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What Windows Phone 8 Needs To Do To Succeed
As Microsoft prepares for the launch of Windows Phone 8 devices, its most important push into the smartphone industry to date, speculation is rampant about whether or not consumers will continue to ignore Windows-based phones. There are many obvious ways Microsoft could misstep and lose its chance to participate in another generation of phones, but what would it take for Windows Phone 8 to succeed? To start, they can take advantage of manufacturers who are worried about being pursued over patent claims. They could also work to establish the permanence of Windows Phone 8, after the upgrade inflexibility involved with Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile 6.5. Finally, they could take a page out of Amazon's book and make WP8 devices more about services.
by replaceing win 8 to linux arm
They had Nokia and Visual Studio last year. Here we are in 2012 and it hasn't been enough.
It's a bit player in a competitive market. Microsoft has not leveraged Windows Phone 8 to better integrate with Windows business technologies (I'm talking Active Directory and Group Policies), and since both iOS and Android support ActiveSync for Exchange connectivity, it's not as if Microsoft is going to improve on that.
So I'd say the odds are stacked against Microsoft. It's about three years too late to the party, and not leveraging its phone OS with other Microsoft products means there is absolutely no reason for a business customer like myself to give a damn about it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> To start, they can take advantage of manufacturers who are worried about being pursued over patent claims.
What!? How does Windows Phone 8 protect someone from a patent lawsuit? With patent trolls running around suing people for using hyperlinks, this is an absolutely ridiculous statement.
Which it ain't gonna get unless the devices are far cheaper than gutter level Androids.
It's going to need to drop the Microsoft and Windows branding.
why buy Kia when toyota and honda already offer what you want. except to save a few dollars on some option.
same here. iOS and Android have sold a billion devices. why switch to a platform with such tiny market share? what will you gain for it. what does it do better that iOS and android don't do already?
One of two things is needed:
1) A product that is _significantly_ better than other products (which will not happen, as they pretty much all do the same thing)
2) Some culturally respected cool or godly figure to tell them to buy it. (which again, MS can't accomplish, because they're just not perceived as cool)
Any kind of suggestions here will only help MS for free.
Let's just hope that the dump Apple consumer mass keep ignoring MS forever.
The question is simple, why should I buy a Windows phone? What does it give me that I cannot get from Android or Apple? After all, if there is no big reason to choose Windows phone, then I would lean towards one with a broader base of apps. Once they're able to get a compelling mainstream reason why to move to Windows phone, they need to market it. Right now they think having a unified experience between desktop and phone is that killer feature. We'll see if they're right.
... that affects only iOS devices?
Copy and Paste
Hey everyone, a Microsoft/Nokia marketing department employee! :D
Come on, you need to understand your audience before advertising. Nobody will take this seriously. Whoever paid for you to write this *absolutely* wasted their money, because it'll be buried by others who see right through it.
There's an article on the reg which might be of some interest: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/14/windows8_phone_ecosystems_analysis/ (Comment subject taken from that article)
-1 troll is not supposed to be used simply because you don't agree
Hello copy-paste shill and welcome! I happened to observe that you posted at the instant the story went live, and had nothing but good things to say about MS. You also called out in particular MS's awesome Visual Studio product - a common thread among these kinds of posts over the last few months. Perhaps not coincidentally, Slashdot is a site that's seen as catering to developer types.
On other sites, I assume you have a similarly tailored copy-paste message ready to go.
First post to this story. First post ever for this account.
Quite amazing if you ask me...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If you think of all the businesses that use Microsoft on their desktop, and servers. They could easily force only Microsoft phones to sync with their products. Imagine Exchange only working with Windows Mobile 8, or file sharing with your desktop. Sure, you might try and get around it with other products, but Microsoft will make it difficult.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
and offer it for free.
Not a very imaginative article... But then, I wouldn't want to create great ideas for spreading MS's domination either. Really, if that was all MS could do, they'd be doomed from the beggining.
By the way, what "high-profile startups" means?
Rethinking email
Yeah, look how well that worked for Zune. They tried this already, why throw good money after bad? The only useful consumer brand they own is X-Box, and nobody over 24 is going to carry an "X-Phone."
They need to integrate it with Exchange, AD and Communicator. Then it'll be a useful device for corporate customers. That's their only hope, no end-user consumer wants one no matter how nice they make them.
That's like asking what death must do to live.
Before any of that they needed to have made it a real OS that real developers could really develop on without having to #ifdef hell an application. By this I mean, for example, C# .NET with WPF. I should be able to take my WPF application, change the drop down build target to Windows 8 Phone, and it should be done. That is how simple it should be. Look at iOS and Android... developing for those platforms is the biggest pain my life. Microsoft is in a not-so-unique position to actually do shit for real, for once. But, of course, won't.
It would take someone dropping a nuke on Cupertino. Outside of that, I don't really see it happening.
Get SAMSUNG in there to develop some Class-A hardware...
If it is "copy-paste", I haven't found the original source. You are right that it is too well written to have been done so quickly, but I'm not sure how the trick is being done.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
How is this Microsoft's most important push into the smartphone industry to date? Why is this more important than Windows 7? Because it is happening now?
Microsoft has never been an innovator, and they won't be able to innovate here. It's an irrelevant platform, and if Microsoft hadn't had a de facto monopoly on the desktop which finances WP, they would be long gone by now. Typically Microsoft, they want to bully desktop users into using the ridiculous Metro interface. That won't work... but of course they don't get it. Nokia has a few more quarters in them until they bleed to death, and then that will be yet another "partner" that Microsoft has led down the garden path, raped behind the shed and then buried in a shallow grave.
No you're missing the point. It's a long writeup ostensibly about how MS is positioned for success - but if you read a little closer, it's actually pitching Visual Studio to the slashdot crowd (like so many similar posts have in recent months). By presenting commentary related to VS as fact in the context of opinion related to the phone product, they're trying to send a subtle message that it's already proven beyond question that VS is a good product. By focusing on the debate around the phone - evidenced by your inclusion of "Nokia" in the list of culprits - you let that slip right by ;)
I think Microsoft mostly needs two things for Windows Phone 8 to succeed.
1.) Great hardware partner. Nokia here, along with HTC and other little players.
2.) Great developer tools. We got Visual Studio covered here, along with things like Microsoft's XNA for games and easy, yet powerful languages like C#.
The idea here is that Microsoft really has all it covered. Nokia has a very stable history of making good phones. Their hardware really is rock solid. Nokia is the perfect partner Microsoft needs, and they have them. Motorola Mobility for Google doesn't even come close to what Microsoft-Nokia partnership is. I seriously think that Google tried to get Nokia on-board but they had already decided on Microsoft.
What comes to development tools.. well, you can't really go wrong with Visual Studio. It's an industry standard, really widely used IDE. Pretty much everyone agrees that it's rock solid product from Microsoft. Even if you hate Microsoft, you can but agree on this one. And the availability of things like XNA, C#, great documentation and the fact that Visual Studio Express is free really helps. Microsoft really is the developer friendly company. Much more so than Google or Apple.
I'd say these two things are well covered.
Then there's the matter of UI. Again, Microsoft has done remarkable job with the design. While I agree that Metro UI doesn't work too well on computers, it really is great on mobile phones and tablets. Everyone who has tested one of the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 phones can agree. The UI and system are good.
The last part Microsoft has in front of it really comes down to marketing. Nokia never really was that well known company in North America and that's why other companies like Apple and HTC have gained a following there. Nokia largely ignored NA market while they concentrated on Europe and Asia. Let's not forget that Nokia is still the worlds biggest phone manufacturer and controls almost half of the markets when dumb phones are included. Even without, Nokia has a much better base in Europe.
What Microsoft and Nokia need are phone companies that will push the products to consumers. That's all there is to it. They have a wonderful product in their hands but are missing the marketing required for it. I think it mostly comes down to so much different market than what it is in Asia or Europe. They just lack the experience.
Microsoft, or Nokia for that matter, could introduce one leading phone. The "one" phone that everyone would choose. But I think it's much better when Nokia produces many different phones and everyone can choose the one they like the best. Let's not forget that Microsoft does have hardware requirements so there is no problem with fragmentation like Android has. Apple, of course, has little next to none fragmentation problems, even with the different resolutions. Nokia and Microsoft are almost at the same boat.
All in all, both Microsoft and Nokia have wonderful product. They just need to market it to people.
Hahaha.
You didn't have this speech prepared by any chance, eh?
Pathetic. Both the 'news' and the first 'commercial'.
Simple dock for peripherals and the deal is done. They would trounce the market.
I'm assuming he's got a library of such commentary pre-written and ready to go, possibly provided by his employers. Most likely a subscription account as well (but posting with indicator turned off), so that he can get FP on these types of stories.
Duh.
Here here good Sir! You're not suggesting that he had some sort of privileged access to the thread before anyone else!? That would require an inside man, and we all know that the Slashdot editing staff would never allow such a thing! Surely you jest!
It is a lot of work using a different account each time. Not unbelievable, but certainly not easy.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Can I write Android and iOS apps in VS?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nice try, Microsoft Marketing Department.
Developers are irrelevant, consumer perception is everything. And people hate windows on computers, windows has viruses, windows crashes every now and then etc...
So why in god's name would they want windows on their phone ? They'll go either iphone (it just works), or android.
