Microsoft Phases Out XNA and DirectX?

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Microsoft Phases Out XNA and DirectX?

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 31, 2013 @07:02PM from the so-long-farewell-auf-weidersehen-goodbye dept.

mikejuk writes "It is reported that Microsoft has sent an email to DirectX/XNA MVPs which informs them that they are no longer needed because XNA and DirectX are no longer evolving. What does this mean? If you don't need MVPs then presumably you anticipate nothing to support in the future."

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Huh? by simplexion · 2013-01-31 19:07 · Score: 2

Something was said in that article but I am not sure what...
1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-31 19:18 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I think everyone is just as confused. Its really unlikely that MS is ditching D3D. The standard joke is "embrace extend extinguish" but... extinguish makes no business sense here. It's more likely they are trying to collect everything under their "apps store" like Apple has. Presumably steam understood this better (and earlier) than everyone else, and that's why they're making another basket for their eggs.
2. Re:Huh? by Vintermann · 2013-01-31 21:16 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Premature abbreviation is the root of all evil.
  
  --
  xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
3. Re:Huh? by hairyfeet · 2013-01-31 22:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Its actually quite simple, Steve Ballmer is burning the company to the ground because he has it in his big fat head that he has a "brand" like Prada and Nike when in reality he has a replaceable good, like Coke or Pepsi.
  You see Steve Ballmer thinks if you click your heels three times and say "There is no place like Cupertino" why you can just turn the company into Apple, of course those of us in the trenches know there ain't enough dope in the world to make it so, but old fathead doesn't see any value in anything that isn't just aping Apple, hence why he shit on the desktop, he's shitting on the OEMs, and now he's shitting all over DirectX which frankly is the only thing that keeps many on windows.
  My only question is will Gates get tired of seeing everything he spent so many years building being burnt to the ground and step in, or will he kick back with his big piles o' cash and just watch the whole thing burn?
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
4. Re:Huh? by robthebloke · 2013-01-31 23:40 · Score: 2
  
  Or at the most possible extreme, they could just be switching to GLES to help push developers towards Windows8 RT (since it's pretty obvious they're in catch up mode at the moment).
5. Re:Huh? by jmauro · 2013-02-01 00:45 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  From the article all that's dying is likely the name. The same technologies will still exist and be limited to Xbox and Windows only. No OpenGL.
6. Re:Huh? by David+Gerard · 2013-02-01 01:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Not even Coke or Pepsi. Microsoft is and has always been an office supply company. They're rich because they worked out how to sell an expensive box of paperclips to every business in the world. But y'know, turning pens and paperclips into a consumer shiny toy company? A bit unlikely to happen.
  
  --
  http://rocknerd.co.uk
7. Re:Huh? by Nutria · 2013-02-01 01:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  turning pens and paperclips into a consumer shiny toy company?
  Exchange Server, SQL Server, MSVC and all it's attendant addons are *not* paper clips.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
8. Re:Huh? by imnotanumber · 2013-02-01 03:03 · Score: 2
  
  And paperclips are also *everywhere*
  Sometimes they are even useful...
9. Re:Huh? by X0563511 · 2013-02-01 03:18 · Score: 2
  
  For all we know, it -is- the equivalent of a numbers station.
  You've seen the random shit post that each story gets at least one of, right? Looks like segments of random sentences strung together? I would put money down that those are not just garbage.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
10. Re:Huh? by GameboyRMH · 2013-02-01 03:32 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  That would be OpenGL+OpenAL, a few games do use it on Windows.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
11. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-01 03:53 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Clippy says, "I see you are trying to implode your company. Would you like help with this?"
12. Re:Huh? by westyvw · 2013-02-01 05:14 · Score: 2
  
  Had to use Calc the other day due to an office 2010 bug in Excel that caused it to crash (doing a simple find and replace no less). Calc has always been there for me when excel wont work. Integration with Writer is better then in MS office.
  Powerpoint, is way over used, and very limiting.
  I have been using HTML online presentations, and I have been very intrigued by the way some people are delivering presentations using live web papge updates. You go to a web page at the beginning of the presentation and the content on the page changes with the presentor. Additional links and information are contained within, and to review in the future you just go to the web page. Additionally, if the content changes, if the presenter adds more information at a later time, you will see that when you return.
  However, if you do choose to write a powerpoint like document in Libre, a simple script can update the title, date, and other information so you dont have to open it again if you are presenting in different venues or for different groups.
13. Re:Huh? by Randle_Revar · 2013-02-01 07:16 · Score: 2
  
