Changing My Mind On Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#81

Post by RandallBrown » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 4:53 PM UTC

Platform agnostic tools have hardly done anything on the desktop or mobile. If you're writing a mac app without Cocoa or a Windows app without .NET (or other various Microsoft technologies) you're going to have a bad time.

Python and Ruby might be first class languages on the web, but they're never going to be on the desktop/mobile. (Yes I know about things like RubyMotion)

No devs under 30 work on Microsoft stuff? Even if you take that to mean "No dev under 30 wants to work on Microsoft stuff", that is ridiculous.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#82

Post by josephcooney » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 4:55 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #41

cs702 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they accessing these virtual machines? Probably with Citrix-compatible thin clients. There are a ton of those out there. ...it is very difficult to find candidates who know anything but Microsoft tools. That may be true in the US and some parts of Western Europe, such as the UK, but what about the rest of the world? The author of the blog post, John Hempton, is a hedge fund manager who works out of Australia…

Probably with Citrix-compatible thin clients. There are a ton of those out there. Why would you post this reply when I specifically address that in the next two sentences? That may be true in the US and some parts of Western Europe, such as the UK, but what about the rest of the world? India is overwhelmingly Microsoft-centric. Eastern Europe is overwhelmingly Microsoft-centric. Much of Russia is very Microsoft-centr…

I'm from Australia, and (based on the job ads I see - I just did a quick search on job site seek.com.au - "ruby" returned nearly 300 results, "asp.net" returned > 700, and having worked here for 10 years) Microsoft is the dominant development paradigm, so I don't think the condescending notion of the parent "this is a GLOBAL thing you yanks wouldn't understand" works either.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#83

Post by fpgeek » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:09 PM UTC

cbaleanu wrote: post #57

evo_9 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no serious threats to their dominance before; now they have iOS, Android and even OS-X is starting to gain more marketshare than I'd be comfortable with if I were ballmer.

I really don't see the point that many HN users keep comparing apples with oranges. iOS and Android have no relevance in this discussion as they are not real OS'es. You cannot develop on them, you cannot do work on them except for replying emails and browsing some webpages. And that's how it will remain. OSX is great, but please post the link from Apple store where you can get a decent working laptop for under $500.…

You can't develop on them?

Try this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui

with a Transformer or another Android tablet with a Bluetooth (or in some cases USB) keyboard.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#84

Post by icebraining » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

cbaleanu wrote: post #57

evo_9 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no serious threats to their dominance before; now they have iOS, Android and even OS-X is starting to gain more marketshare than I'd be comfortable with if I were ballmer.

I really don't see the point that many HN users keep comparing apples with oranges. iOS and Android have no relevance in this discussion as they are not real OS'es. You cannot develop on them, you cannot do work on them except for replying emails and browsing some webpages. And that's how it will remain. OSX is great, but please post the link from Apple store where you can get a decent working laptop for under $500.…

You cannot develop on them, you cannot do work on them except for replying emails and browsing some webpages.

So? All the employees in our client companies do their work exclusively through email and internal webapps (which are hosted and developed on Linux). And that's true for a whole lot of companies.

I don't see why wouldn't an "Android workstation" - or Chrome OS, or similar - work for them.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#85

Post by sixothree » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

How can I say this gently.. Windows 8 looks like ass. I don't know a single person running it today. Things do not look good for Microsoft in this release cycle. I don't think the following one will be any better.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#86

Post by 127001brewer » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #72

127001brewer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... it is very difficult to find candidates who know anything but Microsoft tools. This may depend on a variety of things, such as the job location and desired skill level, but this blanket statement is false. For example, it seems that a significant number of Hacker News participants - who are developers - develop in other languages and platforms. ... completely detached from reality. My personal opinion is that dev…

There will always be (perhaps seemingly a majority of) people where being a developer is just a "job" and learning new things isn't necessary. Absolutely. And I don't begrudge those people- I initially learnt .NET myself and then broadened my horizons, but many of my previous co-workers have families, time consuming hobbies or other such interests. There's not inherently wrong with having "just a job", if you're cont…

There's not inherently wrong with having "just a job" ...

I agree.