In my opinion Nokia was the perfect partner for this but they no longer are the perfect partner. Nokia got burned badly by the Win 7 phones and they bet the company on this partnership. I am afraid that in the first world too many people will view the Win 8 phone as another potential compatibility nightmare (for those that know about the previous Nokia Win 7 phones) or they'll see them as "not an iPhone or an Android and therefore a loser platform that won't survive". Nokia just reminds me of too many IT companies that can't admit that the market changed and they weren't prepared and can't play catchup any more. They've got the garbage section of the mobile phone industry covered. If you want low featured "I just want a phone that's a phone" type devices, then they are your company, especially if you live in a less developed country where you either can't afford or can't get an Android or iPhone. But I think that it's too late for them to get taken seriously in developed parts of AustralAsia, Europe and North America that basically want tiny computers that masquerade as phones.
The only reason X-Box is a "successful" consumer brand is because Microsoft has dumped billions into buying market position. Microsoft hasn't even made back its investment into the X-Box. But unless Microsoft and Nokia are basically willing to sell at a substantial loss for a considerable length of time, they are intruding into a market already crowded by iOS and Android devices.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your theory has crossed my mind as well. Even a subscription account would requre a lot to pull this off as well as he/she/it has.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
its most important push into the smartphone
Why? All the others were equally touted, the difference being the situation was never as dire as it is now for MS WinCE.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I think Microsoft mostly needs two things for Windows Phone 8 to succeed.
1.) Great hardware partner. Nokia here, along with HTC and other little players.
2.) Great developer tools. We got Visual Studio covered here, along with things like Microsoft's XNA for games and easy, yet powerful languages like C#.
Funny I thought the real requirement was:
3.) Users who buy things
Without #3, all great dev tools do is make the experience of wasting money developing something nobody will buy more enjoyable.
Given that they've ALREADY messed up #3 by poking all the Nokia 800/900 early-adopters in the eye with a non-compatible major release SIX MONTHS into a likely two-year contract, I'd say they're pretty boned...
The marriage of operating system with services on the internet is stupid, stupid, fucking stupid.
Let apps be free. Let the apps implement that third party integration. Nobody fucking cares about Bing or Zune, stop trying to shove it down people's throats.
What they should be doing is emphasizing how little it actually matters what search engine you use, or how little matters if you post to Twitter versus Facebook, or how little it matters if apps come from iTunes or Google Play or the Zune store.
All that really matters is usability and security, and you can do that without crippling the devices and locking them down tighter than Steve Jobs' mummified sphincter.
The UI spectacular, and Visual Studio is far and away better than Eclipse and Xcode. So stop giving developers reasons to hate Microsoft and the apps will come, and then the people will come. Developers developers developers.
Nokia has a very stable history of making good phones. Their hardware really is rock solid.
Nokia just closed the factory in Salo which was the base of their entire quality. Nokia is now another Foxcon OEM just like Apple but without the buying power.
Microsoft really is the developer friendly company. Much more so than Google or Apple.
The Microsoft which just more or less invalidated the work done on putting out WP7 apps? The Microsoft which is slowly depreciating C# which was previously their main devlopment language? The Microsoft which has a shared source license which basically means "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine". This Microsoft?
Development is a bit of a lottery in many cases. Most products begin and fail; some products make a little; a few products become the next Google or Oracle. This means that the maximum upside is huge. This is an important part of the reward in IT. Look at partners that have gone with a Microsoft: Netscape; Borland; Sendo. People who could have made it really huge but, because they based their success on Windows ended up with nothing.
Microsoft loves developers in the same way that eagles love mice. Of course they want them to breed. If they didn't what would the chicks eat?
Then there's the Windows UI. It's very interesting that you say:
Everyone who has tested one of the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 phones
And certainly don't say "owned" or even "used". We know that WP has been a design disaster. Where all the competent companies used grid arrangements allowing multiple apps per screen line, Windows came up with the "original" idea of having everything in a long list meaning that the app you want is always half an hour's scrolling away. Imagine the idea that all your social networks are integrated into one hub with little control making it almost impossible to partition data safely between them. Think about a system where a third of the bottom of the screen is dedicated to Bing with no possible user control to change it.
I'm serious. every iteration of WinPhone has abandoned its users to no upward compatibility and no further support. If I had been silly or strung out enough to have bought a Win7 phone, I wouldn't have a WinProduct ever again.
not that I'm in the market, because they are a year late and a trillion dollars short in the market. the only industry reaction in anything close to real time to the iPhone was Google, and that's why those two lines have killed the rest of the business. you add up all the alternatives... WinPhone, BBOS, Symbian, Palm, whatever the Chinese just started up... add 'em all up, and it's an asterisk, too small to measure.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I agree with much of what you say but we have seen technically superior products fail in the marketplace before (ex. Beta vs. VHS). What MS really needs to do, in my view, is find a way to woo developers to the platform. Just having great tools like VS is not going to do it. They're going to have to convince developers that it's a viable platform that they can make money on. Otherwise, why bother? Without Apps the phone is worthless no matter how good the hardware.
From the consumer side, MS has to convince iPhone and Android users that WP8 has something that the others don't. That's going to be tough. I think they only way they can do it is on price. Price the phones and the apps less than the other guys. MS will take a loss in the short term but might be able to make it up on the back end. They'll have to pull a page from their XBox playbook.
I guess the real question is...is there room for a 3th major player in the mobile OS space? Ok, 4th if you include RIM. Personally I think no. WP8 has a lot of promise and it's probably going to be really good but did MS wait too long?
1.) Great hardware partner. Nokia here, along with HTC and other little players.
Nokia is selling its assets and would have been long gone if not for the MS Cash infusion. It's more like a zombie partner at this point.
2.) Great developer tools. We got Visual Studio covered here, along with things like Microsoft's XNA for games and easy, yet powerful languages like C#.
Everybody is making games and apps for mobile (iOS and Android) using Java/ObjC/C++. None of such are what you mention and OpenGL isn't available either. So why would developers making apps for more profitable platforms rewrite their entire codebases for an irrelevant player? They are waaay too late to the game impose developers their own languages, APIs and tools.
I love how they included the comment about Metro not being a great UI for a desktop. Well designed for winning over the slashdot crowd. Remember, you won't look like a shill if you insert a few harmless disparaging remarks about the company you are representing.
I also love the fragmentation comment which is obviously pandering to the Apple crowd in an attempt for some up mods.
While this comment is lowly moderated now, those of you who came to this story early will have noticed that it started with a very high score.
The developer tools cost a fortune (MS windows + MS visual studio), certainly more than what I make in a few weeks. Meanwhile, most of the other mobile OS's dev tools cost $0. Except iOS, of course.
The article touches on really non of what, as a user, I think Windows Phone 8 needs. The experience in Windows 7 is great, but they're still lacking on apps, carrier support, new hardware, and advertising. So this is my list:
1) Support new hardware on all major carriers. Verizon currently has backwater outdated Windows Phones. That cannot happen with Windows Phone 8.
2) App parity with other platforms. With Windows 8 compatibility, this will likely be the case for Windows Phone 8. All the major players will write apps for Windows 8, and will most likely make the investment to bring their app over to WP8. However, this is still yet to be seen. Micosoft can ensure this will happen by making the transition as easy as possible, possibly by preserving all logic code and allowing a dev to make changes just to the interface.
3) A variety of hardware. Nokia is a great hardware partner but they cannot be the only one. I don't like some of the decisions on the 920, like no micro SD. I need to be able to go to Samsung or HTC to find a phone that fits me perfectly.
4) Integration with Windows 8, Xbox, Skydrive, Skype, and the various media properties like Xbox Music and especially Xbox Live.
In terms of what the article suggests I have these comments:
1) Take Advantage of Google Android’s Current Issues - Yes, I believe Microsoft is already capitalizing on this by offering indemnity for parters. I don't know how Samsung's verdict will really affect the market, but Microsoft can't rely on Android getting worse or less appealing; they have to make WP more appealing.
2) Stop the Upgrading Uncertainty - With the WP8 foundation this is probably already fixed, but I don't think it's that big of an issue. Still the majority of Android customers are two versions behind on Gingerbread, and many WP users are happy with the additional support provided with WP7.8. Yes it sucks WP won't be upgraded to 8, but then again we've had more certainty with our upgrades to Android until this point, with the vast majority of devices old and new being on 7.5. If they can continue this trend onto 8, they should be good.
3) Push Cloud Apps and Services - This is a foregone conclusion. Microsoft account integrates across Windows 8, Xbox, and Windows Phone, and carries all settings, mail, contacts, etc. between phone and desktop, and carries media between all three. With Office, the cloud trend will continue. I think this doesn't necessarily make WP more competitive, but it makes the ecosystem at least as appealing as the others. Microsoft has at least the advantage of Xbox and Office over Google and Apple, who cannot really offer parity in those respects.
Microsoft is big on the desktop sector becus backwards compability.
I hateted the windows smart phones during windows mobile 5 6 etc becus they could not be upgraded newer apps would not work.
They are doing the same mistake all over.
If win95 could not run 3.11 apps or win 98 apps microsoft would have failed the desktop market.
If i buy a phone i want it to be usable for atleast 3 years and i simply dont trust microsoft to provide me with that.
