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I just wanted to express my appreciation to the programmers of this awesome piece of software! Have been using it since 2012, and now on Windows 10 as well and it has never let me down. Let's hope it will keep working forever :P.
Wout
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Yep. I use it as well, under Win 10. And it is indeed good: which it's replacement - the Metro Mail app - definitely isn't...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: the Metro Mail app
That didn't even last one day, with me.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I tried to enter server port numbers, googled a bit for work arounds, and then decided to not used it at all. So lasted about 30 mins I think. 
Wout
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I have precisely two tiles in my W10 start menu (they're not "live", and they're as small as I can make them):
0: "Store", which I haven't visited for months, because it's a waste of time trying to find "appies" that are anywhere near as useful as their desktop counterparts.
1: "Phone Companion", which I've never used but haven't deleted, because it looks as if it might be useful one day, despite the fact that I can communicate perfectly well with my Android phones without an "appie" (which will probably not do it half as well).
I did have a weather appie, for a while, but who needs a weather appie on a desktop/laptop? That's what phones are for.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Yeah, I don't get the need for live tiles on my desktop computer. To me the live behavior is actually a minus, it's just distracting from being productive. Seems like MS is thinking I want to be bombarded with as many impulses from the internet per second as possible to keep me fully informed. It's totally contra productive. I removed all tiles, and now there's a shortcut to cmd.exe and the calculator, so I guess I'm using it as a shortcut panel, kinda like the desktop.
Wout
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Actually, software not letting you down is not a reason to consider it awesome - it's not supposed to let you down by design . . . oh . . . wait . . . this is a MicroSloth product . . . awesome doesn't cover it - dumbstruck! Nearly a "Big O"! - astonished! - blindsided.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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That's probably why they removed it and replaced it with something that doesn't work... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Exactly, I guess it was so good, it could not be improved upon. But ofcourse there is a team that needs to do something, and obviously it can't work on an already perfect product. Oh well, there are always new wheels to make!
Wout
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Oh, it's not perfect - I'd like a way to reset the "you've got mail" taskbar indicator without opening a message (I have rules set to throw some messages straight to the bin and they flag up "mail waiting" and you can't clear without reading a message, any message).
But...it is damn good!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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So, I decided to try to go back to web development, and I am sincerely regretting it.
The last time I did anything with HTML/PHP/JS, was around '04-'06, when I was in high school. Back then, it was fairly simple. You wrote your logic code and database access in PHP, you displayed it through HTML, and maybe did some DOM hacking with JS. The old AJAX was just starting to come about when I last created anything for the web.
After awhile, I got bored with web development and pushed more into desktop programming, and went to C# and loved it. Still do. I plan on getting my certification within a year or two. But I digress...
Fast forward to... about now. I still enjoy plugging away at C#, but due to the linux-centric web world, I feel like being stuck to Microsoft is holding me back. That, and I just can NOT get my head around ASP.NET MVC.
So I started looking into some of these newer (to me) technologies, such as Node.JS, and client-side stuff like Angular. Node.JS intrigues me. Seems like a very useful and powerful backend to a RESTful application. But I'm not a fan of using it for actually rendering a website. So I jumped back over to the old LAMP setup, and found Angular...
What. The. Hell? I hated JS before, but now? I want to burn it with fire, and throw the remains into an active volcano, and drop a nuke on said volcano.
Having been stuck in the relatively type-strict C#, JS just looks like an absolute mess. How do you know if something is a variable? A function?  (Not actually asking these questions, more just throwing my hands in the air in frustration).
The idea of putting anything security related (e.g. cookies, login verification) or logic related into the client side is just appalling to me. The fact that a hacker can easily view the source code of your javascript, and people are putting potentially volatile information there, just makes my skin crawl.
I've been attempting over the last week or so to make a single page web application using Angular, and I just feel like I'm stupid. I read all this source code, the API's, examples... and very little of it actually makes any sense. It might just be my lack of knowledge of javascript syntax, but everything just feels so... hacky, I guess the word would be.
