48 ms·

Microsoft Answers Coder Cries Over New Development Kit

44 points by Fedons 14y ago

smoyer 14y ago
Funny ... I haven't heard anyone crying. Oh yeah, they're all developing HTML5 applications that will run on Chrome and Firefox and maybe Internet Explorer. Why worry about the OS' look and feel?
- nigelsampson 14y ago
  Given that there were about four or five posts on the front page about the changes to the express version changes it would that a lot of people care. I'm glad Microsoft listened to people on this one.
  - cheatercheater 14y ago
    I've only seen this one. Is HN bubbling us in? By this I mean an effect similar to google search results being personalized to the person who is searching.
    - nigelsampson 14y ago
      Sorry I meant when they announced a few weeks ago that the expression version wouldn't support native Windows apps.
  - smoyer 14y ago
    Isn't my answer in essence the same as ShabbyDoo's (currently atop this thread)? Let me rephrase it (minus the sarcasm): As developers, isn't platform independence finally within our reach? We've been corralled into corporate SDKs, libraries and APIs for years and we've now broken free in much the same way we did on the CLI when C became standardized (yeah ... there are still issues with that too). At the same time I'm wondering what corporate users are going to think of a radically different desktop (and one that looks more "toy-like"). We're a pretty adaptable crowd, but retraining costs are going to be as bad as when Office became ribbon-based. And where's my "Start" menu? I'm not a Microsoft hater, but I don't think it's bad that they're less dominant.
lunchbox 14y ago
Off topic: the "headlinese" title of this article results in syntactic ambiguity. I read it as: The coder who built Microsoft Answers (http://answers.microsoft.com/ http://answers.microsoft.com/) cried because of a new development kit. Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_blossom#In_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_blossom#In_headlines
- glhaynes 14y ago
  Headlines That Capitalize Every Word can be annoying. Normal capitalization provides semantic value.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  Same. Then I read the article and couldn't figure out who was crying. Had you not posted anything, I'd have spent the rest of my evening scratching my head on that one.
  - ars 14y ago
    For everyone else who is still confused (including me until a minute ago), join coder and cries with a dash.
    - user24 14y ago
      Thanks, I now parse it as "Microsoft replies to coder concerns about new development kit".
- f0r 14y ago
  "Microsoft Answers", coder cries ...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
DigitalSea 14y ago
In before the hate train starts rolling full steam ahead right over Microsoft. This is a fantastic decision, they obviously really had no choice otherwise a lot of people would have abandoned Windows 8 development and Microsoft would have looked bad launching an OS that didn't have many supported applications. As for Windows XP support, why would Microsoft add in support for an OS they don't really support any more? It has been 11 years, well almost 12 since XP came out and the fact people want to support the outdated OS is like asking Google to start supporting Internet Explorer 6 again.
- bad_user 14y ago
  As for Windows XP support, why would Microsoft add in support for an OS they don't really support any more? Because Windows XP is stable, it works and a lot of companies and people are still using it. If anything, Microsoft is to be blamed for not providing a compelling reason to upgrade. Windows Vista was awful, while Windows 7 is just a re-branded Vista with a little more polish applied. Which is why at home I still have Windows XP on my desktop. It has been 11 years, well almost 12 Windows 7 was released at the end of 2009, while XP was released in Aug 2001. That's 8 years in which people had no real upgrade option. Can you really blame them if they are a little conservative? the fact people want to support the outdated OS is like asking Google to start supporting Internet Explorer 6 again That's not a fair comparison, as downloading Firefox/Chrome is painless, is free, doesn't require a hardware upgrade, normal people can do it by themselves and they don't risk losing their data ... saying that upgrading Windows is painful would be an understatement.
  - avens19 14y ago
    Show me the person that's still running 2001 hardware with XP
    - PidGin128 14y ago
      yo. (of course, it did take two days to post...)
  - 14y ago
ShabbyDoo 14y ago
It seems like the risk of not collecting $500 from a bunch of developers is peanuts compared to the real threat MSFT now faces of people choosing to develop non Windows-specific apps which happen to still work on Windows. How many "apps" have you installed lately which are really just local servers with web front-ends? Qt-based stuff? Java SWT/Swing? What else? While many of these apps likely are built upon 3rd party components developed using Visual Studio (perhaps a free version), the makers of these apps almost always provide a Mac and Linux version. Microsoft has passed a dangerous tipping point where it is now like Apple in the early 90's -- fighting to attract developers who will provide killer, platform-specific apps. We all laughed as Ballmer screamed, "Developers, developers, developers!" However, he's all too well aware of the danger Microsoft faces of losing its dominance as a platform provider. I'd say "lost" as I believe they're already running on fumes, but they still control a huge portion of the desktop market. They should be worrying that developers won't develop anything at all which relies on their APIs and forgo the overly ambitious goal of buying developers' use of Metro. In a storm, any 'ol port will do.
- simonh 14y ago
  True they still control a huge proportion of the desktop market, but most of that is business desktops. Apple's market share is heavily lopsided towards the high end consumer market. It's similar to their position with the iPhone. They have a minority market share, but its the most valuable part of the market. For over a decade Microsoft has essentially been able to behave as if they have no competition, while Apple still has a culture of being lean, mean and hungry - plus they now have a hundred billion dollar war chest. I'm glad I'm not working for a competitor of theirs right now. At least Microsoft does seem to be well aware of the problem, but the question is are they too big and slow to be able to react effectively? In mobile the answer was no. On the desktop they have the advantage of a real and significant market share dominance. It's going to be very interesting to see where things stand in 3 or 4 years time.
  - drhowarddrfine 14y ago
    Don't know about just the high end. At my "starving artist" son's college, he was the only one who didn't have a Mac. At my other son's college, easily 3/4 of all the students used a Mac.
rogerbinns 14y ago
Are they going to include 64bit support? The earlier versions of Visual Studio Express didn't which was a right royal pain for me. I produce a Python library and since Windows users don't have compilers have binary downloads available. To get 64 bit command line compiles I had to do an unholy wedging of VSE and the platform dev kit. (I'd much rather the Python developers used free software instead of forcing this stuff onto the rest of us.) If anyone is curious you can see the downloads and popularity at http://code.google.com/p/apsw/downloads/list http://code.google.com/p/apsw/downloads/list
- malkia 14y ago
  I think that if you install the Windows 7.1 SDK, you should be able to choose Platform SDK and target it, rather than the built in compilers. WSDK7.1 is VS2010, but at least latest IDE would be used.
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    If only it was so easy. The existing Python versions need VS2008 so I have to use Platform SDK 7.0 (not 7.1). Then it and VS2008 won't play nice with paths, so in the end I just hardcoded them in my setup script. http://code.google.com/p/apsw/wiki/Win7build http://code.google.com/p/apsw/wiki/Win7build The next Python release is using VS2012 so I'll have to have it, whatever it takes to get it and 64 bit binaries, plus VS2008 and PSDK 7.0 all installed at the same time. The ultimate cause of all this is Microsoft bundling the C library with the compiler, and not being able to have more than one version of the C library in a process which forces the executable and all dlls to be compiled with the same compiler version.
    - malkia 14y ago
      Yup. For that reason I stick with the WDK 7.1 (and target MSVCRT.DLL by linking with msvcrt_win2000.obj, and this works on XP). Yes this would not work for Python built with VS2008, but it would not require me to carry MSVCRxx.DLLs everywhere.
RommeDeSerieux 14y ago
I'm still converned over the fate of the x64 compilers.

