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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.'"

7 of 814 comments (clear)

  1. 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/ .
  2. 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
  3. 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 ?
  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 niko9 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

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

  7. 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. :)