XNA is dead in the water. Microsoft has said as much. For gaming support on WIndows 8/WIndows Phone 8, you're stuck with C++/Direct3D. :(
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
If he worked for MS, he'd have realized that XNA is in the process of being deprecated.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
That's all nice, but VS and Nokia were joined a year ago and Lumia/WP7 did not set the US on fire. So let's think about this. I figure it's sales channel/carrier issues which are resolvable through one of the two taking up the spending a few notches. Unfortunately, Nokia can't afford a low margin top-end smartphone and they already have it priced under competitors' offerings. (800/900. As we know, the pricing on the 820/920 is not announced.) How much of its licensing revenue does Microsoft want to spend per phone? Both Nokia and Microsoft are doing this to grow profits and there's the dilemma. Share has to get huge fast in order to provide the volume they seek. But the more share they buy, the more volume they require in order to move the needle.
You can also write PHP, Python and wide array of other languages. VS is really powerful IDE.
That's sort of weird how your first long post is basically error-free in terms of grammar, but now you're dropping your articles. That would be *a* wide array, and *a* "really powerful IDE". It's almost like the first post was written by one or more native English speakers, but now in a short comment your English isn't so good.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
(but posting with indicator turned off\
What does "indicator turned off" mean?
MS has one advantage they can use with this device, and that is that they control both the horizontal and the vertical in the enterprise. In typical /. form:
1: Create an ActiveSync successor protocol. One that is heavily patented, perhaps undocumented.
2: Sell the AS successor as a lot more secure than just TLS/SSL to get it firmly rooted in the enterprise. Show how it is more secure than BIS/BES as well.
3: Leverage the new AS successor in next revs of the OS making AS depreciated, or even yank it out together such as what was done with hierarchial storage management or IEE1394 networking.
4: Allow either only themselves, or them and Apple access to the protocol.
5: ?????
6: Profit. Nobody else would be able to use that protocol by law, so only devices either running a MS operating system, or devices authorized to use that protocol would be allowed to run.
The result of this is the ability to completely lock competition out of the enterprise. In the past, it might be considered monopolistic practices, but these are different times, and a serious case would never happen. The end result likely would be MS and Apple being the only players in the enterprise if this is done.
> There are many obvious ways Microsoft could
> misstep and lose its chance to participate in
> another generation of phones...
Or, they could do everything right, and it still won't matter. Beating an entrenched winner is HARD. How many times does it have to be said? Being "as good as" IS NOT ENOUGH. You have to be SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER in SEVERAL WAYS that will appeal to MANY PEOPLE to make any headway at all.
And it doesn't help that MS has made MAJOR recent blunders, like "oops, no Windows Phone 7 phone will EVER be upgradeable past 7.x." Not a great start, guys.
It's hard being an uncool kid and watching the cool kids have all the fun, but MS should accept its fate and focus on being the best enterprise company possible that also happens to make a consumer OS and a game system. Instead, they're pissing EVERYONE off by borking their OS one release after the other and slowly giving up the future to Apple.
Ballmer, accept the fact that MS will be the next IBM. It ain't so bad. If you don't, you won't even get that far.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
No. You're FUCKED without compatibility.
You want a walled garden? That's iOS and Apple. They win. Look what MS did to Apple in the 90s. That's who and where you are now, bottom bunk in a Turkish prison.
You want the ability to do anything you want? That's Android. I can transfer any of the files I... rented... to my HTC, watch em when I want, listen to the music I like, and it works with any computer on the planet as long as it's got either a USB port or Bluetooth. Would a Windows 7/8 phone be able to sync with my dad's four-year-old phone and drag off the photos? No. I can link my freakin' WATCH to my Android.
MS wants a proprietary system, specialized software, and total lockdown. I can't transfer files via Bluetooth, or USB, or anything else. Just your software, your walls, your garden. Sure, it's pretty, but I can throw that skin onto my Android.
I've used VS before. Nothing like being unable to run a program you've written because it's unsigned. True, I could be admin all the time but you never can be on a phone, since they're usually feature-locked by the Telco.
What's the advantage to getting a Windows phone?
There isn't one.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Windows Phone 8 will only succeed if Microsoft does something like they did with OWA where it's just a checkbox(overexaggerating, yes) for system administrators to support. When RIM lost a patent lawsuit and had an injunction brought against them in the US a few years ago, the company I was working for at the time dumped Blackberry support and switch to Samsung Blackjacks for the simple reason that the Exchange servers already supported them via OWA. If Microsoft does something to make Windows Phone 8 highly desirable and extremely cheap for Corporations, they will flock to it and kick Apple/Android to the curb in no time. Blackberry is already on life support.
One thing to remember is that Microsoft is already making money off of every Android/iPhone/Blackberry thanks to it's patent licensing deals. Even if WP8 loses, Microsoft still wins in the end.
If they even breath trying to lockout Non-Win8 phones then they will find a herd of "Hogs" on their front lawn.
Don't forget that The Pentagon has lots and lots of nDroids , iThings and Crackberries devices running around.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Then everyone would just figure out how to grab the data off the OMA/OWA site like guys figured out to do for Yahoo and Hotmail back in the day. ActiveSync makes things easier, but it isn't the only way to grab data. Besides, I'm sure if it came to that, someone would just build a middleware solution. The day when Microsoft could use its market dominance to bully everyone else is done.
And besides, you can't patent protocols or APIs, so I'm reasonably certain that trying to leverage Exchange in that way would certainly bring Microsoft back in the cross hairs of European regulators, and by the time the war was done, Redmond would be forced to open it all up anyways, and suffer substantial fines in the process.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And Mountain View. And Seoul. And Waterloo. And Tokyo. And Redmond, just to be sure. Then Windows Phone 8 can really fly.
It's the fact that it's still Windows, and Microsoft is still working on the paradigm of a single code build to rule them all, that's a complete turn-off to me, and makes the chance of me ever owning such a device bordering on nonexistent.
It was trying to deal with a company issued Windows mobile 5 phone, and later a Windows mobile 6 phone, that taught me that Microsoft just doesn't get the differences between the touch and kvm paradigms. It appears that they're going to "solve" this by making everything (including kvm pcs) run a touch-friendly interface.
The thing is, Microsoft has yet to create a truly successful touch interface. (The original "surface" had some really cutting edge features but was never released.) "Windows 7 tablet edition" is unbelievably bad, being for the most part a re-branding of old accessibility resources. Windows 7 Phone never took off, despite some early moderately favorable reviews, perhaps due to it's association to other failed attempts (see paragraph one).
So now... honestly, why do I need Windows Phone 8? Compatibility with Exchange? A known solution on both iphone and android. Compatibility with Microsoft Office? My Android phone came with Quickoffice, and it appears to be working fine. I can mail myself a PPT, open it on the phone, and use the HDMI interface to display on a projector, no laptop necessary.
Tiles that update dynamically? Android has had that (widgets) for years.
That it's called Windows? That's actually a reason *not* to buy it.
So, like, what? The number of applications? Um, no. The maturity of the code base? It is to laugh. Let's see... Crush on Steve Ballmer... nope. Love the logo... nope, if anything, the new logo looks amateurish. Microsoft has done such a great job on my PC that I'll buy anything they produce? Let's see, examining feelings, um, that would be a no. I'm really reaching here, but I don't know what else might come into play. Oh wait, I know:
I work for Microsoft and they're giving me a Windows 8 phone and tablet for free? Well, that might work. At very least, it'll reduce inventory somewhat. Storage must be costly.
On the other hand, my company (which isn't Microsoft) issued me a Windows Mobile phone, and after a very frustrating three months I gave it back. (In all fairness, they also issued me an ipad, and after a week, seeing that I'd still need to carry a laptop, I gave back the ipad.) So a more correct wording might be "We're giving Microsoft employees a free Windows 8 phone and you better the hell be seen using it".
That, plus TV show prop departments heavily subsidize by Microsoft (cough-hawaii-50-cough) might be the only places you see the critters.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
2013 will be the year of Windows on the cell phone!
While a plan that I'm sure would work, there is one hitch. EU would start bringing on the antitrust lawsuits. What you describe is even more locked down and bullish than bundling IE with Windows.
That may not stop MS from trying it since they'll probably have it on the market for a few month to a year before legal measures start falling on their profit margins.
Microsoft-Nokia must be quite, quite desperate to pitch Windows 8 phones on Slashdot.
Ironically, I may purchase the Lumia 920. Not because I care much for the 'turd ecosystem' or am impressed by the hardware specs, but rather, I am confident that it will go into the bargain bin soon and I don't mind getting a cheap smartphone. I don't care for apps. Really, I don't. I can get by with zero apps downloaded from the app store. Microsoft/developers will be very sad if all smartphone users are like me.
I'm like the guy who doesn't spend much (if at all) on his credit card and pays his credit card bills on time, much to the bank's chagrin.
Also, the Lumia 920 may be the last Windows flagship phone from Nokia. Once Nokia's share price dips below a certain threshold, Stephen Elop will be fired and Nokia will proceed with 'Plan B' (possibly Android). It'll be great to own a relic of tech history.
Surely it's no Apple or Samsung, 7 million phones in two quarters isn't great but nothing too shabby.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/05/nokia-7-million-lumias-sold-to-date-in-54-countries/
They were held back by the hardware, single cores and display resolution earlier with the WP7 phones, now the hardware is much more competitive, the camera tech is like no other around, and they're pretty much at or near the top in the specs war.
http://www.wpcentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/postimages/4213/iPhone%20versus%20MONA4.png
Not to mention things like working with gloves on, which no capacitative touch screen around seems to be able to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0lAi1fVfXl8#t=227s
PS: I have nothing to do with first post troll/shill or whatever that is on Slashdot. I have been reading Slashdot since 10 years and posting since atleast 5. In many stories, it appears to be a troll and not shill making the comments(with nicknames like Waggenered Strom and Auntie Wag/Uncle Wag ) for they know 20 comments will follow discussing the troll itself.
