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The Microsoft Empire Reboots

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Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#31

Post by grokys »

damian2000 wrote: post #30
grokys wrote: post #25

> The holy grail for Microsoft would be getting developers to write new software for Windows again, putting Windows back at the center of a new virtuous circle. And yet there is no currently properly supported way to write desktop applications for Windows! MFC = obsolete, WinForms = maintenance mode, WPF = Dead on arrival, WinRT = Metro only. For all the people saying "web is where it's at", there are some things tha…

AFAIK WPF isn't dead, its popular with line of business apps. But yeah, disappointing there's been only minor improvements to it in the last 4 years, during which they've been focusing their efforts on WinRT. I was just reading something about the subject here http://pragmateek.com/is-wpf-dead-the-present-and-future-of-...

Oh I mean I use it almost every day and it has many good points, but the complete lack of interest from MS is obvious. I mean, even renaming a window doesn't work properly in Visual Studio. Most of it hasn't even been updated to use generics. It still uses DX9. But there's no better option.

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#32

Post by SandB0x »

Nitramp wrote: post #17
gurkendoktor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a huge fan of Delphi 5 at the time, and hoped it would win over VB6 (I guess it's a Coke/Pepsi thing). Now I'm in the same boat as you, because it seems both Delphi and its competitor, VB, have lost. I'm not even sure if there are any winners. I wish someone would build a robust OS & GUI toolkit and ship it with developer tools...

> I wish someone would build a robust OS & GUI toolkit and ship it with developer tools... I think that's the web. The development that used to happen in VB6 & Delphi simply has migrated there, desktop apps from that segment are dead.

The web has its own equivalent of the gtk bindings issue. For a new programmer, gluing together a load of different languages and libraries is a nightmare. For experienced programmers too.

http://tilomitra.com/the-crazy-world-of-code/

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#33

Post by Immortalin »

thomasahle wrote: post #26
Immortalin wrote: post #15

Their greatest mistake(s) were the removal of visual basic 6 line of products and windows 10. Visual basic 6 is my first programming language and is probably still my favourite. The problem with lua and python and most other "beginner friendly" languages is that it is hard to do anything useful when u are just starting other than printing hello world to terminal. My intro to vb6 was creating a simple calculator, it w…

Young programmers today tend to start with the Javascript family. There have probably never been languages with the same visual tools built in, rapidness of feedback and ease of sharing with friends.

Not true, I am a young programmer and I learned vb6 as my first language. It ran perfectly well on windows xp.

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#34

Post by quonn »

david927 wrote: post #19
Nitramp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish someone would build a robust OS & GUI toolkit and ship it with developer tools... I think that's the web. The development that used to happen in VB6 & Delphi simply has migrated there, desktop apps from that segment are dead.

I think you're right, and it's a huge indictment. The web, as an application platform, is worse than VB ever was. Think about that for a moment: We've regressed from VB. The usual tradeoff is: easy to write, hard to extend and maintain. But the web is hard to write and hard to extend/maintain. We have some of the smartest people in the world in our industry, and evidently we're all idiots.

A common complaint, but I don't think it's true: Web applications are _much_ more flexible as far as screen size and device types are concerned and they are multi-user, networked by default. If you would want to achieve both of these with a VB-like approach, it would be just as complex.

I think the most important issues with the web that are not already being addressed (and winning) are a statically typed Javascript replacement and a way to locally isolate the effect of CSS in large applications with many modules (web components don't solve this correctly).

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#35

Post by chrisabrams »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #2

How is it in this day and age a magazine like VanityFair can have such an awful UX on mobile: - I can't read the article because some as keeps jumping me back to the top of the page a few seconds after I scroll - the article font is tiny and hard to read anyway - for some reason even though there is a large body of text, ios doesn't allow me to use reader mode

Hey, I just started as Director of Engineering at VanityFair, and I can definitely agree with you our site is in much need of a UX overhaul. We are working to address the points you made plus may more issues that affect the site.

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#36

Post by melling »

gvb wrote: post #23

There is a Macintosh in the background of the picture "JUST KIDS Gates and former C.E.O. Steve Ballmer at Microsoft’s offices in Bellevue, 1985." Not unexpected given the date and the relationship between Apple and Microsoft at the time, but interesting that it shares the desk (albeit off in a corner) with the IBM-PC.

Microsoft was busy copying the Macintosh in 1985. Late in the year Windows 1.0 was released.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#37

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

Immortalin wrote: post #15

Their greatest mistake(s) were the removal of visual basic 6 line of products and windows 10. Visual basic 6 is my first programming language and is probably still my favourite. The problem with lua and python and most other "beginner friendly" languages is that it is hard to do anything useful when u are just starting other than printing hello world to terminal. My intro to vb6 was creating a simple calculator, it w…

I hear ya about VB6, I think that making it incompatible with VB.Net was a mistake. But ASP.NET webforms? Ugh. I maintain a slightly older website using webforms, and it feels like I'm in the web development dark ages. Its a literal ghetto of tech that is used no where else.

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#38

Post by alex_hitchins »

Immortalin wrote: post #33
thomasahle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young programmers today tend to start with the Javascript family. There have probably never been languages with the same visual tools built in, rapidness of feedback and ease of sharing with friends.

Not true, I am a young programmer and I learned vb6 as my first language. It ran perfectly well on windows xp.

Out of interest, why did you choose vb6? I'd have thought you would need to go out your way to learn such an old platform.

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#39

Post by outside1234 »

melling wrote: post #36
gvb wrote: post #23

There is a Macintosh in the background of the picture "JUST KIDS Gates and former C.E.O. Steve Ballmer at Microsoft’s offices in Bellevue, 1985." Not unexpected given the date and the relationship between Apple and Microsoft at the time, but interesting that it shares the desk (albeit off in a corner) with the IBM-PC.

Microsoft was busy copying the Macintosh in 1985. Late in the year Windows 1.0 was released. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

I can tell they brainwashed you well in Cupertino. ;) They probably left out the part where Jobs borrowed the ideas for the Mac from Xerox I suspect too.

More accurately, there is probably a Mac here because they were building Office for it.

Re: The Microsoft Empire Reboots

#40

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

Nitramp wrote: post #17
gurkendoktor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a huge fan of Delphi 5 at the time, and hoped it would win over VB6 (I guess it's a Coke/Pepsi thing). Now I'm in the same boat as you, because it seems both Delphi and its competitor, VB, have lost. I'm not even sure if there are any winners. I wish someone would build a robust OS & GUI toolkit and ship it with developer tools...

> I wish someone would build a robust OS & GUI toolkit and ship it with developer tools... I think that's the web. The development that used to happen in VB6 & Delphi simply has migrated there, desktop apps from that segment are dead.

Modern day WinForms in .Net work just as well for coding up simple GUIs.
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