Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let us also not forget the fact that microsoft uses their patent portfolio to extort money from android OEMs...
Apple?
excusing one asshole with another?
Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
371–380 of 556 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#372Hiya Sean, So you posted a real classic flamewar topic here... heh. Enjoy the war. But here's my take on Microsoft Corp, since you asked nicely. You guys don't play nice. You've never played nice, and the fact that you've gotten better lately seems to be more due to the fact that you've lost dominance and have to interop with other operating systems. I'm not really going to provide significant examples, there are lot…
This post resonated with me. I love C#, but I refuse to use it. Much of the community is tied down to proprietary API's which would mean being sucked into the MS ecosystem, meaning I'd have to kill off over half my potential market. Microsoft makes some wonderful things, but only in reaction to their competitors. Almost everything they make is better. But that's the problem. As soon as they have you, you're trapped. Then it's down the rabbit hole, and you'll find bugs you can't fix. Hideous work arounds. Limitations that force upgrading products. You're going to get stressed.
I'm not a Linux, Google, or Apple shill; but I this is why I refuse to be pulled into the Microsoft ecosystem. I simply can't respect Microsoft as they are still blatantly trying EEE with mobile/ tablet/ laptop markets. It will be sad day if Microsoft actually achieves a monopoly on any of these markets, because they'll stop innovating. They'll come out with closed libraries that only work on their devices. They'll force you to do things their way.
I'm not delusional, MS competitors aren't saints. But they all never seem to stoop that low. Shit, even Google Chrome _asks_ you if you want to use Bing as a search provider.
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
These days, Apple is probably more hated than Microsoft. Not as much as MS was back in the day, but more than modern, sheepish-looking Microsoft. I gotta say it weirds me out when people assert that everyone loves Apple, because it happens a lot; almost as often as people go on vitriolic rants against everything Apple-related.
> These days, Apple is probably more hated than Microsoft. Perhaps, but the HN sample population is still biased favorably towards Apple.
I deem myself biased towards Microsoft, i.e. I would prefer to work for Microsoft over Google, Apple, Facebook, et al. I use Microsoft products (alongside OSS, Apple, Google,...) and quite like what they are doing in the last years. I find .NET very good for what it is meant for, etc.
And I think that while there are some MS haters around here. There are not nearly as many as die hard MS fans would have us believe.
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pleasingly ambiguous phrasing. The first two times I read it, I got that this was the smartest anyone had ever looked (no one has ever looked smarter). Apologies for going off-topic, but I hadn't come across this particular cramp in the language before.
I doubt anyone would disagree that triple negatives aren't easy to parse.
It's not the triple negative that is the culprit here though. It's the inherent ambiguity in a phrase such as "never been better", which could be either a negative or positive statement. I'm sure there's a name for that construct?
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Umm... You are accusing MS of just forcing their choices upon their users? Isn't that Apple's standard (and actually well documented. Remember that article about Innovator's dillemma and jobs?) policy? I thought apple was famous for completely ignoring their users and telling them WHAT they want. Now THAT is use of monopoly. Google does that too (remember closing off gtalk?). Secondly, the Metro UI thing, IMHO wasn't…
The problem is not that MS is forcing choices on their desktop users. Apple, Google, Yahoo, and everyone else does that. The problem is that MS is forcing terrible choices on their desktop users. They had one job. One job. Don't screw up Windows. And what'd they do? They screwed up Windows. Metro was a mistake. And again, everybody else makes mistakes, too. But then they went full retard, and refused to backtrack. Th…
Oh come off it. Name me an established software company that hasn't forced choices on their desktop users that many of them have considered "terrible". Over a similar timescale Apple has been responsible for the debacle that was Apple Maps (to reduce dependence on Google) and the dubious aesthetics of iOS7 whilst Google and Yahoo have forced millions of users to choose other services as they go on shutdown rampages (to focus on more profitable areas) and in Yahoo's case, touted the availability of your old Yahoo email addresses to phishers (because they're crazy?). Meanwhile, despite your "refuse to backtrack" claim Microsoft has brought the much-missed Start button back in the first major patch and continues to ship Windows 7 - you can even downgrade your 8 license if you miss it too much. You can't do that with iOS7 which despite being a relatively conservative update had equally mixed reviews...
Criticising Microsoft is like shooting fish in a barrel, so it's odd you'd pick on them for innovating without thought to convention and backward compatibility - an area where they're generally more cautious than the peers you named - and a product that actually has plenty of fans.