This space for rent.
You can if you pay Novell and use mono. (i.e write your apps in C#)
There might be a way using Intel's stuff as well. (For Android at least anyway).
Probably have to deal with the arm builds with ant though.
Visual Studio has an Objective C compiler, a C and C++ compiler that supports the clang Blocks extension, and a darwin compatible linker?
They could try having a product when they have a product announcement. You know, a thing to sell, or pre-order with a solid ship date. I saw the new Nokia phone announcement and was like "that sounds great, I need a new phone now anyway" and looked for a ship date. nothing. Looked for a price. nothing. Looks like a great phone.
Shipping is a feature. Announce when that feature's complete, not other features. Amazon had an announcement, they had products, they had pre-orders, they had hands-on demo production products for the press, they're burning through sales. Apple had an announcement, they have pre-orders, they had hands-on demo production products for the press, they're selling product and their online store is already on backorder.
Microsoft and Nokia had announcements. They have no product, no preorders, people didn't get any hands on time with what the actual shipping product will be, the phone demo movie was faked up to the point where if they hadn't backed off they'd be looking at criminal fraud indictments, the actual "products" they had for demos were showing powerpoint slides for all they were worth.
Tease launches only work for industry-new products. Apple pulled it off with the original iPhone and iPad because there weren't any competitive products in the space, so the market didn't have an option to go out and buy something that filled that need *right now*. Microsoft and Nokia are trying to do a tease launch, when I can go to the store and buy something very similar for a probably similar price and have it in my hand before Microsoft and Nokia will get around to announcing prices, much less ship dates.
Microsoft is so used to being the industry leader they've forgotten how to act when they're not. Little hint guys: Apple's iPhone business is bigger than Microsoft. Not that Apple is bigger, Apple's iPhone business. Just that one piece of their business. Not that Apple couldn't be taken down by an innovative competitor with an effective marketing strategy, but Microsoft is neither an innovative competitor nor do they market effectively.
So, again, Microsoft is too little and too late to the party, and will be utterly ignored.
The iOS dev tools are free.
Soon enough all of the people in those less developped parts of the wrold will be using smartphones too. And everything indicates they'll be running Android.
Nokia is done.
Rethinking email
If you are involved in the original submission, you could set up a script that would constantly check the front page until it posted something similar -- maybe a key phrase with a couple confirming keywords -- and then automatically post as soon as that story became available.
I think Microsoft mostly needs two things for Windows Phone 8 to succeed.
1.) Get rid of the Microsoft brand on phones
2.) Do things Apple doesn't do
The idea here is that Microsoft really has all it copied. Nokia had a very stable history of making good phones. Their feature phones really were rock solid. Nokia is the perfect partner Microsoft bought, and they have them by the balls. Motorola Mobility for Google doesn't even come close to what Microsoft-Nokia partnership is (failure bailing out failure). I seriously think that Elop tried to get Google on-board but they had already decided on Microsoft.
What comes to development tools.. well, you can't really go wrong with Visual Studio. It's an industry standard, really widely used IDE mostly used to develop cheap Visual Basic apps. Pretty much everyone agrees that VB6 was a rock solid product from Microsoft. Even if you hate Microsoft, you can but agree on this one (until it messes up some .DLL's and applications start trying to start a non-existent debugger randomly). And the availability of things like XNA, C#, great documentation and the fact that Visual Studio Express is free really helps. Microsoft really is the monopoly friendly company. Much more so than companies not Google or Apple.
I'd say these two things are well covered.
Then there's the matter of UI. Again, Microsoft has done remarkable Microsoft Bob with the design. While I agree that Metro UI doesn't work too well on computers, it really is great on mobile phones and tablets. Everyone who has tested one of the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 phones can agree. They would only use this phone if it was given to them for free.
The last part Microsoft has in front of it really comes down to casing on a monoply. Nokia never was that well known company in North America until 2005 or so when it decided to ignore the US smartphone market and that's why other companies like Apple and HTC have gained a following there. Nokia largely ignored NA market while they concentrated on Europe and Asia which made sense because their wireless markets aren't crippled by the sorry as oligopoly that exists in America. Let's not forget that Nokia is still the worlds biggest phone manufacturer and controls almost half of the markets when dumb phones are included (and this is relevant because Windows Phone 8 will work on dumb phones). Even without, Nokia has a much better base in Europe.
What Microsoft and Nokia need are phone companies that will push the products to consumers because Microsoft can't operate any other way except for the OEM to be the last mile bitch for the customer. That's all there is to it. They have a wonderful copy of a product in their hands but are missing the marketing required for it. I think it mostly comes down to so much different market than what it is in Asia or Europe. They just lack the experience.
Microsoft, or Nokia for that matter, could introduce one leading phone. The "one" phone that everyone would choose. But I think it's much better when Nokia produces many different phones and everyone can choose the one they like the best. Because having 20 different phones that run the same OS and look and operate the same really makes sense for Microsoft. Let's not forget that Microsoft does have hardware requirements so there is no problem with fragmentation like Android has except when we decide to add a feature that requires new hardware to make that "one" phone. Apple, of course, has little next to none fragmentation problems, even with the different resolutions. Nokia and Microsoft are almost at the same boat because we paid for it.
All in all, both Microsoft and Nokia have wonderful product. We just need to force people to buy it.
NOT SUCK FTFY
And Google's HQ, and Samsung's and LG's and HTC's and (every other Android partner)
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
POSIX, motherfucker! Do you implement it?
No one cares about Google play, which is why iPhone sells. Store you entire library on Apple servers and download as you want to use it. Like MS used to be, any almost any App you want is in the store, and often for free. It will cost money, but people have money. Paul McCartney tickers are currently on sale for $2000 a piece.
Honestly MS is doing a good job developing a phone that is not iPhone or Android. They have no excuse not to as they have been in the biz as long as anyone. MS WIndows CE and Nokia Communicator are both vintage 1996. The blackberry was two or three years later.
I think as in many MS ventures that are no core MS WIndows, it is unclear what the goal is. Even in Windows, as we saw with Vista, and now with Metro née Modern née App Store Applications, or whatever, there is a high level of confusion. On one hand they want MS to rule the planet, OTOH they are getting free money from every Android phone sold. Clearly they could take over the market, but that would be work and it is unclear if money from work is better than free money.
MS does not have properties that are going to be promoted by the phone. They have search, but if they make it good enough they will not have to force people to use it. They have pretty much given up forcing people to use IE through cheap tricks, and there has never been any integration with the phone and computer. They do not have that level of service. They tried to leverage social media with the Kin, and it failed miserably. People want, as hard it is to believe, and so-called ecosystem. This makes sense as the phone cannot do that much alone. Can you imagine entering all the information into a phone. I have had to do it. It sucks. Much better to use the computer for data entry.
The only reason the phone might matter is that MS might be able to make a better table than Android, and might be able to gain that market share. There would be benefit to MS from being on the forefront of the tablet market, which is still up for grabs. And, maybe, the might be real and intangible benefits to the consumer to having matching phone and tablet. Perhaps some people will be less likely to buy a MS tablet if they don't have a matching phone. I don't know. But the phone itself seems pretty silly after 15 years of failure with no real period of success.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
excellent observation as to VS - I think you're likely correct
I hear there is this thing called Google. You can use it to find things on the internet with just a few carefully selected keywords. You should try it sometime.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
You're welcome. And yes that includes a commercial license.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
"Visual Studio is far and away better than .... Xcode" No way is it better than XCode. Keep dreaming.
I bet there's a couple of parts to it.
Of course it's a marketing department, and I wouldn't put it above the New /. to "help them" with certain news items. Remember how they wanted a new "Business Intelligence" department a while back?
Don't stories all come through the Firehose? So he'd see it sitting there in the Firehose and could have as long as he wanted to type out his speech.
Meanwhile, creating an account is easy, so they could do them in batches of 5.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Or at least, an advanced enough technology indistinguishable from it, at least from the point of view of most people. In this age of science, is basically magic or any hint to get it what succeed economically, not reality.
Basics? I mean make it usable as a phone, require minimum loudness and call quality, minimum battery life and an ability to use the phone for complex apps while charging (navigation in the car, talking in the car, playing music)
Add value to replace other gadgets. How about requiring or at least clearly advertising that navigation software works w/o network. Google maps is a toy, because it does not store maps and does not find a route, when not tethered. The same for exercise tracking software, etc. A five yr old $99 Navi system can do that, why can't a $650 smartphone which has all the required sensors? A four year old $200 watch can do it too.
Cameras seem to be coming on good in that regard.
Lean on OEMs to make the pricing sensible. NOT $100 for + 16GB more NAND which cost $15?
Oh and with all the power over the market and the apps on it. Publish crash and usage numbers. Nothing speaks louder of quality if people don't only download the software but also load it/use it and have low crash report numbers. That is what is in the interest of the users!!!
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
Hmm... my Win7 phone syncs with our Exchange server. Mail, Calendar etc. It can be enabled or disabled by our Sys Admin.
Yes, but does it support *ALL* of the C++ standard, or a Microsoft bastardized version (meaning to do anything useful you need Microsoft-specofic #pragmas and #defines)? If so, the Visual Studio is just another on-ramp to the Microsoft lock-in herd pen.
VS was a good product. It has some disadvantages compared to Eclipse (lack of refactoring, flexibility), and some advantages (and if you ask me, it is vastly inferior to VI and Make, but that is just preference).