In the context of this conversation, finding good people is hard. There was an article in The Atlantic that discusses this basic idea and more:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-big-...

Here's a quote from the article that makes a good point:

... When firms were asked why they have difficulty hiring, 55% picked "lack of available applicants," but essentially the same percentage, 54%, said candidates are "looking for more pay than is offered" (many more than the 40% selecting lack of "hard" skill). This is an important reminder that the labor market is a market.

The labor market is a market.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#87

Post by varelse » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

Say what you want about Microsoft, and acknowledging the past decade has been a real disappointment, I wouldn't count them out just yet...

If I compare Microsoft's handling of the OEM PC industry of the 1990s to Google's handling of the Android ecosystem, the latter is utterly laughable in comparison cough Nexus 7 Screen issues cough. That alone is reason enough for me to think they could return. They just need the right leadership. And if you think such a transition is impossible, compare the Apple of today to the Apple before Steve Jobs returned...

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#88

Post by ybother » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:23 PM UTC

Wait, so he's saying that he's moving from MSFT to AAPL because AAPL has better lock-in? Personally, I'm staying with MSFT because MSFT has already learned the follies of relying on lock-in and is moving on where AAPL is repeating MSFT of the 90's mistakes.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#89

Post by powertower » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:27 PM UTC

archangel_one wrote: post #71

powertower wrote: post #9

> My personal gripe was how poorly Microsoft thought about and handled security issues. My Linux computer is as far as I know virus free . He is comparing Windows 95 to Ubuntu 11.04 (if you follow the link in that sentence)! > They [devs] did not bother developing for other platforms because those platforms were economically irrelevant and the Microsoft developer tools worked. Then he doesn't even make the connection…

> > Windows security issues are everywhere and it did not need to be so. > Sorry, but that's mostly due to the desktop market size and Windows' share of it. No, it's not. It's mostly due to Microsoft ignoring security for years because it wasn't important to them. They didn't have to have everyone running as root by default in all versions of Windows before Vista (AFAIK in XP Home you can't actually set up restricted…

I think you've missed the point on multiple fronts...

> and you don't see Android phones being compromised remotely within fifteen minutes of being connected to a network.

Again, why do you (and others) keep comparing today's Linux/Android/OS X OS with a 10-15 year old Windows OS.

Windows security has been at its core since after XP, and by all knowledgeable accounts is just as good as Linux's ... as long as you know how to use it / deal with it. Today 95% of the problem is clueless Windows admins, and bad user decisions.

As far as my own experience goes, I've ran Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, and all the rest never having been compromised. So it is possible at least.

What you're doing is the same when people complain about IE 6 vs. the latest version of Chrome...

IE6 came out in 2001, and at that time was the most standards-compliant and feature full of all the browsers on the market (well, except for IE 5.5 for MacOS).

> They didn't have to have everyone running as root by default in all versions of Windows before Vista (AFAIK in XP Home you can't actually set up restricted users). They didn't have to have lots of open ports offering things like RPC to the world. They didn't have to have all files executable by default, based solely off the hidden part of the filename in AnnaKournikova.jpg.exe.

Of course they had to do all that. The Windows users back then were generally not very savvy and anything that got in their way was a disaster waiting to happen. Also it was a different time. Even today most Windows home users don't even understand the file-system with it's drives, devices, directories, subs, and files. And you wanted them to understand user security and how it plays with applications that they ran? No.

> but those opportunities wouldn't have been there if they hadn't ignored security for so long.

I guess they should have gotten a time machine to the future to pull all that work and knowledge back to the past. Windows XP should have been based off Windows 7.

My point is that what is possible today, was not possible 10, 15, or 20 years ago both from a tech and user point of view... Just because someone can do OS security good today, dosn't mean you can blame someone else for not doing it good decades ago.

Re: Changing My Mind On Microsoft

#90

Post by ybother » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:29 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #21

Whether one agrees or not with the facts and reasoning of the author (a successful hedge-fund manager with a widely followed blog), this blog post is important in and of itself because of what it represents: a tectonic shift in the business community's perception of Microsoft. The business community is now openly doubting the future relevance of the Windows platform!

Nah, he just wants to buy up more MSFT and he's trying to set a trend to drop the price short term so he can get a better deal.