I'm very much a 'why' type of programmer. I don't care that something works, I want to know WHY it works, and how. I don't like blindly relying on an API to just work.
I feel like I either have to give in to this 'new' way of thinking, or cross my arms, give out a solid "Herrumpf" and go back to my old ways.
Anyways, there's not much of a point to this. Just a rant. If anyone has any advice, or are having (or had) a similar experience, I'd like to hear it.
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I'd give typescript a try, not sure how production ready it is as I have never used it myself (I don't do web).
Wout
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Johnny J. wrote: At least, they did that with Silverlight as well.
You are not alone, I was going to rub some angst into that particular weeping sore!
If VS was not such an excellent tool and 100% of my income is from the MS stack I would love to tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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The thing you have to remember about angular, node etc is that they're mainly fad frameworks that will be replaced tomorrow, and then replaced the day after that and so on. You can concentrate on the server-side aspect using more stable platforms like asp.net and once you have something working you can add some nice features or user improvements via client-side frameworks.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: they're mainly fad frameworks that will be replaced tomorrow, and then replaced the day after that and so on.
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Well - for a start - you could get rid of the various frameworks and add-ons that are in style (for the present) and use real javaScript and php.
Once you get loose to not having strong typing, sensible in world that really sees everything as text, you can have fun with the whole lot.
You just need to learn to do what you need to do (duh!).
Cookies are not for security. There's all sorts of methods to impose security (hence we have a growing fad which is called e-commerce). You only need to do it.
Is C++ better*, more secure, faster? Yes. Do you have access to client and server side from a single application - that actually natively has a state? Yup.
Embrace the Dark Side!
* I've not dropped down to C# or VB.Net, either, for that matter.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Vouksh wrote: I don't like blindly relying on an API to just work.
Then I think you are missing the entire point of APIs, IMHO.
Advice? -- Keep plugging away at it; if you are a true developer/programmer/engineer, your passion for the craft will take you to great places and you will get more proficient and feel less "stupid", as you put it. If you are not, then you will fail miserably and be depressed, and look for work elsewhere.
Good luck!!
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I plan on keeping at it. Programming is just a hobby for me, fortunately, so I have plenty of time to slam my head against it till I've learned it. I don't actually plan on making a career of programming. I don't think I could sit in a cubicle all day, I prefer being physically active when I work.
But plugging away at code keeps my brain just as active as my body, even if it does cause me a fair amount of frustration.
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Vouksh wrote: I just can NOT get my head around ASP.NET MVC
Then you are going to have problems with Angular, since it's a client side MVC framework that works very similarly to ASP.NET MVC.
Try Knockout. No-nonsense databinding in javascript without all the MVC noise.
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So I took a look at Knockout, and I can actually read their examples! From the bit that I've seen, I should be able to work with it. Thank you!
I have to rewrite all the the javascript I have so far, but maybe this time I'll understand what I'm writing 
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Vouksh wrote: everything just feels so... hacky
Yup.
Try something simpler, like Knockout (as suggested) or even Backbone. Both have source which is fairly easy to wrap one's head around.
Like you, I come from the happy world of C# (and before that, C++ and Pascal), and it's been quite painful to discover how pathetic HTML is, how pathetic most third party HTML controls are, and how bizarre the hacks are in Javascript to supposedly make web development easier for the programmer.
When I work with other people's code, the DRY principle seems to be thrown out the window and good architecture doesn't exist except possibly what's foisted upon you by the Backbone/Angular/et al "framework", meaning the framework's implementation of a client-side MVC pattern. And debugging Javascript in a browser window can be a frustrating experience, yet I'm actually grateful that debugging is possible, I cringe whenever I put in an "alert" or console.log statement to either check on a variable or test whether the code is even being executed!
It's a mess, and the only way that I've figured out how to deal with it is to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Marc
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Is writing good software hard?
(This should've been posted last Friday, so you will see another in four days.)
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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There are two ways to do anything:- do it right, or do it again.
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That implies the intention to get it right eventually, something which I'm not convinced every software producer has 
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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