  Made me think of Stross' "Halting State" where the bad guys "implemented TCP/IP over AD&D"
  
  --
  Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
14. Re:Huh? by UltraZelda64 · 2013-02-01 08:02 · Score: 2
  
  What? I can probably get 1,000 paper clips for less than 10 bucks, and since that's more than I'd probably ever need a smaller, cheaper pack of 50-100 would be just fine. You're right; you don't really have to think much about it... they're just little bent metal strips, they're cheap.
  On the other hand, a few hundred dollars just to get a license to use a non-butchered version of Office (ie. with database functionality), on top of another couple hundred dollars to the same company for the operating system just to run it on. That's enough to just say "fuck Office." I can get a real, physical fucking desk and plenty of office supplies of all kinds for that price.
  On top of that, I actually own the desk and office supplies. I am only granted the right to use Windows. Bad comparison.
Use OpenGL instead by SplashMyBandit · 2013-01-31 19:13 · Score: 5, Informative

All the growing platforms use OpenGL. Even Windows can use OpenGL (although it is not tyhe favored child). If you have an eye on the future, it makes far sense to develop with OpenGL. That way you can develop shaders that will work on: Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, Windows, Unix, embedded devices (eg. commercial avionics), the PS3. What you miss out on is XBox 360 and Windows Phone. Compare the combined size of the coverage of OpenGL platforms to the Direct3D-only platforms. There is simply no contest anymore in terms of units shipping and growth rate.
OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics. The nice thing is that no matter what changes in the hardware/platform space you investment in OpenGL is never lost, it comes across as you migrate.
1. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Tough+Love · 2013-01-31 19:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics.
  And the past, and the present, just to round out the hat trick.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
2. Re:Use OpenGL instead by phantomfive · 2013-01-31 19:24 · Score: 2
  
  It's worth mentioning that the entire article is based entirely on speculation on a rumor, but:
  
  Unless you absolutely need to lock yourself into a limited, closed platform (for example, you want to develop XNA on xbox and there is no other choice), why would you ever want to do so? There is no good reason.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
3. Re:Use OpenGL instead by cnettel · 2013-01-31 19:25 · Score: 2
  
  OpenGL has been far more fragmented in terms of the numer of vendor extensions you needed to use for a long time to get access to recent functionality. However, I think that the theory in the article, that this actually refers to DirectSound/DirectInput/DirectDraw etc, is quite credible. Direct3D has changed quite a bit in recent years, including grafting Direct2D onto the 3D-style framework.
4. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-31 19:28 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  (for example, you want to develop XNA on xbox and there is no other choice)
  Well, that is one of the most used gaming platforms on earth... it's not a small reason.
5. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-31 20:43 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Because XNA is actually a pretty good framework embedded in a really good toolset and there's really nothing that matches it in terms of ease, speed, and quality of development without also losing much real flexibility and power to do what you want to.
  I agree with you for the most part, I'm using OpenGL now because XNA at least does have an awful lot of uncertainty under it with the fact Microsoft have chosen not to support it in RT and Visual Studio 2012, suggesting there is indeed no future for it, but if you just want to make games as say, a hobbyist, and don't really care about sales figures or market reach then XNA is your best bet, especially if you work a full time job - XNA can mean the difference between having time to embark on such a project alongside work, and not. A lot of this comes down to OpenGL's inconsistency of support meaning more bug hunting, more time and effort to setup, and the fact the API design is dated and often painful to work with and that the only language it was really developed hand in hand with - C, isn't exactly a productive language (unless you have to use it, for performance concerns). XNA being developed hand in hand with C# is partly what made it excellent to work with because it was a modern framework design melded with a modern language.
  But for what it's worth I think there's another point in OpenGL's favour, Microsoft have a long history of failing to provide graphics API stability, GDI, GDI+, WPF 2D/3D, DX, MDX, XNA, and so on - so many APIs over the years have come and gone with support disappearing to a large extent or even completely. It's one of Microsoft's developer weak points.
  I've always been a fan of Microsoft's graphics APIs and have always defended them over OpenGL because they haven't had most the headaches OpenGL causes, but even I'm fed up now of the fact that each graphics API has a lifespan of a few years, that if you upgrade Visual Studio you can likely no longer use the integrated tools for that API for years afterwards, if at all. It's just gotten stupid at this point and has become such an overriding concern due to the frequency of the problem that all the benefits are now irrelevant.
6. Re:Use OpenGL instead by non0score · 2013-01-31 20:45 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I'd rather we scrap both and start anew. Both of these abstraction layers are wholly inadequate for modern GPU architectures. Just the fact that both of these APIs are architected on the idea of single-threaded CPU cores building out a single, final command buffer is completely antiquated (even with DX's addition for parallel command buffer building).
7. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Joce640k · 2013-01-31 20:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  All the growing platforms use OpenGL.
  No, they Use OpenGL ES.
  