But with VS 2012 they decided to go with the retro look. As in the whole thing looks like it was made in Motif. Hooray for bringing us back to 1980s technology. Except actually I think Motif on SGI looked better than Visual Studio 2012. Wow.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have been reading Slashdot since 10 years and posting since atleast 5. In many stories, it appears to be a troll and not shill making the comments(with nicknames like Waggenered Strom and Auntie Wag/Uncle Wag ) for they know 20 comments will follow discussing the troll itself.
What gets me about those comments is how blatantly, obviously a troll they are (Who honestly thinks anybody would waste money trying to astroturf MS, Apple, or Google here, especially after (if those attempts were ever legit, and I have my doubts) it backfired?). And yet EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. people bite and take the bait. It's absurdly hilarious watching people who think themselves so smart fall for such an obvious ploy OVER, and OVER, and OVER...
I think actually it would take an effort greater than what they gave to XBox. I don't know if Microsoft would be rewarded for it. Right now Windows 8 feels completely alien, but Microsoft is unifying the interface for the computer, videogame and phone. Nearly absent from the phone market, they have a natural tendency to grow. I would bet they expect to grow in all markets because of the interface, but they can as well shrink because of that.
Can settings on your phone be centrally altered via Group Policies? The whole point to having a "Windows" phone in an enterprise, to my mind, would be the ability to make a domain member and to use the same tools I use for member servers and workstations.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Thanks for confirming that Visual Studio does not have "Objective C compiler, a C and C++ compiler that supports the clang Blocks extension, and a darwin compatible linker". Some body on an incredibly sketchy site has hacked together something to work very poorly with visual studio.
Visual Studio is far and away better than Eclipse and Xcode.
No it's not, it does project management better than Eclipse, is worse for editing code (for a lot of reasons, but refactoring is so much nicer in Eclipse), and VS11 is an ugly dog.
Let apps be free.
Well said. You might add, let the devices be free, too.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
...it needs more cowbell!
If it's your job, that takes a lot of the "difficulty" out of it :(
How Windows Phone can succeed:
* throw away current models and OS
* Make deal with Apple to rebadge iPhones as Windows Phones, adding in utilities to make them enterprise-friendly
Microsoft's failing is that they have been trying to copy Apple in some ways and UNIX in other ways, and have been reinventing both very poorly. They also took the best aspects of WindowsCE and threw them away, rather than retaining what was really good about Windows Mobile/WinCE and just adding what was needed. Lastly, in their scramble to try to (re-)gain entry into the smartphone and tablet market, they made the boneheaded decision to take a UI which is great for a handheld touch device and force it on the desktop, completely destroying what has made Windows usable since Microsoft Windows 2.0's biggest selling point (overlapping windows!)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Can I write Android and iOS apps in VS? Yes, yes you can.
Clearly the answer to that is yes.
Some body on an incredibly sketchy site has hacked together something to work very poorly with visual studio.
You didn't check the links did you? The second one is from Google for developing Android apps with full integration with Visual Studio.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Quit. Just give up and try to pretend mobile never happened.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You are so wrong. Some people really need a scape goat for lost data, unanswered calls, inability to perform simple tasks and general bungling ineptitude. WinPhone meets that need perfectly!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
It's so funny watching you idiots trample over each other in a rush to get trolled. Really; are you that dumb?
I'm considering the new Nokia Windows Phone, whenever the hell it's released. I was curious to see what the iPhone 5 was all about and while I think it's a fine device I don't see much that I find compelling. Really, the biggest thing they've got going for them is the App Store, and I've got that covered with my iPad.
I've had an Android phone for two years and while I've been reasonably happy with it I'm not particularly compelled to stick with the OS. I've used Windows Phone 7 and I've been very impressed. I'd say it's the most innovative of the group, but Microsoft's tendencies do make me hesitant. It's why I'm not sold on giving up on Android.
One of the biggest example of stupidity exhibited by everyone but Apple is that they'll announce a device that won't be available for months, assuming they've even given a definitive date. I figure Nokia was trying to steal some of Apple's thunder, hoping people on the fence will wait. But it's annoying nonetheless.
I think the biggest risk going Microsoft is that the system flops and you end up stuck with a dead end device. But from a purely superficial, aesthetic standpoint, I've got to say it's appealing being able to buy a smartphone in yellow. Apple's industrial design is getting incredibly stale.
They will not be allowed to leverage their dominance in one market to attempt to secure smartphone dominance.
However I am sure they will try but I am also sure they will fail.
Good riddance to them finally.
When do we get back to proper Slashdot posts instead of these obvious shills and trolls of recent months?
People won't like Win 8 computers, they will also avoid Win 8 phones with out even trying them. We all have phones loaded with tons of apps from Itunes or G. Play and a switch to a Windows phone and we would have to rebuy all the apps (that are actually available anyway) from the MS apps store.
> Well said. You might add, let the devices be free, too.
Well, yes, they shouldn't be beholden to the carriers' interests.
Oh, I get it, you're an idiot and misinterpreted "free" by ignoring context.
I'd rather just use booze. At least when you lose data, don't answer your phone, can't perform simple tasks, and have a general bungling ineptitude there's a socially acceptable excuse. You don't get that with WP.
You do still get the splitting headache in the morning.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
The biggest problem on dev side of things for WP7 was the complete lack of native code support, and therefore non-existent portability story. It doesn't matter how good the IDE is if it won't let you take your existing code base from iOS and rewrite just the UI. You can get away with shoving your own tools onto developers if you're in a dominant market position (as Apple did with Obj-C). But runners-up have to play well with what's already there. WP7 didn't.
Brain turned off?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
No-one supports *ALL* of the C++ standard. Except maybe Comeau, and even then I'm not sure.
What kind of "Microsoft-specific #pragmas and #defines" do you believe you need to do anything useful in VC++?
What MS needs is to get a time machine and go back and unscrew all the Wince5, Wince6 and Winphone 7 users they screwed by not offering upgrades! (Making a few pigs fly could help too)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
They should simply change the name to: Windows iPhone 8 and user very tiny letters for the first word...
I know you can control the iPhone using centrally administered policies. Not sure about WP. http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/integration/
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Agreed, one can scrape data with OWA, or even plain old POP/SMTP/IMAP which Exchange has available with just a kick-start of a couple services.
However, this is definitely a hammer in their toolbox, especially if they can convince upper management that the new AS replacement is a lot more secure to the point of locking out all other protocols. If MS could convince a regulatory board that this is the case, it would be a major coup.
Locking this protocol wouldn't be just limited to patents. It also can be tacked in the EULA as well that the protocol is not to be dissassembled or used on any device "not authorized". In the US, that would put things in their favor. Of course, add a tad of DRM (perhaps a way of copying encoded documents), and the DMCA steps in. Getting around that would be as hard as demanding in court that Sony open up PSN to any and all devices.
The EU is a different beast, and IMHO, is the only legal entity in the world that MS has to fear. However, if MS left AS around as an installable option, they could say that they are not closing any protocols but just providing a "secure" option... even though there would be heavy pressure from MS to the enterprise to make that AS successor the only protocol devices can interact with.
Disclaimer: I'm being a devil's advocate, and I hope I'm absolutely wrong about this.
I think the strategy Microsoft should take is to build personal no-configuration (like Hamachi) VPN into their phone to give phone users direct access to their Windows file systems. There advertising should be that only Windows Phone turns home PCs into 'cloud' repositories, and seamlessly connects all Windows OSs.
Because realistically, right now all Windows Phone represents is something else, not something significantly better.
It's so funny watching you idiots trample over each other in a rush to get trolled. Really; are you that dumb?
I'm smart enough that I don't need to insult random strangers on the Internet to feel better about myself.
On to the substantive part of what you had to say: Yes, as I've noted in earlier comments it's possible that this is nothing but a troll. It is over-the-top obvious - though some subtlety too, such as the misdirection around WP8. Hard to call it from reading, but if it's a troll then it's one that someone is putting a lot of repeated time and effort into.
If AS is an installable option, then I can see no pressure that Redmond could apply. Managers, in particular senior managers, are going to go to the IT department and go "You just updated to Exchange 2015 and now my iPad 5 can't check email", and IT is going to go "Oh yes, we need to install that module". Sure Redmond can send its sales boys in, but it's still playing catch-up.
Besides, unless Microsoft is going to completely bust new versions of Exchange's ability to synchronize and work with older versions, I'd just be keeping Exchange 2010 servers (or last AS compatible version) going to provide those services.
I don't think Microsoft can meaningfully take this tact any more, because there is the potential to risk damaging one of their big moneymakers; Exchange-Outlook. After all, Google already is reasonably close to turning GMail and Google Calendars into an Exchange-like replacement, and I doubt it would take that much effort to complete Outlook compatibility, and most certainly Apple, who has a helluva lot of cash looking for somewhere to be spent, would pursue a solution.
It isn't 1995 any more. It isn't even 2005 any more. Exchange's position, and with it the whole Windows server ecosystem, is secure so long as there is some capacity to integrate other technologies. Microsoft pulls the rug out on that, it may soon find that gaining a toehold in the mobile world saw their hold on the enterprise world damaged.
If Microsoft were to pull that stunt, I can tell you right now I would seriously start looking at Google's groupware counter-solutions. I'm not going to box my organization into not only a single vendor software enterprise, but a single or limited vendor hardware enterprise.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yes, porting to WP8 is a PITA from C++ or Obj-C, however those who have used C#+mono, HaXe, and eventually Flash will probably be fine.... sooner or later.