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#376Many of us lived through the 90s, when Microsoft strongarmed their technically inferior products to the whole PC industry. In fact, they pretty much invented the whole closed-source proprietary software model, and I totally agree with Stallman that it is a horrible invention. And they were rewarded for it handsomely. Then the numerous FUD attacks against many things I like, such as Linux and the open-source community…
> In fact, they pretty much invented the whole closed-source proprietary software model Wow...are you sure you know your history? Software is much older than the 1990s. Before there was Microsoft, there was IBM (Apple and MS started at the same time, roughly). Before that, there were no PC clones, only sanctioned hardware running sanctioned software, all with big fat IBM support contracts. Even Apple practiced this,…
> Wow...are you sure you know your history?
Oh, that's right, it sort of was actually IBM. Then again, Bill Gates perfected it -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6590378
I see one guy saying he flagged the story ('JanezStupar). That person abused the flag button and needs to stop doing that. I don't see a lot of people saying the story wasn't relevant, or saying they flagged the story. I'm asking because there is more than one reason why a story might drop off the front page; flagging is one of them, but so is the voting ring detector.
I don't think I abused the flag function. As at the time my perception was that the thread was an astroturf PR attempt.
I am now extremely sorry that I have participated in that thread at all (before it got off the front page and especially after it got off the front page) since now instead of one crappy thread taking place on the front page of HN we have two and we might have more in the future.
With my disclaimer out of the way I would be extremely glad if you tell my why you think I abused my flagging privilege (besides breaching guidelines by talking about it).
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#378Hiya Sean, So you posted a real classic flamewar topic here... heh. Enjoy the war. But here's my take on Microsoft Corp, since you asked nicely. You guys don't play nice. You've never played nice, and the fact that you've gotten better lately seems to be more due to the fact that you've lost dominance and have to interop with other operating systems. I'm not really going to provide significant examples, there are lot…
I work with ruby/rails, node.js/coffeescript, python, scala and some other stuff on a daily basis on my day job. Thanks to MSDN-AA, i had to work with the complete Microsoft-Stack at University the last year, given every single tool for free (including visual studio ultimate). Guess what? It was just a pain. I can't even describe in words how unproductive it feels to work with .NET when you are used to the latest "hi…
Meh, some of the tools are like vim. Hard to get started, great when you know them. It sounds to me like you are hating because you didn't spend enough time using these things.
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#379I'll ask a question, serious for me: Mostly you guys are way ahead of me in knowledge of current software tools, especially on Linux and 'open source software' (OSS -- I had to look up that one!). But I'm doing a startup the center of which is a Web site. If people like the site, a huge if, then it could grow to be a big thing around the world. Did I mention if people like the site? People might not like the site. Bu…
I've known people who made the same decision for many of the same reasons, and the universal experience I've heard was "it was all nice until we had to scale, and then it got expensive quickly". If your stack works for you, great! That's the important part! But if your traffic and income scaled by a factor of 100, would you be turning a profit or desperately looking for financing? You're the only one who can answer t…
Same as kstrauser: Microsoft products are great, but they're more expensive to scale.
I've been working with Microsoft products for close to a decade, and I think their software stack is great.
However, for my current side project, I went with another platform (Groovy+Grails, running on the JVM), purely because of cost (and also because I wanted to learn it :) ).
You can choose to be part of the BizSpark program and get all Microsoft software for free for 3 years, but you have to pay afterwards.
Prices for Microsoft software hosting is usually 2 or 3 times what it costs for a mostly equivalent software.
For example, something I'm using now (Amazon AWS), the price of a small Linux instance is $0,060/hr, while the equivalent Microsoft instance is $0,091/hr
Azure pricing is too expensive for me, I discarded it.
If I had money (maybe angel or VC backing), I might have considered it, but it's a bootstrapped side project.
Re: Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What did you try to accomplish with this post? The parent post talks about the perceived mono-culture of Microsoft, and the effects this has on his "friend Greg" when Greg later tries to seek a new job. Your post is all about how much you like Microsoft. It could likely be replaced by the words "But I like Microsoft developer tools", and still get the exact same message across. There is no sources to back it up, or a…
I find people that "like" companies quite amusing.
I think Microsoft has potential, but currently there is a reason I don't use any of their products nor plan to personally. Doesn't mean they don't have their place, like any product.
Also, an argument could easily be made that OP's post, which I found really interesting, is just another way of saying "Microsoft sucks", as it is merely anecdotes without sources again.
Regardless, I merely posted my opinion, like many others here. Sorry that it doesn't conform to your ideal.