuan size makes such gargantuan fuck-ups. But this is to be expected of companies of gargantuan size, and is certainly not limited to Microsoft alone (although recently they've had more than their fair share). My qualm with Microsoft is all the little things that they let slip through. Little things like having a control panel w…

Here's a good story about the shutdown menu in Vista, and how it came to be: Original rant by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html Answer from the guy working on the shutdown menu: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.no/2006/11/windows-shutdown-cr... Another response from the guy that implemented the OSX shutdown menu: http://arno.org/arnotify/2006/11/the-design-of-the-mac-os-x-...

It's simply astonishing that the "Vista shut down menu" meme continues to come up after all this time, and that the wrong lessons continue to be drawn.

Between Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft changed exactly one thing. They replaced the two icons with a single text label that said "Shut down."

Nothing else changed. There was still a fly-out menu. There were still half-a-dozen options that users vaguely understood. They still had strange labels like "Hibernate" and "Sleep." There was still a "Log out" option. There was still a "Lock" option.

Turns out, none of that was the problem. The problem was that people didn't understand what the power icon did. Replace the icon with text that said "Shut down", and suddenly they knew what it did, and started clicking on it. They stopped opening the fly-out menu, and the "Paradox of Choice" went away.

The lesson is not that you should stop offering choices to your users! You can offer simplicity and choice at the same time. Just stop replacing text labels with confusing icons.

Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 had a "Shut down" text label. Windows XP had both an icon and text. Windows Vista had an icon but no text. Windows 7 went back to just text. The only design that caused confusion was Windows Vista.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#173

Post by [deleted] »

mattmanser wrote: post #89
primitivesuave wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I loved Windows XP, although I really only used it as a teenager because it was the only OS that could run Civilization III. I remember that blue control panel that neatly organized all the settings - it is astounding that it was considered more user-friendly to just make a big three-column list of every subcategory of settings. One thing to note is that for someone who knows what they're doing, the structur…

I can never find the programs one. I swear every time I open it Windows checks a rnd to see if it should be called All Programs or Programs & Features.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#174

Post by [deleted] »

okwa wrote: post #129
primitivesuave wrote: post #18

The most common form of Microsoft-hate usually centers around how a company of such gargantuan size makes such gargantuan fuck-ups. But this is to be expected of companies of gargantuan size, and is certainly not limited to Microsoft alone (although recently they've had more than their fair share). My qualm with Microsoft is all the little things that they let slip through. Little things like having a control panel w…

In XP, when connecting to a wireless network, you are required to type the network's password twice. How the UI team came to that decision I'll never know.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#175

Post by tanzam75 »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #171
tshile wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he was right, people that design software no longer had to worry about Microsoft. Except that it's 2014 and Microsoft is still relevant. The techy bubble on the west coast may all be using Mac's but microsoft products can still be found throughout the rest of the world. I like PG, and love his essays, but this one was just bad. I'm not even talking about his prediction, just the way he puts it out there. It's j…

How are they still relevant exactly? They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I can't think of a must use piece of software that launched on an MS platform (outside Xbox) in the last 5 years. That puts them pretty low on the relevance totem pole.

> They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing.

I knew plenty of Mac users in 2004. They didn't feel like they were missing out on anything back then.

The recent past does not represent the normal state of affairs. Microsoft was not going to retain a monopoly forever, any more than IBM could've retained a monopoly. Yet IBM is larger today than it ever was as a monopoly.

Markets grow, and new markets open up. Microsoft doesn't need a monopoly in every market. What it needs is something that it doesn't yet have in the various consumer markets -- 20-30% share. Large enough to matter.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#176

Post by giantrobothead »

RegW wrote: post #136
Ygg2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone found it usable? I struggled to automate some recursive copy/filter of files. I don't remember that task taking that long to automate on Linux.

It's a doddle. You just have to install Cygwin and do it in bash. http://cygwin.com/

Indeed.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#177

Post by jmnicolas »

SwellJoe wrote: post #83
jmnicolas wrote: post #44

It's a good thing Microsoft is "dead" so now when appropriate we can use MS tech without having to endure the critics. As far as evil goes, to me, Google is much more scaring than MS.

"As far as evil goes, to me, Google is much more scaring than MS." You've said more about your knowledge of the history of computing than you have about Google or Microsoft. Edit: I think it would be interesting and amusing to know the ages of people downvoting this. Microsoft has such an incredible history of anti-competitive behavior that I'm surprised anyone believes Google is even in the same league of evil as Mi…

I don't think you are downvoted because your answer is wrong but because it looks like a bit condescending.

But let me explain why I fear Google more than I would fear Microsoft if it was still "alive".

When they were at the top (let's say 1995 to 2005) Microsoft was always about controlling people's software (everybody should use Windows and Office ...).

However Google is about controlling people's information : the information you give them knowingly (in your Google Docs, Youtube videos etc) and the informations they gather in your profile / "dossier" (what searches are you doing, what videos are you watching, how long are you connected ...) whatever they call it.

And to me, my data is much more important than the computing platform I'm using. I can't delete what Google know about me but I can still wipe my hard-drive and install any BSD or Linux I want.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#178

Post by gnaffle »

tanzam75 wrote: post #172
gnaffle wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a good story about the shutdown menu in Vista, and how it came to be: Original rant by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html Answer from the guy working on the shutdown menu: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.no/2006/11/windows-shutdown-cr... Another response from the guy that implemented the OSX shutdown menu: http://arno.org/arnotify/2006/11/the-design-of-the-mac-os-x-...

It's simply astonishing that the "Vista shut down menu" meme continues to come up after all this time, and that the wrong lessons continue to be drawn. Between Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft changed exactly one thing. They replaced the two icons with a single text label that said "Shut down." Nothing else changed. There was still a fly-out menu. There were still half-a-dozen options that users vaguely underst…

I agree that the main problem wasn't the options, but I do think that some of options are were unnecessary (the distinction between hibernate and sleep, for instance).

The real lesson is that design by comittee over years trying to reach a compromise will often result in terrible design decisions. It wouldn't even have been a problem if they had kept the icon, if it just did what people expected it to! (shutdown, not sleep as was the default). And now we have Windows 8, where they've hidden the shutdown menu inside Settings.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#179

Post by eldavido »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #69
eldavido wrote: post #10

It's really interesting how in 2007, I believed (as did pg, seemingly) that the web would eventually overtake desktop software. Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. That so much code ships directly to mobile devices says a lot about the power of centralized app stores and truly sandboxed install…

Well, in my opinion web programming and native are blending together. The web approaches native, with asm.js and webgl. It is not just a document anymore. Native approaches web, just look at what Apple, or Dropbox are doing(they use native code for giving you network capabilities).

I sincerely hope this doesn't happen.

Web software basically runs anywhere and doesn't have to be updated; it has minimal platform dependencies.

Native code, on the other hand, is a 25-year-long story of install/uninstall, sophisticated package/dependency management, chroot jails, and viruses.

I fear that, if web software continues its crawl out of the browser sandbox, we'll get all the disadvantages of native code (security exploits, dependency problems) without any of the advantages (speed, high-performance graphics)

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