Slashdot Mirror
Windows 8 Roundup
There has been no shortage of Windows 8 news today. MrSeb writes: "Earlier this morning, at the Build Windows conference in Anaheim, California, Microsoft made it patently clear that 'To the cloud!' is not merely a throwaway phrase: it is the entire future of the company. Every single one of Microsoft's services, platforms, and form factors will now begin its hasty, leave-no-prisoners-behind transition to the always-on, internet-connected cloud." netbuzz pointed out that even the famous Blue Screen of Death will get a new look. Lastly mikejuk writes: "While everyone else is looking at the surface detail of Windows 8 there are some deep changes going on. Perhaps the biggest is that Metro now provides an alternative environment that doesn't use the age old Win32 API. This means no more overlapping windows — yes Metro really does take the windows out of Windows."
The windows 8 tiles system supports true multitasking, and has a few window arrangements that let you have 1/2/3 (or 4?) applications on screen at once.
Its actually pretty well though out, and should work pretty well for tablet users and netbooks.
For those of us power users with big desktops and multiple screens with 10+ windows open... guess what... that's not going away. You just launch Explorer, and have a full desktop window manager.
Seriously... what's with all the idiotic hate on this?
Microsoft is only changing the DEFAULT window manager to be more consumer / tablet friendly. Good for them.
The prosumer/business/productivity group will still have the more pro oriented traditional window manager for doing what we do.
Nobody even half expects people working on an excel spreedsheet business projection drawing data from pdfs, web pages, and their email to do so using the new interface. Some things make sense to do in multiple overlapping windows. That's not going away.
So stop flipping out about it.
> Windows 7 works just fine. It's the new XP - didn't you know?
It's sad, but you're probably right. Microsoft today is kind of like a rock star who's made so much cash, he's just going to be weird and do whatever the fsck he feels like doing from now on. If Microsoft is hyping "Metro" in an effort to generate developer excitement, they're having the exact opposite effect. Everyone *I* know is like, "WTF, has Microsoft gone completely batshit insane?"
It's almost like Microsoft's entire developer elite just hit their mid-40s, had a midlife crisis, realized they have enough cash to spend the rest of their lives coding for fun, retired en masse, and handed over the company to a marketing department that thinks making Windows look like a tablet UI so it can run phone apps better is somehow a good idea.