I once had to write 40 pages in Open Office. The next day I ordered MS Office. I'd like to apologize to friends and family for polluting their machines with Open Office. I swear it looked like a good idea before I actually used it.
If you do use the start menu in this way Windows 8 will surely suck for you (you may try one of the replacement software solutions). For me (and everybody I know) there is no reason to complain about Windows 8.
You are probably not aware that Windows 8 supports the full range of Windows 7 desktop features and allows you to run as many programs as you wish and configure their windows as you see fit. The only thing missing is the start menu and I don't know anyone who used the start menu for anything but search and shut down. The fact that desktop users (or even all users) may not like Metro apps does not matter at all since you don't need to use them.
Of course. The board surely knew what they hired Elop for. Its not like you hire someone to run a company and not even ask him what direction he is going to take.
A friend of mine just bought one last week and I am sure he is in his right mind. He got a Lumia 710 and I dare say you can't buy a better smartphone in our country for the price he paid for it. Prices for WP7 devices are going down to the point where it makes perfect sense to buy one if you are looking for a cheap phone.
Obviously we know different people. The Linux users I know who are not hostile to non-free software are hostile to gaming (think it is for children or that you should not waste your time with games)
I am can't wait to see what happens. The Linux users I know won't give money for software unless it is some indie semi-open source "please donate your money" developer like the case with Humble Indie Bundle. I wanna see how big titles like Call of Duty do. I predict disaster.
In other news Apple collects information for every app users install on their iPhones. So will MS on WinRT tablets and Win 8 Metro environment. In a world like this only an idiot can point a finger in a security service that uses hashes and can be turned off.
There is no "existing standard". There is some work in progress and (according to Ars Techinca's article) MS's proposal has a lot in common with the original work (many APIs are the same). Basically MS's proposal suggest lower level API than the current proposal and does not mandate the usage of any particular codec (HTML5 video style) while Google's proposal mandates VP8 and has some higher level APIs. MS insists that for high quality video there needs to be low level flexibility and that libraries will fill the need for higher level APIs
The article on Ars Technica states that the EU authorities stand behind DNT by default which if true means that Google can argue nothing (at least in Europe)
XAML is much better than HTML for several reasons but this is not related in any way to WPF. WPF and HTML are not competing directly on Windows. WPF is for the "old" (or classic?) desktop and has access to Win32 and the full.NET framework while HTML/JS development is only for Metro style apps and has access only to WinRT and can only be distributed through the marketplace. HTML/JS is competing with XAML/C# and XAML/C++. Note that UI development for C++ (the king of performance) is done with XAML. The XAML engine for Metro apps has been rewritten in native code to optimize performnce. For WPF the XAML engine is pure managed code.
It would make sense if it was like this. The Build conference had sessions on everything (JS/C#/C++) and explicitly made clear that all of these were first class citizens even in its slogan ("Use what you know..."). The HTML5 shitstorm started when MS first showed the new Metro land in WIndows 8 where they only mentioned HTML5 and JS so some people assumed that this was going to be the only way to develop Metro style apps which is of course wrong. The fire is fueled by people who wish that web tech would become the only way to develop apps on any platform. They constantly point this way of developing for Win8 despite the fact that it is on par with the other two ways. In fact the other 2 ways are slightly better. WinRT uses C# naming conventions and JS cannot create reusable WinRT components (only use them) while C++ and C# can.
While Silverlight as a framework is somewhat dead C# + XAML development is pretty much Silverlight in spirit. Your existing Silverlight apps will need to be rewritten but your Silverlight skills transfer pretty good. Silverlight developers can be quite happy about Win8 dev platform but companies that have invested in public facing Silverlight apps have a lot to worry about.
I don't know where the author got the idea that MS will migrate Silverlight to HTML and JS. Silverlight apps are supposed to be migrated to XAML apps which is practically the same but different enough to justify the use of the word "migration". Webocalypse is postponed in the MS world.
My favourite part is how he states that iPhone brings in more revenue than all of MS's business as if this is not true for any other tech company out there. The fact that Apple are so successful does not mean that MS failed so badly and definitely does not mean that they are worse than everyone else in the industry. While Apple is obviously on top I wouldn't say that MS failed compared to Google or Facebook.
If you ask on/. the battle for editors is already lost. After all most people here use Linux and are fans of the command line so it is obvious that they will be anti-WYSIWYG tools.
I personally believe visual editors are really helpful and an IDE (as opposed to Notepad++) is a must.
Slashdot Mirror
I once had to write 40 pages in Open Office. The next day I ordered MS Office. I'd like to apologize to friends and family for polluting their machines with Open Office. I swear it looked like a good idea before I actually used it.
If you do use the start menu in this way Windows 8 will surely suck for you (you may try one of the replacement software solutions). For me (and everybody I know) there is no reason to complain about Windows 8.
