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How Microsoft Dropped the Ball With Developers

Posted by kdawson on from the new-vistas dept.

cremou writes "As part of an Ars Technica series on how one developer migrated from Windows to OS X (and why), this second article concentrates on how Microsoft bungled the transition from XP to Vista. The author looks at some unfortunate decisions Microsoft made that have made Windows an unpleasant development platform. 'So Windows is just a disaster to write programs for. It's miserable. It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything, but for anyone else it's all pain... And it's not just third parties who suffer. It causes trouble for Microsoft, too. The code isn't just inconsistent and ugly on the outside; it's that way on the inside, too. There's a lot of software for Windows, a lot of business-critical software, that's not maintained any more. And that software is usually buggy. It passes bad parameters to API calls, uses memory that it has released, assumes that files live in particular hard-coded locations, all sorts of things that it shouldn't do.'"

25 of 814 comments (clear)

  1. Long Answer? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Funny

    Read the article.

    Short answer?

    Windows!

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:Long Answer? by denzacar · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually it is more like:

      I hate Windows. It robs me of my creative juices.
      Because I am creative, you know... man?
      So I "Switched".
      Now, I code for OS X and every day is a beautiful rainbow for me.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    2. Re:Long Answer? by 644bd346996 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Exactly. He illustrates it well. That's coming awfully close to being, you know, creative. And creativity is one of the well-known risk factors for becoming a Mac fanboy.

    3. Re:Long Answer? by lgw · · Score: 3, Funny

      .NET is the first thing MS has done in 15 years that's not tied to Win32 backwards compatibility. It's a fresh attempt to do things well. It's certainly cleaner than Win32, but neither that nor OSX (however wonderful it may be) will mater to me: Win32 is my profession now.

      I heartily encourage everyone else, especially all developers in low-income areas of the world, to Make the Switch ASAP. The less labor supply for these horrible, inconsistant Win32 APIs (really, it's like programming while your face is on fire), the better!

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:Long Answer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Short answer?

      Windows is bad for developers.

      Long answer?

      Windows is bad for developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

      (The lameness filter complains about my Ballmer joke -- it must be detecting residual Microsoft lameness.)

    5. Re:Long Answer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Screenshots are "creative"? Wow, I'm a potential Mac fanboy and didn't even know it. Now I just need to blog about how harrowing and exhilarating it is to give birth to my amazing screenshots.

    6. Re:Long Answer? by niko9 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yup. But there's still one thing you can't do elegantly when programming for OSX

    7. Re:Long Answer? by xazos79 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You use the start menu to shutdown? That's so '95.

    8. Re:Long Answer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Must not be Vista. Otherwise you would only use the shutdown button roughly 50% of the time, with the other 50% being the reset button. :)

    9. Re:Long Answer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      He didn't write them twice, Clippy did.

    10. Re:Long Answer? by mgblst · · Score: 4, Funny

      You shutdown, that is so 2000.

    11. Re:Long Answer? by Fred_A · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think the giveaway is when he says a screen shot is worth a thousand words, then his screen shot is of vista with the taskbar at the top, Im not saying nobody has the taskbar at the top but its just one of many signs that hes a fan of apple. Uh ? I thought that his wearing pants was a sure sign that he was a fan of apple.

      (makes note to move the KDE kicker down to the middle of the screen so as not to be branded a fan of anything)
      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
    12. Re:Long Answer? by asc99c · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're missing the 20% 'why on earth is it shutting down now' times.

    13. Re:Long Answer? by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Funny

      I guess what they need is WOWOW. Which would be Windows On Windows On Windows. Just run the WOW 32-16 bit layer one the WOW 64-32 bit layer, and all your problems are solved.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    14. Re:Long Answer? by dbIII · · Score: 2, Funny

      what is this "shutdown" feature you speak of?

      It's an easy command.

      shutdown -y -g 0 -i 0 "Going down because UPS batteries only last 3 years and have to be changed"

      Then you just turn off the main system, each disk case and all the tape drives when it gets to the "OK" prompt.

      Oh - you mean a badly done Mac clone. Just turn it off. You've probably already been hacked by a few kinds of malware so a bit of filesystem corruption won't matter much.

    15. Re:Long Answer? by jafac · · Score: 2, Funny

      yeah.

      Start->Run->/cygdrive/c/cygwin/bin/bash -c shutdown -s 00

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
  2. Re:Yeah, yeah by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ad?

    What is this "ad" of which you speak? Your words are strange to us, visitor.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. how much MS bashing can you fit in? by timmarhy · · Score: 3, Funny
    "And that software is usually buggy. It passes bad parameters to API calls, uses memory that it has released, assumes that files live in particular hard-coded locations, all sorts of things that it shouldn't do.'"

    and this has exactly what to do with MS? the coding habits of programmers has NOTHING to do with MS.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  5. Same techniques 15 years ago? Not just Windows... by Goody · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything

    Apparently the author never heard of vi and gcc on Linux...

    --
    Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
  6. But Don't You Mean... by morari · · Score: 2, Funny

    How Microsoft Dropped the Ball With... Developers Developers Developers *insert techno beat* Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers?

    --
    "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    1. Re:But Don't You Mean... by ExploHD · · Score: 4, Funny

      *dhut* *dhut* *dhut* The System is Down! The System is Down! The System is Down"! *dhut* *dhut* *dhut*

  7. Re:With those arguements, any platform can suck by x00101010x · · Score: 2, Funny

    At least with Windows7, the backwards compatibility nightmare will be over with virtualization similar to what Apple did.

    --
    DONT PANIC
  8. Re:What part of "Undocumented" is hard to understa by rs79 · · Score: 5, Funny

    " They don't give a crap because if you want to make money, you work on Windows"

    I learned to live without money instead. It was less painfull.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  9. Re:What part of "Undocumented" is hard to understa by Foofoobar · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you want to make money you work in Windows?? LOL! Hate to tell you this pal but I've been a web developer since I was at Amazon in 95 and I have never once stepped foot onto a Microsoft platform. And I have 3-4 times the output and twice the pay. :)

    --
    This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.