Microsoft Confirms Another 2017 Update After Windows 10 Creators Update (betanews.com)

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Microsoft Confirms Another 2017 Update After Windows 10 Creators Update (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @04:40AM from the more-Windows-updates dept.

Mark Wilson, writing for BetaNews: Windows 10 Creators Update is due to arrive in the spring, and at Microsoft Ignite in Australia, the company confirmed that a second major update is on the way later in the year. We don't know a great deal about this update, but it's likely to incorporate Project NEON design elements. While it is not a new revelation that a second big update is coming to Windows 10 in 2017, until now there has only been a passing reference to the second one from Microsoft.

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Update already released. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 04:48 · Score: 1

You can download it here
1. Re: Update already released. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:25 · Score: 0
  
  Lul. You do realize that picture is fake?
2. Re:Update already released. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  You mean here
3. Re: Update already released. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 10:24 · Score: 0
  
  Lul. You do realize that picture is completely real, the person has been identified as an...ummm..."enthusiast" for this type of thing, and many, many more pictures of him doing similar things exist?
  http://gawker.com/finding-goatse-the-mystery-man-behind-the-most-disturb-5899787
The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Opportunist · 2017-02-21 04:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

1) Can I disable it?
2) Does it remove the spyware?
Microsoft, please get it: NOTHING ELSE matters to us concerning your Windows 10 updates.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Darinbob · 2017-02-21 05:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Dear potential user:
  We don't understand your reluctance. Perhaps we have not sent you enough marketing literature. We will remedy this, and increase our presence here on Slashdot so that you don't miss out on any exciting Windows 10 announcements.
  Sincerely,
  Microsoft Windows 10 Grass Roots Marketing Team
2. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by geek · 2017-02-21 05:25 · Score: 0
  
  1) Can I disable it?
  2) Does it remove the spyware?
  Microsoft, please get it: NOTHING ELSE matters to us concerning your Windows 10 updates.
  1) I don't want to disable it. I want updates, especially when they are free and provide security and usability enhancements.
  2) Define spyware. Telemetry is not spyware.
3. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:28 · Score: 0
  
  Why are you repeating Darinbob verbatim?
4. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by sremick · 2017-02-21 05:37 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Telemetry is not spyware.
  I beg to differ. In fact, places that deal with HIPAA and PCI compliance rules have to be crazy-OCD about this sort of stuff. On paper, it would seem that the mandatory telemetry could easily violate these regulations, and Microsoft refuses to give assurance or proof otherwise.
  Windows is racing Apple to see which can become wholly unsuitable in an enterprise environment first.
5. Re: The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  1) Until a bad update hoses your operating system or wrecks compatibility with an important application.
  2) If telemetry is grabbing personal data from a PC then it is by definition spyware.
6. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:54 · Score: 0
  
  1. No - Rolling releases is the new reality reality for all software, that includes windows. The world moves quickly. Windows does too. Browsers, office suites, anything really. I suggest you, and everyone else, get used to it.
  2. Probably not. They have no incentive to do otherwise. - Much of what you call spyware is information collection to make the above more robust and they don't really care what you think about it.
  "Us" is not where they make their money. Where they make their money is the 85% of the market that just wants easy appliance like computing that has all the new shit and doesn't break all the time.
  Apple and Google have made piles and plies of money and created whole new markets telling people exactly like you to go fuck themselves - Microsoft has noticed this.
  If you don't like it, install Linux. Or a BSD. Or whatever you like.
7. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:56 · Score: 0
  
  As to your Windows10 questions, I hereby inform you of the answers, which are
  1) Yes, you can disable Windows10.
  2) It is the spyware.
8. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  "usability enhancements" you swallowed that one whole didn't you.
  1) Define usability enhancements
  2) Define security
  3) Free is better than free.
9. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  If you are dealing with HIPAA and PCI compliance, you should probably be using Windows 10 Enterprise, which allows you to fully turn off the telemetry.
10. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by darkain · 2017-02-21 06:13 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Win10 Ent is available as a volume license purchase only. I'm in an organization with less than 10 people but are required to be PCI Compliant. Microsoft literally offers 0 versions of Windows 10 that are both compliant and purchased in a small enough quantity for our business.
11. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 06:22 · Score: 0
  
