Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 330 posts

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#71

Post by coryking »

paperwork wrote: post #57
ggreer wrote: post #50

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department. Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam loc…

I'm rooting for MS. My (not so serious) test for windows is simple: the day I can resize dos command prompt as easily as terminal windows on linux/osx is the day Microsoft I need to seriously consider going back to windows :)

To this day, I don't understand why don't didn't have an intern or somebody fix that. They push powershell so hard, yet provide a horrible, horrible terminal to work in. Make it like putty. In fact, go find one of these makers of terminal software and just buy they out... Do something. Nobody takes their command line stuff seriously simply because the terminal is so god-awful.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#72

Post by coryking »

pling wrote: post #68
paperwork wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm rooting for MS. My (not so serious) test for windows is simple: the day I can resize dos command prompt as easily as terminal windows on linux/osx is the day Microsoft I need to seriously consider going back to windows :)

Powershell ISE

The ISE is clever, but honestly, nothing beats a PuTTY-like terminal.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#73

Post by pjmlp »

ggreer wrote: post #50

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department. Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam loc…

Mac OS X being UNIX compatible only matters for command line and daemons stuff, everything else is Cocoa.

In terms of architecture, Windows is a VMS descendent and although there have been multiple UNIX compatibility layers, both from Microsoft and third parties, very few people really cared about it. As of Windows 8, Microsoft killed their own implementation and is pointing people to Cygwin.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#74

Post by bratsche »

paperwork wrote: post #57
ggreer wrote: post #50

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department. Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam loc…

I'm rooting for MS. My (not so serious) test for windows is simple: the day I can resize dos command prompt as easily as terminal windows on linux/osx is the day Microsoft I need to seriously consider going back to windows :)

I know you're not being serious, but there are some other terminal apps that are better than the basic DOS prompt. Check out ConEmu, for example.

Now, once you've got ConEmu or something like it that will resize nicely and do other things, you'll still be stuck on the crappy DOS-style prompt though. :)

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#75

Post by danudey »

IBM wrote: post #23
bane wrote: post #16

I'm starting to see more and more Surface devices in my area. It seems to be getting popular with the Starbuck's salesguy crowd who need something as compact as a tablet, but they can use real applications on. I know that's kind of cliche, but you don't really "get" that meaning until you walk into a coffee shop and see 2 or 3 people sitting around with tablets sticking up on the tables. The Android and iPad guys are…

They've kind of killed this whole angle of "Surface is for getting work done" after they hedged by releasing Office on iPad.

I think that really speaks to Microsoft's new direction though.

It's funny, because it used to be that everything Microsoft did was in furtherance of the 'Windows über alles' philosophy, that Microsoft can only win if everyone else loses. Within that philosophy, though, there was no direction. You drank the kool-aid, and then your team just did whatever; see the famous example of the Office manager hating the idea of tablet PCs and refusing to support them in Office. Everyone was working towards the same goal (the Windows hegemony) but doing so in a disorganized fashion.

Now, it seems like Microsoft's new direction is 'stay relevant and make good things'; everyone is working in the same fashion (make new, relevant technology), but there's a lack of coherence. Microsoft making such a fantastic iPad app as Office for iPad is certainly weakens Office on Windows, Surface, Windows 8 RT, etc., but it also means that Microsoft will still be relevant even if any one of those fails. Likewise, it makes no sense for them to make a version of Office for Mac and (intentionally) cripple its compatibility to hurt the Mac's image.

Now that users aren't (and can't be) forced to use Office on Windows, the Office team needs to keep their product relevant and their revenues flowing; that means covering as many platforms as possible, and ensuring proper interoperability between them.

Basically, the Office team's job now is to ensure that Office survives, not to ensure that Windows 8 or the Surface survive.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#76

Post by [deleted] »

paperwork wrote: post #57
ggreer wrote: post #50

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department. Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam loc…

I'm rooting for MS. My (not so serious) test for windows is simple: the day I can resize dos command prompt as easily as terminal windows on linux/osx is the day Microsoft I need to seriously consider going back to windows :)

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#77

Post by pjmlp »

sorahn wrote: post #37
mkr-hn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a long list of tasks not covered by Office that you still can't do all that well on an iPad or Android device.

And the surface is better?

Yes, because you can switch to a full desktop mode without being constrained to a jailed mode as in iOS and Android.

For example, you cannot do programming on the go, without being connected to a server that handles your development tasks.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#78

Post by tdicola »

ggreer wrote: post #50

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department. Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam loc…

If you want Unix on Windows install cygwin, msys, or even a virtual machine with Ubuntu, etc. It's a bit silly to expect Microsoft to provide a full Unix environment for developing Windows software.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#80

Post by devx »

ggreer wrote: post #50

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department. Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam loc…

Microsoft is running a very confusing strategy here. Google understood that with Motorola and it's why they sold it off. Microsoft hopes to keep its monopoly in the PC space with its multi-OEM operating system, yet still try to get every PC consumer to buy its own devices. Something's got to give.

I expect Microsoft's partners will increasingly continue to push other operating systems into the market on their devices, even if initially it's not exactly what the market wants. But they will do it anyway, because they will increasingly hate Microsoft.

And it will work, because the PC ecosystem is much bigger than Microsoft, and Microsoft won't succeed fighting against it. They will lose more money from lost licenses than they will be making (in profit, since so far Surfaces have continued to lose them money) than they will be making from these devices.

Post reply on HN