This 2018 video from TechAltar discusses the same topic: Why Microsoft Can't Design A Consistent Windows (https://youtu.be/hn5QjtpjW_U)
Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
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Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#302"I looked at the presenter like they had a rat’s tail hanging out of his mouth for the entire hour."
Could have been Ballmer getting a quick snack in before anger-presentation.
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nadella thought he could take the reins and start yelling “Cloud! Cloud! Cloud!” and that would be successful. He doesn’t have a strategy and now that’s becoming apparent.
Nadella took the reins in 2014 and the stock has 10x’d since then. In the same timeframe, the sp500 has 2.5x’d. Sounds pretty successful to me?
Sure, but how much of that had to do with the design and implementation of Windows? You know, the OS that runs half of the modern economy. Microsoft is just milking it without a coherent vision.
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
The end state of genAI could as well be a few billionaires being their enterprise and everybody else being unemployed or working at the factory. Robots are not there yet (far from it) and someone needs to build and maintain the thing as well as food for everyone. High unemployment could drive salaries down and make lots of thing unavailable to the common people while making humans cheaper than automation for boring m…
> High unemployment could drive salaries down and make lots of thing unavailable to the common people while making humans cheaper than automation for boring manual work. ‘I wanted a machine to do the dishes for me so I could concentrate on my art, and what I got was a machine to do the art so now I’m the one doing the dishes’
But you already have a machine that can do the dishes. Like doing the laundry, people forget the machines they already have doing 90% of the work. Soon enough artists will forget that computers can do 90% of their work too.
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linux can answer the question, but you're considering Linux as a monolithic platform which it isn't. If you ask "how do you build a UI for Gnome / KDE / Android?" then the answers are pretty clear.
Also, being KDE native means using QT which is a good cross platform toolkit anyways.
...but then feeling out of place on GNOME / GTK4 / LibAdwaita-land
Linux is a mess, but at least it's unapologetically so.
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linux can answer the question, but you're considering Linux as a monolithic platform which it isn't. If you ask "how do you build a UI for Gnome / KDE / Android?" then the answers are pretty clear.
Also, being KDE native means using QT which is a good cross platform toolkit anyways.
Tbh Qt is so big you've still got a few minutes of decision making after you've decided to use it. What parts will you use and how will you use them?
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, being KDE native means using QT which is a good cross platform toolkit anyways.
...but then feeling out of place on GNOME / GTK4 / LibAdwaita-land Linux is a mess, but at least it's unapologetically so.
They've got unified themes that make GTK and Qt applications look nice alongside each other. Users who care will be using those. Users who really care might refuse to use your application because it isn't the toolkit they like, but you shouldn't lose sleep over satisfying such particular and demanding users. They're not paying you anyway.
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#308> WPF was good As someone who saw what impact WPF had on average users running average hardware in the late 2000s to early 2010s, I disagree. In 2011, my brother was in seminary, using an average Windows Vista-era laptop that he had been given in 2008. When he was home for Christmas in 2011, we were talking about his laptop, and he told me that the Logos Bible software ran sluggishly on that laptop. He said something…
2008 edition of “let’s rewrite it in react”.
2008 had its own version of React and it was called Adobe Air
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#309Desktop, especially Windows, is such a mess.
It's 2026. We're running 8+ cores and 32gb ram as standard. We can run super realistic video games at high frame-rates.
Yet on the same machine, resizing a window with rectangles in it is laggy on every platform except macOS (where there's a chance it's not laggy).
Re: Microsoft hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a common way to go back (swipe from the left edge of the screen). Some apps just don't integrate well and ignore the platform patterns.
I believe swiping from left to right is common for both Android and iOS.
Android has both a swipe gesture or a widget that simulates buttons that used to be at the bottom of the screen