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Microsoft's Top Devs Don't Seem To Like Own Tools
ericatcw writes "Through tools such as Visual Basic and Visual Studio, Microsoft may have done more than any other vendor to make drag and drop-style programming mainstream. But its superstar developers seem to prefer old-school modes of crafting code. During the panel at the Professional Developers Conference earlier this month, the devs also revealed why they think writing tight, bare-metal code will come back into fashion, and why parallel programming hasn't caught up with the processors yet." These guys are senior enough that they don't seem to need to watch what they say and how it aligns with Microsoft's product roadmap. They are also dead funny. Here's Jeffrey Snover on managed code (being pushed by Microsoft through its Common Language Runtime tech): "Managed code is like antilock brakes. You used to have to be a good driver on ice or you would die. Now you don't have to pump your brakes anymore." Snover also joked that programming is getting so abstract, developers will soon have to use Natal to "write programs through interpretative dance."
because the modern Microsoft development tools need that infernal Dotnet library to be loaded and then when it gets messes up any software that depends on it does not work.
So instead of Visual C++ use GNU C++ or Borland C++ to write the Windows code to do what you want because it does not depend on the Dotnet libraries.
Also when you use the alternative development tools, you can write code for older versions of Windows like Windows 95 and Windows 98. Yeah I know Microsoft doesn't want to support them, but people still use them in mass numbers because they cannot afford to upgrade.
I still get job offers for Visual BASIC 6.0 and under, due to "Legacy Software" on "Legacy Windows Systems" because the Dotnet versions of Visual BASIC don't work to well on older systems. I could even write books on the subject.
When I researched the Visual BASIC.Net 2002 development tools in beta I noticed those problems and my employer thought I was crazy. They moved on to Dotnet without me, having fired me for getting sick on the job and I eventually ended up so sick from the stress that I ended up disabled. I went on short-term disability for a while, tried a few more jobs, but ended up on disability. But the Visual BASIC.Net 2002 was full of bugs and I saw the dependence on Dotnet to be a liability. I knew this from when we used the WANG ImageBASIC controls and with IE 5.0 they stopped working and with MS-Office upgrades they broke the ImageBASIC Controls. We replaced them with Leadtools later. But Dotnet is huge and bloated and full of stuff most developers don't need but is loaded anyway. In creating Dotnet, Microsoft put many of the OCX and library control people and companies out of business as Dotnet replaced their controls.
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When I program using gedit, if there's an error I know that the error is somewhere in the written code in front of me. When I program using some IDE and there's an error, it might be hidden deep within 3 layers of menu options. There's much less control over the situation the second way.
No, but if you rewrote the Windows kernel and service APIs (kernel.exe, user32.dll, GDI, mstdc, svchost, kernel32.dll, advapi32, win32k.sys, comctl32, comdlg, shell32, shlwapi, Winsock, NetDDE, RPC, NetBIOS, Internet Explorer, etc) in Python, it might be faster, have fewer buffer overflows.
Although i'm sure MS would still figure out some way of introducing security problems of some sort. Trade buffer overflows for kernel-mode Python code injection vulnerabilities.
And since python is such an easier language to understand, python code injection in kernel mode is oh so much easier to exploit, even by novices...
Agreed. Using visual studio is a pleasure. I develop on Qt Creator almost exclusively now in windows and it really is a pleasure.
I hate that Qt Creator relies on GDB though. The mingw port of GDB is horrifically slow, even on modern hardware. It also pales in comparison to MSVC debugger as far as integration and usability.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
It's the only example I can think of where MS beat a strong competitor the old fashioned way (ie: with a better product).
Excel would be another one.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa...
You're saying that Vi and EMACS have *less* of a learning curve than Visual Studio!? Seriously?
You're smoking some high quality stuff there.
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