  "Us" is not where they make their money. Where they make their money is
  ...selling "Us" to advertisers, governments, and more. Fuck that.
12. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 06:29 · Score: 0
  
  Dear potential user:
  We don't understand your reluctance. Perhaps we have not sent you enough marketing literature. We will remedy this, and increase our presence here on Slashdot so that you don't miss out on any exciting Windows 10 announcements.
  Sincerely,
  Microsoft Windows 10 Grass Roots Marketing Team
  We will include some flashy ads in your start screen based on your advertiser ID
13. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Billly+Gates · 2017-02-21 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Not true. It's like $8 a month and even individuals can use it starting with Windows 10. I am not defending. Just stating MS is making enterprise more readily available
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
14. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 06:36 · Score: 0
  
  The company I work for has to deal with both HIPAA and PCI compliance, and there's no problem with Windows 10. If someone has told you otherwise, that person is mistaken and probably has an agenda that isn't necessarily in your best interest.
  Sorry, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling today.
15. Re: The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by JediJorgie · 2017-02-21 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  That is true, if by "us" you mean a tiny minority of Windows 10 users.
16. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Kjella · 2017-02-21 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  Not true. It's like $8 a month and even individuals can use it starting with Windows 10. I am not defending. Just stating MS is making enterprise more readily available
  The price sounds right (but not cheap if you consider that if you stay 10 years with Win7 you'll pay like $10-20/year) but where can one actually buy a single license? They say it's per user but not in any place Microsoft makes easy to find at least. Also you have to hook yourself up to the Azure cloud to use the CSP version, if you don't want to be tethered to Microsoft you need the VL version. Also it's the E3 version which basically means you get an 8 month slack on your leash using CBB (current branch for business) but not the LTSB version, that's volume licenses only.
  Microsoft means business with the "last version of Windows", you can get a few months reprieve if you pay well but nobody's getting off the upgrade train this time around. The next time they pull a Vista or Win8 or whatever, you'll be dragged kicking and screaming. I hope that vGPU stuff that was on the front page recently works out, then Windows will become my Wintendo VM and they can do whatever they want as long as Steam works.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
17. Re: The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Ayanami_R · 2017-02-21 07:26 · Score: 2
  
  This is the part where I think there is a massive disconnect between technologists and the layman. The layman, even when it's explained to them the privacy implications of a system, they simply do not care.
  "I know, but I want the service"
  "I'm not that important"
  "Well how else is service supposed to work?"
  I could go on, but I think you get the point. My uncle had his identity stolen because facebook, he has some money, and it took 6 months to sort out. He's still on facebook... MS just wants to cash in on what Google, Apple, and Facebook already are, and whose behavior has been already normalized, it's just not true for MS yet, but a couple years and I think it will be.
  
  --
  "Science is the power of man"
18. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by LVSlushdat · 2017-02-21 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  If you don't like it, install Linux. Or a BSD. Or whatever you like.
  Don't you worry your astroturfing AC head over that, as an ever-increasing number of us HAVE dumped anything MS and enjoy our computers FAR more than we did when still using Windows.. I used/supported MS products for 20 years as a user and a sysadmin. When I retired in 2010, I decided I was done with all things MS, and one day deleted the Win7 partition on my systems, reinitialized grub and haven't looked back.. I'm supremely entertained by all the abuse MS heaps on those poor suckers who put up with said abuse by continuing to use MS products..
  