You can if you use XNA because CodePlex has a porting framework called Monogame under active development that uses mono to target iOS. Obviously can also just write basic apps using the Mono framework too, even within VS.
Also, you can compile to Android, to answer your question properly.
Today is not the day to tell me Visual Studio is a good piece of software. I've been working with it, and it just wedged itself so hard I had trouble killing it with Task Manager (that pale imitation of ps and kill).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It's probably easier just to get VS to use a custom build step and call gcc/g++/clang/icc directly in an msys or cygwin installation than it would be to put the pragmas in. Not sure what the real issue is there. The IDE isn't really coupled to the compiler. Debugging is a different issue, but there seem to be some solutions for that.
AustralAsia is an actual region not an abbreviation for "Australia and Asia".
Express products are free, and VS 12 just came out. Also, you can write a game, for example in XNA and compile to android/iOS with monogame. C# is a decent language, and mono has a native compiler that generates good code. Also, Win8 is going to be $40 for the next several months. There's also that bizspark thing...
XNA seems plenty alive on W8/WP8.
No. You're FUCKED without compatibility.
You want a walled garden? That's iOS and Apple.
This sounds very contradictory to me...
That's just the Express version, and I don't see a free version of windows to install it on either. Or a portable version.
is to not tie it to any particular carrier, but let the user choose their carrier. And make it run Android and let users access google play and Amazon appstore for android. Oh, and drop Microsoft and Windows 8 from the name!
At least they let Skype continue to be its own brand after they bought it. It is not "Microsoft Skype", thankfully.
I think that Microsoft should have continued to use the word "Metro" to refer to the touch-interface on Windows 8 and Windows Phone.
Rename the Metro interface on Windows 8 to "Metro" and rename the "Windows 8 Phone" to "Metro Phone". Done.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
That's just the Express version
Your point? It includes everything you need to build an app. It's just missing out on the super shiny enterprisey features like TFS and ALM tools.
and I don't see a free version of windows to install it on either
It came with your PC/laptop. If you built your own, sucks to be you. Guess you would have to put up that whole $100 for an OEM Windows 7 license. Although I suspect that isn't a problem for someone who is actually serious about developing software. You will need target hardware for any of these platforms anyways.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
No idea what you're talking about.
I can post a status update and it lets me choose from:
Facebook, Twitter, Live or any other connected service.
If I want to share a photo any app can offer itself as a sharing application. Want to share a photo using picassa? The app just needs to offer a hook to accept the image.
The music app is just another app but all music apps can be controlled from the lock screen so it's up the developers to simply register themselves as a zune replacement.
You can also switch between search providers in the settings.
The long term answer is boring. They need to keep refining, adding great features, and stay current with hardware design.
Once they hit critical app+mindshare mass, things get easier. This is what they are good at, but it seems v3 is always where Microsoft finds its pace. WP8 is only v2.
Oh yes, of course it is possible, but not really convenient. This is not a major issue, but for the posters pushing Visual Studio (and associated compiler) as if it was the best development environment since hot toast then I beg to differ.
You've just described my current android phone (sgs i9000)
1. cost less
2. not suck
it's that simple. Those 2 alone would result in majority sales over Apple. I do somewhat agree with the patent part but how do you avoid BS patents that Apple holds? They probably have a patent on making phone calls with the device held up to your face at this point.
I'm a 40-something tech guy with Windows at home instead of Macs. I'm looking at the Nokia Lumia 920 for my next phone (current is iPhone 4). iOS is kinda boring. WP8 is new and different.
I'm an end-user consumer, and I want a Windows Phone... and probably a Surface Pro too.
Your sweeping generalization is a bit too sweeping and too generalized I think.
(for the record, WP8 does integrate with Exchange, but isn't managed by ActiveDirectory).
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Halo! That's the only reason Xbox is successful.
What you're missing is a customer base. If I build an app for iOS or Android, I instantly have millions of potential customers. Ask WP7 developers how well all those nifty tools helped sales.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Because no one in the world uses Microsoft or Windows. *rolls eyes*
I know you're going to get some karma for your comment, but the truth is that Windows is everywhere. Linux may be ruling the infrastructure side, and geeks may be controlling that but in the end the vast majority of people are Windows users. And they don't really have much of a problem with it. Microsoft is as familiar and trustworthy to them as Facebook, Apple, or Google.
Tiles are not for me ..... Support third party customisations like http://www.skinpacks.com/
Yeah about that. Turns out building a platform for freeloaders and pirates isn't such a good idea. This was a year and a half ago. I imagine it wouldn't even be close now.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
1) Acquire Google 2) Acuire Apple. Without those two steps Windows 8 mobile will be a Win 7 Mobile repeat.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
On the desktop it's pretty much biz as usual. I like the improved multi-monitor support. Hell my 7yr old figured out how to get around without any help from me.
Na, the mobile party is just getting started...
Novell? I don't think so, try again.
Win 8 Pro is $40 bucks? All the VS Express stuff is free. Even if it wasn't free, a great .NET dev can pull down 3k/week easy.
The iPhone was a decade late to the party behind feature phone (not to mention early Andriod phones). The iPad was years late to the party after the panaonic toughbooks and other Windows slates. Apple itself was on its last legs before coming roaring back It just goes to show that being late to the party doesn't mean anything. If your only hold on success comes from getting there first, you won't be successful for very long.
I can't complain about the sales of my WP7 app. Windows 8 will be a huge opportunity for developers, potentially hundreds of millions of potential customers.
Yeah, put me down for a Surface Pro too.
What does WinPhone8 need? It needs graduates from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry . Or Lord Voldemort himself -- like Ballmer with real power and a human IQ.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Yeah re-factoring in VS is really a drag, wait, no it's not...
To be fair, his original ending was actually similarly crappy grammar-wise:
(my emphasis)
Refactoring everywhere is a drag. However, Eclipse has nice refactoring tools, and nicer code editing tools in general than VS.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
About three or four things must happen for Windows Phone to succeed: 1) Anyone selling Android based products must stop instantly, 2) Anyone selling Apple based phones must stop instantly, 3) Anyone else, other than microsoft must stop selling phones instantly and 4) time must pass before the old products wear out. After they are all worn out and broken and unrepairable, windows phone will (slowly) succeed!
Look at the Kin, look at all the music services and other services that Microsoft have shut off.
They launch new areas with their windows/office money, finance a way to undermine the open market forces, try and get people locked in, and then screw them over.
Look at the xbox - never have so many people had such a bad experience with a device breaking, and it was covered up. When they'd finished using their money to buy their way in, they started price gouging on all services.
Look at Windows phone 7 for an example of overnight obsolescence. The same will happen to 8. They are in the business of **artificial reinvention** to shorten product life cycles, prompt upgrade cycles and artificially remove their previous sales from the market.
Apple is clearly maintaining the lifecycle of its products and services for longer and in the game of evolving the design, and not making artificial changes.
...for starters, not alienating the developer community by refusing to release even a beta copy of the Windows Phone 8 SDK would be a good start. It's been released to a VERY select few thus far.
It's left a lot of developers in the dark, not knowing what the platform's going to look like and what kind of changes they might choose to make to their existing 7.x apps.
Talk is current generation apps will run on Win Phone 8, but obviously won't make full use of the Win Phone 8's capabilities (and who can rely on this until they've had a chance to run their 'now legacy' app in an emulator?).
What it boils down to is that very few apps which make use of the full featureset will be ready come the date that the actual handsets ship, that's got to be a negative net effect.
DevAX, you are just regurgitating MarketSpeak!
No, everyone knows that what Windows 8 really needs to survive is to become Windows 9....Windows 8 will be another Vista...lots of broken, beta quality stuff which will not really provide any real improvements in functionality to the average user until the next iteration of Windows.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Refactoring in VS takes about 3s add in Resharper and its something you don't even think about.
"All in all, both Microsoft and Nokia have wonderful product. We just need to force people to buy it."
Sure! But how are you going to force the carriers to REQUIRE a Win'8 phone as the next upgrade? Give them away? They are almost doing that now. My Galaxy S II cost me a hundred bucks. The price was recently cut in half. I doubt that AT&T received any sort of discount for being such great customers from Samsung. I used to like the old Nokia feature phones but I doubt even they can make them that inexpensively as good as they are.
bob@Osprey:~>
I don't think Microsoft can meaningfully take this tact any more
<Pedant mode>
Tack is the word you're looking for.
</Pedant mode>
Well, as a Microsoft employee I'm surprised you need to ask, but let's go ...
Embrace
For trivial examples the Microsoft C++ compiler will work ok. The only real pragma needed here is one to prevent a spurious compiler warning, something like 1481 IIRC. The embrace phase is intended to assuage fears that developing for this platform means you won't have Standard C++.
Extend :(]). Once these #defines are in a large codebase you are starting to get tied to the Microsoft compiler only unless you do a lot of additional work to add additional #ifdefs. Now this may not be intentional by the Microsoft C++ compiler team these days but at one point it absolutely was Microsoft's goal to tie developers into their technology and make it hard to get out (eg. all the extensions for Managed C++, now deprecated, sigh) - which means the legacy behavior of their compiler and current accepted techniques (eg. requiring special defines to get standard behavior back) are permitted by their design team (they should not be, non-standard behavior should be selected by specifying exceptions/defines, not the other way around).