  Even Windows can use OpenGL
  ...just not OpenGL ES.
  
  OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics.
  It might be. If they finish OpenGL ES (make it support missing desktop graphics card features), then actually allow people to use it on the desktop.
  Unfortunately most of today's graphics cards will never have a working OpenGL ES driver so we're looking at five or ten years before it's worth trying to use OpenGL ES on the desktop, if ever. It's too little, and far too late.
  
  --
  No sig today...
8. Re:Use OpenGL instead by SplashMyBandit · 2013-01-31 22:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  OpenGL has been far more fragmented in terms of the numer of vendor extensions you needed to use for a long time to get access to recent functionality.
  Your OpenGL knowledge is clearly out-of-date. The extension mechanism still exists, of course, but is not needed to get GLSL shaders that have advanced functionality.
9. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-31 22:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  But with OpenGL you get all of the other most used gaming platforms put together. That's much larger than locking yourself to the Xbox.
  (Windows runs either, so if you wish to include it, it counts on both sides, thus not changing the outcome).
10. Re:Use OpenGL instead by ChunderDownunder · 2013-01-31 22:52 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Well there was an implementation of Direct3D 11 on Linux but it died due to lack of interest in maintaining it.
11. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Molt · 2013-01-31 23:09 · Score: 3
  
  I don't think Microsoft cancelling the entire DirectX MVP program can be a good thing for Direct3D unless they then do start a Direct3D-specific MVP program. For one thing I don't think DirectX will become that much more stable as GPUs are still changing dramatically and I would prefer to see the API reflect these changes, but more importantly a good amount of the MVP awards go to people who consistently provide good answers to questions of forums and suchlike. Even when a technology is 100% fixed there will still be people learning it from scratch and those who want to strengthen their skills, and these people will have questions.
  
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  404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
12. Re:Use OpenGL instead by UnknownSoldier · 2013-01-31 23:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  > I miss the days where Slashdot was populated by actual developers.
  We're still here. It is just that the signal (developers) is probably buried under the noise (fanboys) half (most?) of the time.
  It is harder to stick to the facts then to go all emo over speculation which sadly /. is becoming more and more.
13. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Molt · 2013-01-31 23:23 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  OpenGL ES is essentially OpenGL with the parts which embedded hardware can't handle removed, and so adding the functionality to support the missing desktop graphics card features would either result in the normal OpenGL again, or an oddly forked version based on where embedded hardware is today. Also it's not that hard to run an implementation of OpenGL ES on the desktop today, it's the basis of WebGL and Chrome and Firefox both happily run it, the render loop is changed to accommodate the fact it's running in a browser but other than that it's pretty much the same OpenGL ES you'll find elsewhere.
  
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  404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
14. Re:Use OpenGL instead by qbel · 2013-01-31 23:37 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Yeah we are here.. I'm a developer here too who rarely posts. The thing is, I come here for the sometimes interesting, informative and well-vetted news article summaries, but it's the informed comments from other devs that I stay for. UnknownSoldier is dead on about the facts and speculation.. it's easier to speculate than to talk truth, and reading nothing but spec gets old, fast.
15. Re:Use OpenGL instead by RaceProUK · 2013-02-01 00:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Bullshit, doesn't work anywhere else, but XBOX, what flexibility are you talking about?
  It also works on WinPhone (even WP8) and Widnows XP onwards, with the ability to share 95%+ of the code between them. So it covers the two largest segments of the videogame market, platform-wise.
  