  --
  THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
19. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 07:55 · Score: 0
  
  Security updates can (and should) be independent of 'system updates' that bring users' choices back to defaults, mess up drivers, etc. Updates should not be bundled.
  When keystroke signatures are derived from your typing speed & habits, then used to create an identifier to your house's IP address that IS very spy-ish. It literally spies on you to see what you are doing and then does something productive with what it has learned. Is that not weird? And the oh-so-kind-and-convenient Cortanna queries & backups of your documents & media files. Is that not snooping? Just curious on your hair splitting of definitions. If you mean SpyWare(tm) that is snuck on to your computer without you knowing... well that's the same here too.
20. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 08:04 · Score: 0
  
  >...is information collection to make the above more robust and they don't really care what you think about it.
  Right, MS (and others) do not care about how the actual interface, customer, useability, trust, etc goes for us. Their only concern is that an 'App' (software) works the same in the wild as it does in their developer sandboxes. And any user preferences such as default apps, choices, etc DO go right out the window in favor of steam-rolling it over with a new paint job. This is the concern. The users' concerns. The concerns of the wild are various & MS's 'one size fits all' is inadequate. Or should I say brutally-overly-adequate.
21. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 08:06 · Score: 0
  
  1) of course not, though we may try to fool you with a web based app that will make you think that you may have some control over what data we collect, even though it does nothing at all.
  2) Are you NUTS!?!? Our built in spyware collects all of your personal data so we can sell it to make even more money! Nothing is as important to us as money!!
22. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Blaskowicz · 2017-02-21 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  That story did a poor job explaining what such a vGPU is, i.e. not explaining it at all.
  I am fairly confident you need an expensive AMD Fire Pro or equivalent graphics card, and nvidia might lock the feature away in Geforce GRID products only - uncommon rackable hardware for the kind of companies that can get a Windows volume license anyway.
  It's likely more cost efficient to have two computers, one for Windows and one for browsing and work, although I call that a waste of silicon and other materials.
  One option would be to use a KVM switch and an old, outdated PC with Windows 98 or XP or 7 32bit etc. (or dual/multi boot these), non networked to the internet. Then you can run old games at least.
23. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Billly+Gates · 2017-02-21 08:47 · Score: 1
  
  Speaking of which Nvidia crippled their own drivers on Linux to prevent KVM working properly with power management ... Unless you buy the expensive Quadro's of course
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
24. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  Telemetry is spyware. Big Brother is watching you through your televisor.
25. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 09:57 · Score: 0
  
  Just stating MS is making enterprise more readily available
  How? Where?
  Stating "Yup you can" and nothing more goes against the research of a large amount of people that proves otherwise.
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/licensing-programs/software-assurance-default.aspx#tab=2
  (Warning, Firefox wouldn't let me click or link from "tab=2", which is the "Getting Software Assurance" tab)
  It says right there volume licensing to enterprise editions requires a minimum of 250 user or device licenses.
  250 * $8/month = $2000/month
  Also once activated you need to account for them when Microsoft audits your network yearly. So you can't be giving them out to friends unless you want to get hit with $150000/year/loaned-copy in fines.
  Even going with just Open Licenses requires a minimum of 5 user/device licenses, however you can't buy these from Microsoft, need an established account with a corporate reseller, in the US a tax ID code issued to your company, and then on top of that you need to pay for a fairly high monthly Asure account to run your domain controller in the cloud so MS can audit you there.
  That means a charge for RAM, storage, CPU cycles, and network bandwidth on a monthly basis.
  And domain controllers are pretty network-chatty things.
  If you use 3 or more of those 5 minimum required open licenses, you'll easily exceed $2000/mo in Asure cloud charges alone.
  So please please tell us where this $8/month WIn10 enterprise edition is (legally) sold from?
26. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 11:15 · Score: 0
  