Now for non-trivial examples we start to have to use #defines to get around optimizations that Microsoft bake into their compiler that will break standard-compliant code if you don't put the #define in (cite: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/vstudio/bb531344.aspx; some are needed to be more standards compliant [good!], some are needed to regain standards compliant because the default implementation is not to be [bad
Extinguish .NET that not only was C++ not standard but it would never be standard. Fortunately this attitude has changed, but we still remember the danger of depending on Microsoft C++ before. I aim never to be in a position where my code is tied to Microsoft again, hence my post warning others.
Now we get to the bits of a program that are dependent on Windows (that is, required to make a program do anything useful on Windows). Here we get types and macros all over the place that are specific to Windows. Once you start using these your code is not going anywhere else. Now you may argue that this is the case on any platform but it is not so. Most other toolkits use Standard C++ types in their interfaces, they don't define a whole new set of types via macros. Now, this may be a legacy of old ways of doing Windows development (grrr Charles Simonyi, stealing FORTRAN abominations to make Hungarian Notation 'warts' that persist in C# today with the 'I' prefix [completely unnecessary and unhelpful when you refactor between classes and interfaces - but the drones cannot help themselves any more and can't see the badness of that style]). Anyway, my point is that you can't write modern C++ for Windows without injecting a whole lot of platform-dependencies into the code (eg. types, macros) that are far more than just the class interfaces of Windows-specific libraries. The original intent from Microsoft was to tie your code to the Windows platform (hence decrease the ability to move code to competitors). IMHO, it seems the Windows engineers are valiantly trying to remove the sins of the past (for which I give them full credit) - I even remember Microsoft announcing in the first releases of
For trivial examples the Microsoft C++ compiler will work ok. The only real pragma needed here is one to prevent a spurious compiler warning, something like 1481 IIRC. The embrace phase is intended to assuage fears that developing for this platform means you won't have Standard C++
You don't need pragmas to disable compiler warnings globally, that's what compiler switches are for. In this case, /wd.
There's no such thing as compiler warning 1481 in VC++, since its warning numbers range from 4000 to 4999. 1481 would be an error, except that number is not used there, either.
I suspect you're actually referring to one of those "this code is unsafe" warnings that got added in VS 2005, and which annoyed a lot of folk to no end, especially since they've also prompted to use the "safe" (and non-standard) alternatives. These were disabled by default, if I remember correctly, in VS 2010.
Now for non-trivial examples we start to have to use #defines to get around optimizations that Microsoft bake into their compiler that will break standard-compliant code if you don't put the #define in
I've read the article you've linked to, but I don't see any mention of #defines or non-conformant optimizations there. Please clarify.
If you are referring to _VARIADIC_MAX, then that's not an optimization. It's a hack to work around the lack of support of variadic templates in the compiler while still wanting to provide the corresponding library facilities. In other words, it's the case of not supporting the standard well enough (yet), not deliberately straying from it to break your code.
Now this may not be intentional by the Microsoft C++ compiler team these days but at one point it absolutely was Microsoft's goal to tie developers into their technology and make it hard to get out (eg. all the extensions for Managed C++, now deprecated, sigh) -
Managed C++ and C++/CLI were there to let you quickly write glue code between native C++ libraries and .NET apps. That scenario presupposes that you're already "tied" into our technology. If you're not, than why would you even want to use it?
Now we get to the bits of a program that are dependent on Windows (that is, required to make a program do anything useful on Windows). Here we get types and macros all over the place that are specific to Windows. Once you start using these your code is not going anywhere else. Now you may argue that this is the case on any platform but it is not so. Most other toolkits use Standard C++ types in their interfaces, they don't define a whole new set of types via macros. Now, this may be a legacy of old ways of doing Windows development
This is indeed the legacy of old ways of doing Windows. Keep in mind that most of those typedefs hearken back to the days when Windows was a 16-bit OS, and there were such (inherently non-portable) concepts as "near" and "far" pointers in that memory model (LP in LPSTR means "long pointer", a synonym for "far"). And there was also a time when 16-bit and 32-bit Windows were widespread side by side, so you had to contend with the fact that e.g. int could be 16-bit on one platform and 32-bit on another.
You are not, however, required to use any of those typedefs in your own code. Since we've got stdint.h (and VC has it since 2010 SP1), portability is fully settled. Personally, I always use int32_t, intptr_t and such in my code. The declarations of Win32 functions use all that ULONG and DWORD crap, but so what? They're all just aliases, you can ignore them, and what they're defined to is actually documented on MSDN.
Hungarian Notation 'warts' that persist in C# today with the 'I' prefix [completely unnecessary and unhelpful when you refactor between classes and interfaces - but the drones cannot help themselve
What about "partial", "ref" and "^" that are specific to Microsoft C++. If you use them then your code not work elsewhere, and you probably do need to use them when developing using Windows libraries, yeah?
> If you are referring to _VARIADIC_MAX, then that's not an optimization. It's a hack to work around the lack of support of variadic templates in the compiler while still wanting to provide the corresponding library facilities. In other words, it's the case of not supporting the standard well enough (yet), not deliberately straying from it to break your code.
I say I don't think this is a deliberate ploy, but the end result is the same - you are still tied to the Microsoft technology. If using Visual Studio and the MS C++ compiler creates this situation then perhaps using tools that don't force that in your code is a better choice (the argument the troll posts Slashdot has been getting is the VS is the 'bees knees' and you really has to haz it - this is not your fault, I know, but that is the troll messages we're getting, which I'm choosing to point out why I think those statements are wrong). In the case of _VARIADIC_MAX why not make the more-standard behaviour the default?
> This is indeed the legacy of old ways of doing Windows. Keep in mind that most of those typedefs hearken back to the days when Windows was a 16-bit OS, and there were such (inherently non-portable) concepts as "near" and "far" pointers in that memory model (LP in LPSTR means "long pointer", a synonym for "far"). And there was also a time when 16-bit and 32-bit Windows were widespread side by side, so you had to contend with the fact that e.g. int could be 16-bit on one platform and 32-bit on another.
Yeah, I used to do a *lot* of Windows programming back in the day. I remember these well (and the sz and hwnd warts in front of every string and window handle). However, the Unix guys had worked out a better solution ahead of this (since they had made the transition much earlier, just like Linux was used in 64-bit mode for years before it became common for Window users). short was always 16-bits and long was always 32-bits, and int was for when you didn't need to care. Pointers were whatever the platform said they were (and you had a simpler 'flat' memory model than the segmented/thunked stuff Windows kinda exposed you to at the time).
> The declarations of Win32 functions use all that ULONG and DWORD crap, but so what?
Cool, so we agree. The problem is that there is a mass of this junk around - including a lot of the official APIs from Microsoft (and sometimes you have to use legacy APIS, including those from 3rd parties written in the style Microsoft wanted them to). It is good that times have changed, but the stink still remains.
> Of course, if you're writing modern C++ for Windows, using something as low-level as Win32 is fraught with peril to begin with. Do yourself a favor and stick to some well-written high-level framework such as Qt (and get portability as well).
Yes, writing for Qt is a good idea for C++ users, but the benefits of Visual Studio are less (the point of this thread) of you go that route. Might as well save the money (big bucks across a team) and use Eclipse and g++ if you are going Qt, yeah?
Finally, thanks for taking the time to make an informative and patient post. I know we're a tough crowd to 'sell' to. Personally, as you will know, I'm very wary of Microsoft tech mostly due to long experience in the past. I appreciate you correcting me with more up-to-date information. I also appreciate Microsoft making the effort to correct some of the missteps of the past - so I am trying to keep a sufficiently open mind that when moving between their platform and everybody else becomes effortless then I may end up investing in the MS tech again (at the moment I use an MSDN subscription make available by a client, which I use to periodically look at the tech, but I can a little behind sometimes since at the moment Java [and ecosystem] is currently meeting my cross-platform needs on desktop, web and server).
What about "partial", "ref" and "^" that are specific to Microsoft C++. If you use them then your code not work elsewhere, and you probably do need to use them when developing using Windows libraries, yeah?
No, you don't have to.
First of all, there are two language extensions involving those. One (the original one, which introduced them in 2005) is C++/CLI. This was simply a better designed replacement for Managed C++, that made semantics of managed classes more coherent with regular C++ - e.g. it had RAII for managed objects. You only need that if you want to call something inside a .NET library from C++ code or vice versa, and can't or don't want to use COM Interop or P/Invoke.
Second extension, a new one which just reuses the syntax, is C++/CX, which lets you consume and author WinRT classes in Win8 apps. It makes things a lot easier, but it's basically just a thick layer of syntactic sugar, and you can ignore it if you want to. Since WinRT is a well-documented ABI (COM with bells and whistles), you can work with it on that same level, treating interfaces as classes, or even as structs with raw vtable pointers. There's a library to help you do it that way.
The right way to treat C++/CX, IMO, is not as an extension of C++, but as a different language that happens to include C++ as a proper subset. Much like Objective-C is with respect to C, or Obj-C++ and C++. Consequently, if you want to write portable code, the easiest way is to stick to conforming C++ for all areas that don't change from platform to platform, and use C++/CX (or WRL, if you really hate anything other than vanilla C++) for platform-specific bits. Then you'd replace those platform-specific bits with Obj-C++ on iOS, with Java on Android etc. It's not just my advice - it's actually what those official MSDN docs and videos tell you to do.
From another perspective, you can consider C++/CX to be a lot like Qt language extensions for slots and metadata, except implemented directly in the compiler rather than as a separate preprocessor.
In the case of _VARIADIC_MAX why not make the more-standard behaviour the default?