44 points by Fedons 14y ago

Funny ... I haven't heard anyone crying. Oh yeah, they're all developing HTML5 applications that will run on Chrome and Firefox and maybe Internet Explorer. Why worry about the OS' look and feel?

nigelsampson 14y ago
Given that there were about four or five posts on the front page about the changes to the express version changes it would that a lot of people care. I'm glad Microsoft listened to people on this one.
- cheatercheater 14y ago
  I've only seen this one. Is HN bubbling us in? By this I mean an effect similar to google search results being personalized to the person who is searching.
  - nigelsampson 14y ago
    Sorry I meant when they announced a few weeks ago that the expression version wouldn't support native Windows apps.
- smoyer 14y ago
  Isn't my answer in essence the same as ShabbyDoo's (currently atop this thread)? Let me rephrase it (minus the sarcasm): As developers, isn't platform independence finally within our reach? We've been corralled into corporate SDKs, libraries and APIs for years and we've now broken free in much the same way we did on the CLI when C became standardized (yeah ... there are still issues with that too). At the same time I'm wondering what corporate users are going to think of a radically different desktop (and one that looks more "toy-like"). We're a pretty adaptable crowd, but retraining costs are going to be as bad as when Office became ribbon-based. And where's my "Start" menu? I'm not a Microsoft hater, but I don't think it's bad that they're less dominant.

lunchbox 14y ago

Off topic: the "headlinese" title of this article results in syntactic ambiguity. I read it as: The coder who built Microsoft Answers (http://answers.microsoft.com/ http://answers.microsoft.com/) cried because of a new development kit. Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_blossom#In_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_blossom#In_headlines

glhaynes 14y ago
Headlines That Capitalize Every Word can be annoying. Normal capitalization provides semantic value.
danilocampos 14y ago
Same. Then I read the article and couldn't figure out who was crying. Had you not posted anything, I'd have spent the rest of my evening scratching my head on that one.
- ars 14y ago
  For everyone else who is still confused (including me until a minute ago), join coder and cries with a dash.
  - user24 14y ago
    Thanks, I now parse it as "Microsoft replies to coder concerns about new development kit".
f0r 14y ago
"Microsoft Answers", coder cries ...