  Astroturf luuuuuuuuuuuuuul. Just an observer that doesn't care about your feelings. Lot has changed in 7 years grandpa.
  This is the reality of IT right now. Microsoft has stopped giving an absolute shred of a fuck about power users and enterprises that want to micromanage their desktops. The OS is a service. It's an armorphus blob that will be updated forcefully every few months and is tied to microsoft cloud services. That is MS's vision for the future of windows.
  If you don't like it, get off of Microsoft products. THEY DO NOT WANT YOU AS A CUSTOMER BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT PROFITABLE. Is that clear enough?
  That is reality. If you don't like it, fine. Don't use microsoft products. Just don't act like a fucking retard and pretend not to understand what's going on.
  Want it your way, roll it yourself. That's what linux is there for. That's why so many companies use it. That's why linux is the base for most cloud services and the most popular mobile platform on earth.
27. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by geek · 2017-02-21 13:56 · Score: 1
  
  Telemetry is not spyware.
  I beg to differ. In fact, places that deal with HIPAA and PCI compliance rules have to be crazy-OCD about this sort of stuff. On paper, it would seem that the mandatory telemetry could easily violate these regulations, and Microsoft refuses to give assurance or proof otherwise.
  Windows is racing Apple to see which can become wholly unsuitable in an enterprise environment first.
  What a load of bullshit. I have hundreds of HIPAA and PCI systems in my enterprise and Windows 10 never even comes up in the discussions with the compliance people. Stop making shit up just to fucking hate on Windows 10.
28. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 15:07 · Score: 0
  
  On paper, it would seem that the mandatory telemetry could easily violate these regulations
  Can you point to precisely the regulation you think is being violated so I can see on what basis you are making this inference?
29. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 15:12 · Score: 0
  
  When keystroke signatures are derived from your typing speed & habits, then used to create an identifier to your house's IP address that IS very spy-ish. It literally spies on you to see what you are doing and then does something productive with what it has learned. Is that not weird?
  Firstly where is the evidence that such a thing is happening? The only information available is that the data is anonymized which is the opposite of what you are saying. But what is really weird is the fact that you aren't turning off the voice and typing telemetry despite the ability to do so, it is right there in the privacy settings.
  
  And the oh-so-kind-and-convenient Cortanna queries & backups of your documents & media files. Is that not snooping?
  No. It is creating an index for you to search, if you don't want that then again: turn it off.
  People like you are the reason we have to suffer the stupidification of computers, but apparently even for you they aren't dumbed down enough yet.
30. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 15:33 · Score: 0
  
  Fantastic! I was a HUGE fan of that Tomb Raider fullscreen ad on my ever so useful Windows 10 lockscreen that you forbid me from disabling! I can't wait to see what other advertising (or as I like to call them, funvertising) goodies you have in store for me, your loyal, unpaid QA slave!
  I just love buying products from your company and subsequently giving data to you that earns you even more money without getting anything in return for it!
31. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 15:58 · Score: 0
  
  "Us" is not where they make their money. Where they make their money is
  ...selling "Us" to advertisers, governments, and more. Fuck that.
  But they are not doing that, that is a thing you made up to be angry about but it quite simply does not happen.
  Advertisers cannot buy user data from Microsoft, but by all means show me how, as an advertiser, I can do what you say. Even Google does not do this, their whole monetization strategy is on selling their userbase yet they only sell a service to match advertisers' target market to advertisements, advertisers do not get user data at all.
32. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by exomondo · 2017-02-21 16:05 · Score: 1
  
  I'm supremely entertained by all the abuse MS heaps on those poor suckers who put up with said abuse by continuing to use MS products..
  I use Windows 10 for some workstation tasks at work (simply because capable applications are not available on other platforms) and at home for gaming. I turn off the one-line start menu suggestion and turn off the typing/voice feedback in privacy settings and I'm curious: What is the specific "abuse" you're referring to?
  I hear a lot of hyperbole but not a lot of evidence.
33. Re:The usual 2 Windows10 questions: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-22 04:04 · Score: 0
  
  Sent from my GMail account...
Translation... by MachineShedFred · 2017-02-21 04:49 · Score: 3, Funny

"We weren't able to jam all the spyware and bloat in for this release and still make the timeline, so we're giving you another release later this year to add all that and more!"