You are probably not aware that Windows 8 supports the full range of Windows 7 desktop features and allows you to run as many programs as you wish and configure their windows as you see fit. The only thing missing is the start menu and I don't know anyone who used the start menu for anything but search and shut down. The fact that desktop users (or even all users) may not like Metro apps does not matter at all since you don't need to use them.
Of course. The board surely knew what they hired Elop for. Its not like you hire someone to run a company and not even ask him what direction he is going to take.
And why the hell is she using the Metro apps at all?
I believe Microsoft has better chance fighting Android with Windows Phone than Google has fighting Windows with this... thing.
A friend of mine just bought one last week and I am sure he is in his right mind. He got a Lumia 710 and I dare say you can't buy a better smartphone in our country for the price he paid for it. Prices for WP7 devices are going down to the point where it makes perfect sense to buy one if you are looking for a cheap phone.
Obviously we know different people. The Linux users I know who are not hostile to non-free software are hostile to gaming (think it is for children or that you should not waste your time with games)
I am can't wait to see what happens. The Linux users I know won't give money for software unless it is some indie semi-open source "please donate your money" developer like the case with Humble Indie Bundle. I wanna see how big titles like Call of Duty do. I predict disaster.
I would laugh so much if MS include an ad block in IE and turn it on by default.
Except they didn't lie. We have a separate word for that for a reason - "misleading".
More like "Billy, don't hit people with a stick. I don't mind if you hit them with baseball bat"
In other news Apple collects information for every app users install on their iPhones. So will MS on WinRT tablets and Win 8 Metro environment. In a world like this only an idiot can point a finger in a security service that uses hashes and can be turned off.
So Azure only makes sense financially if you have sudden spikes in load. Isn't this the case with any cloud provider?
There is no "existing standard". There is some work in progress and (according to Ars Techinca's article) MS's proposal has a lot in common with the original work (many APIs are the same). Basically MS's proposal suggest lower level API than the current proposal and does not mandate the usage of any particular codec (HTML5 video style) while Google's proposal mandates VP8 and has some higher level APIs. MS insists that for high quality video there needs to be low level flexibility and that libraries will fill the need for higher level APIs
The article on Ars Technica states that the EU authorities stand behind DNT by default which if true means that Google can argue nothing (at least in Europe)
Did you jus call John Carmack - the man who added a third dimension to the world "a corporate shill".
BTW he ported games to Linux before it was cool!
XAML is much better than HTML for several reasons but this is not related in any way to WPF. WPF and HTML are not competing directly on Windows. WPF is for the "old" (or classic?) desktop and has access to Win32 and the full .NET framework while HTML/JS development is only for Metro style apps and has access only to WinRT and can only be distributed through the marketplace. HTML/JS is competing with XAML/C# and XAML/C++. Note that UI development for C++ (the king of performance) is done with XAML. The XAML engine for Metro apps has been rewritten in native code to optimize performnce. For WPF the XAML engine is pure managed code.
It would make sense if it was like this. The Build conference had sessions on everything (JS/C#/C++) and explicitly made clear that all of these were first class citizens even in its slogan ("Use what you know..."). The HTML5 shitstorm started when MS first showed the new Metro land in WIndows 8 where they only mentioned HTML5 and JS so some people assumed that this was going to be the only way to develop Metro style apps which is of course wrong. The fire is fueled by people who wish that web tech would become the only way to develop apps on any platform. They constantly point this way of developing for Win8 despite the fact that it is on par with the other two ways. In fact the other 2 ways are slightly better. WinRT uses C# naming conventions and JS cannot create reusable WinRT components (only use them) while C++ and C# can.
While Silverlight as a framework is somewhat dead C# + XAML development is pretty much Silverlight in spirit. Your existing Silverlight apps will need to be rewritten but your Silverlight skills transfer pretty good. Silverlight developers can be quite happy about Win8 dev platform but companies that have invested in public facing Silverlight apps have a lot to worry about.
I don't know where the author got the idea that MS will migrate Silverlight to HTML and JS. Silverlight apps are supposed to be migrated to XAML apps which is practically the same but different enough to justify the use of the word "migration". Webocalypse is postponed in the MS world.
My favourite part is how he states that iPhone brings in more revenue than all of MS's business as if this is not true for any other tech company out there. The fact that Apple are so successful does not mean that MS failed so badly and definitely does not mean that they are worse than everyone else in the industry. While Apple is obviously on top I wouldn't say that MS failed compared to Google or Facebook.
So Xbox is not a success? Look at the state of the competition!
But of course we know that they will make a bad app that will try to rip people off and Android users are not that stupid anyway :)
If you ask on /. the battle for editors is already lost. After all most people here use Linux and are fans of the command line so it is obvious that they will be anti-WYSIWYG tools.
I personally believe visual editors are really helpful and an IDE (as opposed to Notepad++) is a must.
The article clearly states that it is not about Windows 8 but about Windows PHONE 8 which is quite different.