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

DigitalSea 14y ago

In before the hate train starts rolling full steam ahead right over Microsoft. This is a fantastic decision, they obviously really had no choice otherwise a lot of people would have abandoned Windows 8 development and Microsoft would have looked bad launching an OS that didn't have many supported applications. As for Windows XP support, why would Microsoft add in support for an OS they don't really support any more? It has been 11 years, well almost 12 since XP came out and the fact people want to support the outdated OS is like asking Google to start supporting Internet Explorer 6 again.

bad_user 14y ago
As for Windows XP support, why would Microsoft add in support for an OS they don't really support any more? Because Windows XP is stable, it works and a lot of companies and people are still using it. If anything, Microsoft is to be blamed for not providing a compelling reason to upgrade. Windows Vista was awful, while Windows 7 is just a re-branded Vista with a little more polish applied. Which is why at home I still have Windows XP on my desktop. It has been 11 years, well almost 12 Windows 7 was released at the end of 2009, while XP was released in Aug 2001. That's 8 years in which people had no real upgrade option. Can you really blame them if they are a little conservative? the fact people want to support the outdated OS is like asking Google to start supporting Internet Explorer 6 again That's not a fair comparison, as downloading Firefox/Chrome is painless, is free, doesn't require a hardware upgrade, normal people can do it by themselves and they don't risk losing their data ... saying that upgrading Windows is painful would be an understatement.
- avens19 14y ago
  Show me the person that's still running 2001 hardware with XP
  - PidGin128 14y ago
    yo. (of course, it did take two days to post...)
- 14y ago

ShabbyDoo 14y ago

It seems like the risk of not collecting $500 from a bunch of developers is peanuts compared to the real threat MSFT now faces of people choosing to develop non Windows-specific apps which happen to still work on Windows. How many "apps" have you installed lately which are really just local servers with web front-ends? Qt-based stuff? Java SWT/Swing? What else? While many of these apps likely are built upon 3rd party components developed using Visual Studio (perhaps a free version), the makers of these apps almost always provide a Mac and Linux version. Microsoft has passed a dangerous tipping point where it is now like Apple in the early 90's -- fighting to attract developers who will provide killer, platform-specific apps. We all laughed as Ballmer screamed, "Developers, developers, developers!" However, he's all too well aware of the danger Microsoft faces of losing its dominance as a platform provider. I'd say "lost" as I believe they're already running on fumes, but they still control a huge portion of the desktop market. They should be worrying that developers won't develop anything at all which relies on their APIs and forgo the overly ambitious goal of buying developers' use of Metro. In a storm, any 'ol port will do.

simonh 14y ago
True they still control a huge proportion of the desktop market, but most of that is business desktops. Apple's market share is heavily lopsided towards the high end consumer market. It's similar to their position with the iPhone. They have a minority market share, but its the most valuable part of the market. For over a decade Microsoft has essentially been able to behave as if they have no competition, while Apple still has a culture of being lean, mean and hungry - plus they now have a hundred billion dollar war chest. I'm glad I'm not working for a competitor of theirs right now. At least Microsoft does seem to be well aware of the problem, but the question is are they too big and slow to be able to react effectively? In mobile the answer was no. On the desktop they have the advantage of a real and significant market share dominance. It's going to be very interesting to see where things stand in 3 or 4 years time.
- drhowarddrfine 14y ago
  Don't know about just the high end. At my "starving artist" son's college, he was the only one who didn't have a Mac. At my other son's college, easily 3/4 of all the students used a Mac.

rogerbinns 14y ago

Are they going to include 64bit support? The earlier versions of Visual Studio Express didn't which was a right royal pain for me. I produce a Python library and since Windows users don't have compilers have binary downloads available. To get 64 bit command line compiles I had to do an unholy wedging of VSE and the platform dev kit. (I'd much rather the Python developers used free software instead of forcing this stuff onto the rest of us.) If anyone is curious you can see the downloads and popularity at http://code.google.com/p/apsw/downloads/list http://code.google.com/p/apsw/downloads/list

malkia 14y ago
I think that if you install the Windows 7.1 SDK, you should be able to choose Platform SDK and target it, rather than the built in compilers. WSDK7.1 is VS2010, but at least latest IDE would be used.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  If only it was so easy. The existing Python versions need VS2008 so I have to use Platform SDK 7.0 (not 7.1). Then it and VS2008 won't play nice with paths, so in the end I just hardcoded them in my setup script. http://code.google.com/p/apsw/wiki/Win7build http://code.google.com/p/apsw/wiki/Win7build The next Python release is using VS2012 so I'll have to have it, whatever it takes to get it and 64 bit binaries, plus VS2008 and PSDK 7.0 all installed at the same time. The ultimate cause of all this is Microsoft bundling the C library with the compiler, and not being able to have more than one version of the C library in a process which forces the executable and all dlls to be compiled with the same compiler version.
  - malkia 14y ago
    Yup. For that reason I stick with the WDK 7.1 (and target MSVCRT.DLL by linking with msvcrt_win2000.obj, and this works on XP). Yes this would not work for Python built with VS2008, but it would not require me to carry MSVCRxx.DLLs everywhere.

RommeDeSerieux 14y ago

I'm still converned over the fate of the x64 compilers.