--
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
1. Re:Translation... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  That, and:
  Look how hard we work for YOU, surely the world owes us $100USD per machine/per annum for such a valuable service for YOU....and your personal data.
Agile! by Master5000 · 2017-02-21 04:55 · Score: 2

Is the cancer of today's software development world. Quality plummets but look at how many releases we can put out per month! Isn't that cool? Features! No QA! Fire them all! It's for the best! Constant refactoring! No need to think ahead just refactor in the next sprint! Redneck programming YEAAAAH! Seriously though... When the hell did this joke become so popular in the dev world? Agile is the antithesis of quality. Did Einstein and others use agile in order to progress science? No? What did they do? They thought long and hard. They didn't try to skip the thinking part in order to get to writing ASAP. So why the hell aren't we trying to emulate the smart guys? Why are we trying to emulate Joe six-pack who just wings it and hopes for the best?
1. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  It is cheap, and in most software dev environments, if you can get features done and the thing shipped, you win, regardless of the technological debt obtained. Refactoring makes no ROI, so why bother. Same with security.
2. Re:Agile! by bluefoxlucid · 2017-02-21 05:03 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, agile software development improves quality by delivering on shorter development cycles. What's the point of spending 2 years developing a multi-million-dollar, fully-featured content management system when requirements change out from under you? Every piece that doesn't work as well in the real world as it does for QA will break all at once when you ship it out--welcome to beta software--and features will do what users wanted two years ago.
  With agile development, you deliver in pieces. You do iterative development, producing a framework or basis upon which to build further components. You do incremental development, producing fully-functional components which you can deliver immediately for use. Further development on iterative components reveals defects and design deficiencies, and so you refactor, re-engineer, and adjust to meet requirements. Delivery of a working component generates user feedback, which allows you to detect and correct for defects and changes to requirements.
  At every stage, you generate more knowledge. Producing each piece, iterating on each framework, and responding to each piece of user feedback generates information which is folded into the further parts of the project. Rather than dumping one piece onto the pile of shit-to-deliver-later and blissfully working on the next, you get told that the shit you just made isn't what we need, and you can reflect on that and the implications for the next piece of the project. That means each piece takes into account the failures encountered so far, and the final product delivers closer to actual requirements at delivery time.
  Part of planning is applying knowledge you have. Agile project management allows you to generate new knowledge at every stage and roll that forward into planning the next stage. You can't apply knowledge you don't have.
  
  --
  Support my political activism on Patreon.
3. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  This is how it should work in a perfect world.
  Reality is different - in the real world 'agile' is too often synonymous to: Release often, regardless of QA, come hell or high water. Errors remain uncorrected or even become part of the feature set, knowledge is not gained nor applied.
4. Re:Agile! by geek · 2017-02-21 05:18 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  When agile is done correctly you are right. But agile, like socialism, is always "perfect world" scenario stuff. All too often management wants you to release early and often and miss the "fail quickly" component.
  Where I am now we're expected to release often with the same standard of QA we had with a traditional waterfall project management style. It just doesn't work, leads to higher stress, turn over and ultimately failure. Then you have the shops that want to apply agile to fucking everything from janitorial services to sales. This is the cookie cutter approach, or like my old boss used to say "Give the fuckers a hammer and suddenly everything looks like a nail"
  I'm just not impressed with agile. The quality of development the last 5 or so years from every shop I've seen use it has fallen sharply.
5. Re:Agile! by iampiti · 2017-02-21 05:20 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Worst of all, Windows is an OS. It's the basic software of your computer. As such it must be stable and performant. So agile it's the absolute worst possible development process for it.
  Good job Ms!
6. Re:Agile! by Master5000 · 2017-02-21 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  Wow you should really consider politics. My BS meter is off the charts. Last September I started working on making a port to Android for a game engine. The first step was to create a GLES3 backend and then to make it work on Android. So the first 'sprint' took until January and the second until mid-February. Tell me exactly how do you write user stories for an OpenGL backend? It either works or it doesn't. There is no in between. There was nothing for me to show right until the end when I started getting things on screen, fixed a few last bugs and there it was, working. Literally, until the last few weeks there was nothing on the screen. If I had a client that would request a demo every 2 weeks I'd have been fired long ago. Luckily it was an open source project so there were no morons there who used Agile or daily stand ups or poker planning or other BS. Some things take a long time to be made. There is a lot of pre planning, a lot of execution, and a lot of bug fixing. There is no way of iterating this stuff every 2 weeks. Unless you really want to get a lot of churn and make the project take 10 times longer while I create BS mini projects in order to show you progress at every 2 weeks. It either works or it doesn't. No in between. That is why planning is good, it tells you what you should do next. Also, you need to get it right, because you don't want to get the backend working 6 months from now and discover that you didn't need it. Don't iterate, think it through really deep because you probably get only one chance. Don't skip the deep thinking part. This is your make or break part. Still agile people don't want to accept these things...
7. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  When agile is done correctly you are right. But agile, like socialism, is always "perfect world" scenario stuff.
  