What do you mean by "more standard behavior" here? The old default of 10? The reason why it was reduced to 5 is because variadics are basically emulated by optional template parameters with defaults, and the more you have, the more implicit template specializations you end up with when trying to use them. With more stuff added to the headers for C++11 library support, compile times have grown beyond the pain threshold, and it was decided to reduce the default to something more manageable.
The only proper fix for this is to implement variadics, and they (I'm not on that team) are certainly working on it. Not the least because the library guys hate the current hack with a passion as it's a huge pain in the ass to maintain. If you look at how e.g. std::tuple is implemented in the corresponding header, you'll quickly understand.
However, the Unix guys had worked out a better solution ahead of this (since they had made the transition much earlier, just like Linux was used in 64-bit mode for years before it became common for Window users). short was always 16-bits and long was always 32-bits, and int was for when you didn't need to care. Pointers were whatever the platform said they were (and you had a simpler 'flat' memory model than the segmented/thunked stuff Windows kinda exposed you to at the time).
Back in DOS/Win16 days, Microsoft wasn't really the biggest supplier of dev tools for its own platforms, ironically - if you recall, there was also Borland, and they made some mighty fine tools for both Pascal and C. So it wasn't really something that was unilaterally decided, rather the platform slowly evolved from a combination everyone's
Wow, excellent and very interesting post. Thank you for writing so extensively (your informed opinions, don't worry, you made it clear it is not the Party-line ... yet :) ). Incidentally, I do make a mental distinction between the good people inside the belly of a corporate and the behemoth itself. Not that you care what I think :), but at least I hope that if Slashdotters are slinging arrows that they are not meant personally at you, and we expect you to defend work you are justifiably proud of and we can debate it.
> personally, I hope that the entirety of .NET would be FOSS one day - though don't take it to mean that there's some official plan to that effect .NET ever gets that way, as Free Software (strictly Open Source terms are less useful) to the same extent as OpenJDK (right to make *compatible* implementations, patent grant etc) then I think it'd be a real winner. I'd stop harping on about Java and get busy with C#.NET if it (and, most importantly, all the standardized libraries for it) were truly cross platform (meaning, compile once, test everywhere, run everywhere) and relatively platform agnostic.
If
> Why would you refactor between classes and interfaces? Interface is a contract, class is an implementation. Not to mention that, generally speaking, there are a lot of things that classes can do and not interfaces, and vice versa.
Oh, I nearly forgot to address this. Library implementers must think differently from application writers. In a library you want to present interfaces since the implementation is likely to change. Unfortunately many application developers see this and think they also need to do it. You end up with projects where half of the code is pointless interfaces (I know, I'm working on a customer's 3000 source file project where there are a lot of pointless interfaces). An interface defines a contract that allows different implementation. An abstract base class provides a similar contract where the implementation is mostly the same with some differences (usually this suits more complicated classes where a lot of behaviour must remain the same, even if some details are likely to change). And of course you have concrete classes where there it is very unlikely that you'll need an alternate implementation. Now using the Agile principle of YAGNI ("You ain't gonna need it") I start creating 'classes' in preference of concrete, abstract and interface. Whichever I start with depends on the likelihood that an alternative implementation may need to be provided, and importantly I don't automatically start with interfaces in all cases (learning from Steve Jobs: simplify, simplify, simplify). As I progress through development I discover that where I put interfaces they sometimes serve no purpose and can be removed, or the reverse, have an interface that I really should make an abstract implementation (to assist getting consistent behaviour). So it is entirely possible to change between interfaces and classes, especially when you are doing application development and you seek to make the code base as simple as possible (design ain't done until everything that can be removed has been; otherwise you end up with cruft you accumulated/tried during development).
So, if we accept that unless one is particularly dogmatic/inflexible there is sometimes a case to change between interfaces and classes. So this means the .NET convention (hangover from Hungarian Notation days that the team could not free their mind from) of having I in front of interfaces is as problematic as prefixing type information to variables when the type can change. Sure, refactoring tools can cope but the reality is that having such prefixes is completely unnecessary, unhelpful to developers (since they can have a prefix left over from refactoring that actually references a class, or no prefix on an interface) and the compiler and tooltips give more support to help the developer to help ensure that interfaces can't be instantiated anyway. It turns out that when developing Java the creators did have the ability to lose the Hungarian Notation mindset and billions of lines have successfully been written by developers without having to use ugly and anachronistic prefixes.
I often quote, "You are able to write bad FORTRAN in any language". While the .NET guys are writing much better code than that quote suggests they are still doing FORTRAN by putting "I" in front of their interfaces nb: although the 'style' [misnomer] is called "Hungarian Notation" it wasn't an invention by Charles Simonyi, it was an adaptation of a FORTRAN convention because the Microsoft C compiler lacked the strong type checking of its competitors, and the notation was adopted to help prevent errors - it is time for this 'style' to die, and should have disappeared with .NET but hasn't yet because the .NET creators couldn't completely free their minds from the practices they'd been doing for the last 20 years. Hence, I laugh at the backwardness whenever I see that small thing in .NET code, and also wonder at those that defend the practice of using it - time to let the
[snip] So it is entirely possible to change between interfaces and classes, especially when you are doing application development and you seek to make the code base as simple as possible (design ain't done until everything that can be removed has been; otherwise you end up with cruft you accumulated/tried during development).
To me this indicates a bigger problem inherent to the language, which is that old and flawed idea of separating classes and interfaces. The problem is that as soon as you need a default implementation of some method (a perfectly reasonable thing for many complex interfaces), or really just any form of behavior inheritance, you need a class. But then you have to give up the ability to do MI, which is actually a very handy tool for modelling many things. On the other hand, there's no real reason to ban MI for behavior; it only becomes a mess when you inherit state, and even then only when you get a diamond.
To that extent, I much prefer the model used by languages such as Scala, where you have classes and traits, and you really do everything mostly with traits until the point you actually need some state in the object. 90% of abstract base classes in .NET and Java become traits in that model.
although the 'style' [misnomer] is called "Hungarian Notation" it wasn't an invention by Charles Simonyi, it was an adaptation of a FORTRAN convention because the Microsoft C compiler lacked the strong type checking of its competitors, and the notation was adopted to help prevent errors
Do you have any source for that claim? It doesn't mesh well with anything that I know about the past state of MSC, nor with the actual practice that was promoted by Simonyi, which was to use prefixes to indicate intent, not type. So you'd, for example, name a variable cbName, meaning "count of bytes in name", whereas cchName would be "count of characters in name". This actually makes some sense, especially in vanilla C where that kind of difference is sometimes very important to make (as you're passing strings and their lengths around all the time), yet there's nothing in the language to do it for you.
I think his mistake was introducing "sz" for null-terminated strings. Again, this was mostly out of the desire to clearly mark those to distinguish them from various other forms of strings that DOS and Windows APIs expected - if you recall, some early DOS stuff actually used $-terminated strings, for example, and then there were Pascal (length-prefixed) strings. However, as Win32 API moved almost exclusively to normal C-style null terminated strings, people kinda forgot what it was all about, and treated "sz" as just an indicator for strings. And then you've got abominations like "dw" and "i" appear that indicate type and nothing else whatsoever.
ps. I also see a lot of .NET developers still use the crufty old "m_" member prefix too. That is just as unnecessary these days, since your IDE can tell you where the member originates anyway.
For many it's old habits dying hard, but don't forget about VB developers - these guys have to deal with case-insensitive identifiers, so they have to distinguish a property and its backing field somehow, in some way other than case.
I also know of some C# guys who are uneasy about having e.g. "Count" and "count" as two separate members side by side in the same class, just on the oft chance that they'll mistakenly use the wrong one (it can matter if it's a property with change notification, and you accidentally assign the field directly rather than going through the property setter that'll raise the notification).
> Do you have any source for that claim?
I haven't looked at it for a while but I believe it was Steve McConnel's Code Complete ("Microsoft Press") - although it was a long time ago so I could well be wrong and it was from a rag such as Dr Dobbs or similar. I looked at this long ago (when we all had to worry about such junk).
The classics were screeds of code and code examples that went something like this:
HWND hwndHwnd;
I'm sure you also saw a lot of that too. After wading through that kind of stuff for years I have a kind of intolerance for it now - hence I still see the vestiges of it as an issue.
Oh, HWND stuff is actually pretty simple to explain. Keep in mind that until 2003 (if I remember correctly), all the H* types in WinSDK were just typedefs for void*. So, yeah, type safety was lacking (through no fault of the compiler), and those prefixes helped keep it in check. These days they are typedefs for various dummy struct types, so that you'd get a type mismatch if you try to pass an HWND where HDC is expected, for example - but the downside is that you have to explicitly cast HBRUSH to pass it to something that expects HGDIOBJ.
I see a lot of this stuff in my daily job, because I'm working on a code base that dates back to 1997 (remember Visual InterDev? that's the direct ancestor of VS.NET 2002 and all the following releases), and it's still chock full of them even today. It's rather ironic seeing lpsz and whatnot side by side with STL containers and algorithms and C++11 lambdas that we heavily use for several years now. Thankfully, at least there's no Hungarian notation for all these things.
And fucking all of the WinMo 6 folks by moving to a completely incompatible architecture surely helped. How'd that work out for Palm?
3k/week? Depends a lot on were you live really. That's about 7x the average salary where I live.
75/hr for .net development is pretty easy to come by of a greedy recruiter isn't involved. I live in the Midwest.