  --
  No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
16. Re:Use OpenGL instead by samkass · 2013-02-01 02:04 · Score: 2
  
  I'm actively developing OpenGL ES 2.0 for android and one constant source of frustration is the quality of tools, documentation and examples. The tools are really bad since the nearest thing to syntax hilighting is the standard C editor and there is no way of telling if a shader will work or not without trial and error. The problem with documentation and examples is of another issue - there are so many different versions, bindings and implementations of OpenGL that it is very hard to find what you want in all the noise. You might come across a seemingly good example and discover it's no use because it's fixed function or uses the wrong version of GL.
  iOS has some really nice development tools. I don't port to Android, but for those that do I've heard an iOS-first, Android-second strategy can produce better Android apps because the toolset on iOS helps debug and optimize the software faster and better. It might be worth looking into.
  
  --
  E pluribus unum
17. Re:Use OpenGL instead by Thugthrasher · 2013-02-01 02:44 · Score: 2
  
  Rather than flexibility of PLATFORM, he probably meant flexibility in DESIGN. You can have a very flexible set of development tools that only work on XBOX and you can have a very rigid set of development tools that work on all platforms.
18. Re:Use OpenGL instead by bobaferret · 2013-02-01 08:13 · Score: 2
  
  I believe it's because facts can only support a limited number of commentators and threads. We reached that number about the time slashdot started requiring accounts to avoid seeing advertisements. Whereas speculation can support an unlimited number of people and comments. Obviously the more people you have the more advertising you can have, and the bigger you can get. Point being if /. got rid of the advertising like they used to, then there would only be a few thousand of us and very little noise. I wonder if this can be worked into a theory that facts are cheap and free, and lies are a valuable currency. W/O lies and speculation no one would have anything to say.
  </pointless rambling >
It Means by Greyfox · 2013-01-31 19:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

Too many people got too good at writing DirectX emulation layers. Obviously someone fell down on the job, or Valve wouldn't have managed a Linux port. Watch for new incompatible "standard", soon.
Cynical? This isn't my first rodeo. I watched them kill off OS/2, pretty much exactly the same way.

--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
1. Re:It Means by Bearhouse · 2013-01-31 20:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  True. Having said that, IBM did not really help. While OS/2 was in many ways a 'better DOS than DOS', as they promised, it fatally lacked support for non-IBM devices in the early days... I remember trying to install on a very-standard config beige box, and sixteen disettes later getting nowhere.
  Called up an ex-colleague in IBM, who got me through to a senior dev in the OS/2 team. "Ah, we've never tested it on a non-IBM machine...better buy a PS/2..."
2. Re:It Means by Rockoon · 2013-02-01 00:11 · Score: 2
  
  it fatally lacked support for non-IBM devices in the early days...
  Indeed. IBM viewed OS/2 as a way to promote PS/2 hardware, and in fact the /2 in each was not a coincidence. It was a common belief not just with IBM but many companies at that time that software was just a necessary feature for moving hardware out the door.
  
  Apple never really gave up that theory and almost died because of it, and if it were not for the emerging portable market they'd still be just a bit player, and now we see again that Android is doing the same thing to them in the portable space that DOS/Windows did to them in the desktop space.
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
Luckily.. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-31 19:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

..there's MonoGame.
DirectX is fine by TonTonKill · 2013-01-31 19:38 · Score: 5, Informative

Microsoft is not getting rid of DirectX.
1. Re:DirectX is fine by Rogerborg · 2013-01-31 20:10 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  So, were they lying then, or are they lying now? Either way, we seem to be getting different story from anonymous PR bunnies in unspecified divisions.
  Me, I get the vague impression that Uncle Fester is losing his grip, and that Microsoft's System Lords are preparing to carve mini-empires out of the wreckage when it comes off the rails.
  