  To be fair Capitalism is also a "perfect world" scenario. You can paint it red (communism) or blue (capitalism), but what we have in reality is the very same modernized Feudalism.
8. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 06:25 · Score: 0
  
  What you describe is a pretty easy case to plan for, since all the requirements are already there (just make the game engine work on this platform).
  In your case agile would help to avoid the eventual trouble when the client brings a phone for you, and you notice it's a Windows Phone instead of Android, and graphics need to be done in Direct3D, not OpenGL. That would not be unheard of. Having no client solves that problem, though.
9. Re:Agile! by bhcompy · 2017-02-21 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  In your case agile would help to avoid the eventual trouble when the client brings a phone for you, and you notice it's a Windows Phone instead of Android, and graphics need to be done in Direct3D, not OpenGL. That would not be unheard of. Having no client solves that problem, though.
  Statement of work: Build engine for Android architecture
  
  Sales Order: Pay me money net-30
  
  Where's the confusion? If the customer provides a Windows phone, too fucking bad they signed a goddamned contract that explicitly stated what they needed and that was produced and delivered. Problem? See you in court. -Signed, Every corporation I've ever worked for
10. Re:Agile! by bluefoxlucid · 2017-02-21 07:39 · Score: 1
  
  Sprints are SCRUM. You don't need to use SCRUM to perform agile project management.
  User stories are an attempt to dress up requirements gathering and the requirements traceability matrix. In project management, a requirement has a business justification and a stakeholder. The Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) will tell you the requirement (what?), the stakeholder (who?), the business justification (why?), and the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) elements which implement the requirement (how?). User stories attempt to make this relatable by describing it in child-friendly terms: "As the manager of finances, I want to be able to compare categorized expenses from different time periods so that I can identify where our major expenses are and how new controls impact those expenses."
  As you point out, this is kind of silly for an OpenGL back-end. The user story is something like "as a user on an operating system which doesn't support DirectX, I want to be able to use the software so that I can use the software," or something equally generic. In a RTM, you would simply identify stakeholders as "Linux users" and "MacOSX users", and give the business justification that "the software platform does not support the DirectX back-end". In an actual business, you might identify the product manager as the stakeholder, and use the business justification that demographic data shows interest among MacOSX users. There's no need to invent a fancy story.
  
  If I had a client that would request a demo every 2 weeks I'd have been fired long ago.
  If something deliverable can't be produced in 2 weeks, then it can't be delivered every 2 weeks. Plain and simple. Sometimes the next iteration or incremental deliverable takes months to ship. Nobody who knows what they're doing actually implements a 2-week rule; some people use that as a soft guide-line to wring out the WBS (which is used in SCRUM and other agile methodologies), and even then they find that some work packages are necessarily hours or days long while others take longer than 2 weeks.
  The standard delineation for work packages is "when the work is broken down to a level at which further decomposition no longer provides a management benefit," which effectively means you only decompose work which cannot be fully understood and measured as a whole unit. "Actigraphy Module" for a generic polysomnography application, for example, is insufficient: you have to break that down at least to include Interfaces, Base Classes, Zero Crossing Class, Time Above Threshold Class, and Digital Integration Class. You might also include, at that level, an Integrations deliverable, which breaks down to include FitBit, Pillow, EightSleep, Jawbone, and other actigraphy-based systems, because "Integrations" is made up of complex pieces and can't be estimated without thinking about the pieces from which it's made.
  None of that comes out to "two-weeks". It still comes out to iterative and incremental delivery, user feedback, and compiling lessons learned repeatedly to avoid further defects.
  
  --
  Support my political activism on Patreon.
11. Re:Agile! by Master5000 · 2017-02-21 08:01 · Score: 1
  
  You have just described a sane development model. Unfortunately for most shops, agile means delivering something barely working in order to satisfy some moron and then spend some more time trying to refactor and get rid of garbage so you can move forward to the next sprint. So basically, in 2 weeks you get around 7 days of development because you spend 3 getting ready for the demo and dismantling the pilled up shit that was necessary to get the demo going. Which is highly inefficient and leads to a lot of waste and redone work. Agile means: get it done till the end of the next week or else.
12. Re:Agile! by Orphis · 2017-02-21 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  If your engine is sooooo complicated that creating a simple scene to show progress is too hard, then you already failed at technology.
  You could easily have small deliverables or demo to show that what you have works:
  - Create a context, show a simple triangle
  - Add texture, shaders support, maybe lighting with hardcoded data in the renderer
  - Load textures and shaders as assets (probably requires changing the buildsystem and asset loader)
  - Load geometry, levels...
  - Controls working
  - Sound effects working
  That way, you can make sure that every single step is working. If you don't have anything renderer until the last few weeks, then you clearly have an issue...
13. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 08:50 · Score: 0
  
  I see you're a manager. How's that Kool Aid taste?
14. Re:Agile! by bluefoxlucid · 2017-02-21 09:56 · Score: 1
  
  Yes well, some people hear the word "Agile" and don't bother to look up what that means. There are published standards on this stuff, you know. They're built on top of other published standards. I don't like the SCRUM terminology largely because I work better with direct information instead of social idealism--therapy for me involves a pencil and a clipboard while the psychiatrist tries to explain wtf is wrong inside my head, not group-hug sessions, supportive friends, and pep talks--but it's still actually a highly-bureaucratic, defined process. I simply have to decode the metaphor to something concrete to access it.
  
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  Support my political activism on Patreon.
15. Re:Agile! by Master5000 · 2017-02-21 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. You need to have the whole pipeline ready in order to show anything on the screen. That is, even a simple triangle. You are either able to show it or not. And for about 3 months, there was nothing to show on the screen until the pipeline was ready. And yes, a graphics renderer really is 'sooooo complicated' as you put it.
16. Re:Agile! by geek · 2017-02-21 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  When agile is done correctly you are right. But agile, like socialism, is always "perfect world" scenario stuff.
  To be fair Capitalism is also a "perfect world" scenario. You can paint it red (communism) or blue (capitalism), but what we have in reality is the very same modernized Feudalism.
  No, capitalism is self correcting. Capitalism acknowledges flaws but allows for markets to fix them. Socialism does not, can not and will not do so. What you're talking about is crony capitalism which is a mix of capitalism and socialism where government picks winners and losers.
17. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 11:20 · Score: 0
  
  This is the cookie cutter approach, or like my old boss used to say "Give the fuckers a hammer and suddenly everything looks like a nail"
  Give the fuckers a hammer and suddenly everything looks like the boss's head.
  There, FTFY.
18. Re:Agile! by Orphis · 2017-02-21 11:22 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know, I don't have much experience and only worked on a few console games and emulators!
19. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 13:30 · Score: 0
  