  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Unlikely by RenHoek · 2013-01-31 19:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's very unlikely that Microsoft will abandon DirectX. It is afterall the reason why most games for the PC are Windows-exclusive. If they OpenGL becomes king, porting to Linux will be a lot easier. Windows will be dumped by a lot of people whose only reason to keep a Windows desktop is gaming.
This actually only relates to XNA by SpazmodeusG · 2013-01-31 20:02 · Score: 4, Informative

As anyone who deals in this knows XNA is a dead end and DirectX most certainly is not. They are retiring the XNA part of the XNA/DirectX MVP.
Link
"if the email is valid and authoritative" by eksith · 2013-01-31 20:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

Did we learn nothing from the x-surface debacle?

--
If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
Nebulous spokestalk alert! by game+kid · 2013-01-31 20:29 · Score: 4, Interesting
One thing that the NBC Universal--Comcast thing taught me was that "inaccurate" != "false". (They said news about the merger was "inaccurate". They merged anyway.) Here we go again.
In short, I'm not convinced that either system will survive the axe, and you should probably just polish your HTML5-optimized-for-Metro-or-whatever-it's-called-now (or OpenGL?) skills if you still want to make games for Windows:
1. They never reversed the actual decision to retire the two from the award program.
2. They did not mention that XNA or its MVP award...status...program...thing would not be axed.
3. "Microsoft is actively investing in DirectX as the unified graphics foundation for our key platforms, including Xbox 360, Windows Phone and Windows. DirectX is evolving and will continue to evolve. For instance, right now we’re investing in some very cool graphics code authorizing [sic] technology in Visual Studio." - it's great that they're still developing it now, before April 1, 2014, but what about after?
4. "We have absolutely no intention of stopping innovation with DirectX, and you can quote me on that." - this didn't start because we thought would somehow "[stop] innovation with DirectX" (a concept as nebulous as fuck, because they could be taking it to mean that, e.g., they'd try to actively prevent people from using a newly-deprecated API, instead of just deprecating it). No, we wondered whether they'd stop developing, supporting, and maintaining the platform after the stated date, aaaaand *crickets and a coquí or two*.
So will both die on April 2014? In the words of $got_talent_judge, "I vote Yes."
--
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The big problem with OpenGL by tlambert · 2013-01-31 22:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

The big problem with OpenGL is that the shaders are not guaranteed to run in bounded time. DirectX doesn't have that problem, and the OpenGL emulation layer on top of DirectX unrolls the shaders, and for the ones which won't run in bounded time, just throws them away.
When Chrome implements OpenGL on Windows, it runs it through its own code which does the same thing and preflights it, then renders the OpenGL which will run linearly and in bounded time via DirectX.
The Linux and Mac OS X versions hand the OpenGL to the user space renderer or to the kernel-based renderer, respectively -- there are significant performance advantages to OpenGL on Mac OS X compared to Linux because of this; this ends up being most apparent on portable devices, which have a limited memory copy bandwidth (read: ARM devices), which is why Android doesn't directly use the Linux graphics model, apart from the inability to use binary drivers in kernel space due to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL().
But both the Linux and Mac OS X OpenGL renderers take the shaders without preflighting them, as is done on Windows when converting to DirectX calls, and so it's possible to crash the user space driver on Linux, or crash the Mac OS X kernel, on Mac OS (the disadvantage you get in exchange for the reduced copy overhead relative to Linux).
I tried unsuccessfully for several months to try and convince the Chrome graphics guys to run the preflight portion of the Direct X converter on Linux and Mac OS to prevent these crashes on these platforms, to no avail. It'd be more processing, but no more than is already done on Windows, in exchange for a significant improvement in stability for OpenGL/OpenGL ES/WebGL/NaCl on both platforms, which is probably worth the additional processing cost, given that the bottleneck is copying, not processing, on the portable platforms. There are cycles to burn on the desktop systems, even if you'd prefer not to burn them, it's probably worth it for the stability.
In any case, a lot of game developers try for a lot of effects with shaders, and most of them are more concerned with the visual appeal, rather than in running in bounded time and not eventually crashing the system. DirectX protects them where OpenGL doesn't -- except on the Windows platforms they use for development, and that doesn't help get these games stable and running on Mac OS X or Linux, which is what you'd hoe the portability of OpenGL code would have bought you.
Re:Another fad ends by UnknownSoldier · 2013-01-31 23:14 · Score: 3