  If by "self correcting" you mean "degenerates rapidly into monopoly" you're right.
  Otherwise, capitalism can only be maintained by detailed and constantly changing regulations to keep a step ahead of the monopolists.
  The real fix for capitalism is of course socialism, which, like capitalism, is not self correcting but requires intelligent regulation and maintenance, and in the process provides for a population with far less misery.
20. Re:Agile! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 23:10 · Score: 0
  
  No, capitalism is self correcting. Capitalism acknowledges flaws but allows for markets to fix them. Socialism does not, can not and will not do so. What you're talking about is crony capitalism which is a mix of capitalism and socialism where government picks winners and losers.
  Ah, no true Scotsman! Actually, no, capitalism is not self correcting, at least no more than other forms of organization. Capitalism entities can compete positively, by creating a better product, or negatively, by bringing the competition down (e.g. cartels). Market failure happens frequently with no government manipulation at all. In any case a true free market is warlordism, might makes right. A functional "free" market requires regulation to restrict all the negative ways entities can compete while still allowing the positive ways.
Service packs... by thegreatbob · 2017-02-21 05:07 · Score: 0

The rate at which they're throwing out these major updates reminds me of the Windows NT 4.0 service packs... two within the first year (1996), one each in '97 and '98, and then 3 in '99...

As that mess was largely before my time, does anyone have any recollection of the breakdown of good vs harm caused by deployment of the older NT 4.0 service packs? Is it even a good analogy?

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There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
1. Re:Service packs... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 05:13 · Score: 0
  
  its a good historical reference, since most current developers never watch the history channel (/.), it will probably fall on blind eyes. just link win2k just wait for win11 its just around the corner.
Yay! by iampiti · 2017-02-21 05:21 · Score: 1

I can't wait for project Neon!, an even flatter, uglier more touchy UI. I'm sure it's gonna be a delight to use on my desktop PC
MS Linux now!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 06:09 · Score: 0

Time to ditch that aberration called Windows. Even if they keep Windows for delivering ads to the masses, I think they are starting to miss the boat on the server side with their incompatible OS.
For the record... by hyades1 · 2017-02-21 08:09 · Score: 1

I will upgrade my Win 7 and Win 8.1 machines to Win 10 on the day Margot Robbie bursts through the door of my apartment and begs to have sex with me.

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I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
1. Re:For the record... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 08:50 · Score: 0
  
  Don't say that! Microsoft might get the wrong idea and send Margot Robbie to you for a viral marketing campaign, and then you'll have to upgrade to Win 10...
2. Re: For the record... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 10:06 · Score: 0
  
  Fuck, you got your priorities backwards. I wouldn't get of of bed.
3. Re: For the record... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-21 13:45 · Score: 0
  
  s/of/out/.
  Fuck you, auto correct.
4. Re:For the record... by hyades1 · 2017-02-21 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  That would be terrible. I'd have to submit to Ms. Robbie, then commit suicide.
  
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  I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Operation "boil the frogs" by HalAtWork · 2017-02-21 11:08 · Score: 1

Operation "boil the frogs" is continuing as planned I see!

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Twinstiq, game news
ugly? by mcswell · 2017-02-21 16:12 · Score: 1

I was given an old laptop that had Windows XP on it the other day. I had forgotten how beautiful it looked, easier on the eyes than Win7, and far better than Win10. I fear that this "Neon" is a further step in the wrong direction. The pictures I've seen are really uninformative--half are gray windows on black backgrounds, the rest are simply uninterpretable. One article says Neon will bring "motion and fluidity to Windows 10's desktop. Apps will be expected to use transitions and animations..." Sounds like it's designed to make you seasick.
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If Windows 7 is Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Windows 10 is lego blocks as Dr. Jones.
Windows 11 by cherishjoo · 2017-02-21 18:21 · Score: 1

Will it be Windows 11? Haha