Because Microsoft had to justify their purchase of RenderMorphics in 1995 -- the company that made the Reality Lab API that was renamed Direct3D.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX
Of course Microsoft didn't get it right until version 3. DX1, DX2, DX5. :-/ (DX4 was never publically available.)
At the time there was a petition of game developers telling Microsoft to support OpenGL - but typically Microsoft didn't give a dam -- they have always just wanted vendor lock in with all their technologies.
http://www.graphicsgroups.com/6-opengl/c476ebf66db4600a.htm
Re:Good news for Linux by spike_gran · 2013-02-01 02:32 · Score: 2

I use Linux, but a spend more time in Windows and its not just because of games. If Linux natively ran something as good as Visual Studio + C# + MSDN, I'd be running Linux far more often. I don't have the time or the patience to exhaustively sift through API references any longer.

Absolutely. I spend a lot of time coding using the whole C + EMACS + Autotools + 100 random barely documented libraries that have been cobbled together to form the GNOME GNU Linux API. I care about software freedom. But Visual Studio and C# and MSDN is just so clean and complete and well documented. It really improves productivity. One day coding on Visual Studio == 3 days coding in C on EMACS.
DirectX != Direct3D by flimflammer · 2013-02-01 03:20 · Score: 2

Something people need to understand is the writing has been on the wall for DirectX for some time now. This is not unexpected news to those of us invested in the platform. What I interpreted from this is that DirectX isn't going to evolve (and that XNA is effectively dead, but we've known this for a long time), but that doesn't mean Direct3D, what most people tend to consider when they think of DirectX, is going anywhere. There will always be a need for high performance graphics rendering and it isn't likely going to be OpenGL on the Windows platform.
They've been turning Direct3D into a typical windows component without any extra special treatment since 2011 when they merged it into the Windows SDK. It's just one small piece in the cog of platform technologies.
I can't say I'm pleased with this turn of events, but I can't say I'm particularly surprised, either.
ANGLE by paugq · 2013-02-01 04:06 · Score: 3, Informative

The performance hit is small enough for Chrome, Qt and other projects to use ANGLE to translate Direct3D to OpenGL:
https://code.google.com/p/angleproject/
Direct2/3D is part of the Windows SDK now by shofmann · 2013-02-01 04:26 · Score: 2

Direct2D and Direct3D are not being abandoned, they've been moved into the Windows 8 SDK along with other APIs that have replaced components of DirectX such as XAudio2. Microsoft is just retiring obsolete, deprecated, and unsupported APIs like DirectSound (replaced by XAudio2), DirectMusic, and DirectInput. More information is available at Where is the DirectX SDK?.
Re:Another fad ends by 0123456 · 2013-02-01 05:30 · Score: 2

One of the reasons why Vista got such a reputation for unreliability was that the video card vendors outright refused to rewrite their drivers for WDM. They kept pretending it just wasn't going to happen, and didn't finally do the update until after it was too late and Vista had already hit the stores.
Changing the driver model was such a stupid idea that everyone hoped Microsoft would realise and change their minds. Until then, no-one was going to put resources onto debugging drivers for an OS that wasn't even released yet when they could be improving drivers for hardware and operating systems customers actually had.
Just another dumb idea on Microsoft's part, believing they could do what they wanted and the rest of the world would follow them with their tails wagging.
Re:This! by jimbo · 2013-02-01 11:47 · Score: 2

Perhaps because theyre so different.
The OS X UI tries to be functional and pleasant but without getting in the users way or stepping on their toes. They also use distinct UI elements that are easy to recognize. They're not perfect but at least these are the things they've always tried to do.
The Windows UI have increasingly been trying to tell the user what to do and how to think to an increasing extent, to the point of taking over the screen and stipulating that we shall all do things the same way. They also flatten the UI elements, making them indisguinsable from the web at times and sometimes it's nonintuitive what can be interacted with. In addition some things gets so "user friendly" that they now confuse advanced users.
Having said that I can work fine with both. I never met a UI I couldn't work with. Well, Microsoft Bob was one...
My only fear is that Windows 8 applications will stop offering proper Desktop versions. Time will tell.