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Example: "Windows 8: Why I Won't Upgrade" by Kevin Casey, October 5, 2012 [^].

Articles, like the one cited above, really bother me: the writer gives no evidence he has personally tried Win 8 on his desktop, or his laptop, but he feels free to pontificate and bloviate.

Okay, I do have concerns about Windows 8, and its "shotgun wedding" of desktop and modern modes, its possible use on ARM hardware where the developer must sell through the MS Store, must use WinRT and modern mode, etc.: my concerns are for the future of Win developers (less so for myself as, now: I'm more a dilettante programmer).

And, given the "adoption inertia" (for damn good reasons) in the Enterprise "space," which is a prime component of MS's revenue stream, it does seem reasonable to wonder how Win 8 will "play" in that space, what the adoption rates will look like over time. Will the old maxim, "wait until SP1," still be as "prophetic" as it has been ?

Many friends of mine make the rent, and support the family, from doing Windows development; they have big investments in MS developer-tools and technologies of today. The changes in Win 8 could affect them in large ways.

One friend of mine has a successful company in the devtools arena for WinForms: he's thinking about just turning his back on MS, and going for HTML5+JavaScript+jQuery+CSS3: what a loss for the happy users of his excellent controls, a loss of his continued investment in improving them, innovating, and supporting them.

I also have a "general bias:" I want to see Apple have strong competition across their product lines, based on the general belief that competition, and choice, benefits consumers (the "rest of us").

But, until Win 8 is out, and it becomes clear what advantages it may offer to me, if my primary use of it would be in no-touch keyboard-mouse only desktop-mode, rather than modern/metro-mode, I certainly will not pre-judge its quality, utility, etc.

Which is worse: Ballmer claiming 400 million converts to the one True Eight, or the vast outpourings of fluff pro/con in the technical "press" ? I don't know, but I do understand that it's Ballmer's job, and Sinofsky's, to wax enthusiastic, and be optimistic.

I make a resolution: I will read no more articles about Windows 8 until I start seeing the kind of careful comparisons and benchmarks that you used to find long ago on Tom's Hardware, and that you find today for cameras and lenses on dpreview.com.

whew, I think I got all of it out of my system !

thanks, for loaning me your eyeballs, if you did, best, Bill

~
Confused by Windows 8 ? This may help: [^] !

modified 7-Oct-12 23:24pm.

Here's my report on W8. It's good at some things and not good at others. YMMV.

*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington

"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos

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Same old story, new product.

But I realize that I haven't had a single look at Toms hardware for quite a few years.
And yes, DPReview is also my reference page for photoequipment, together with Fred Miranda[^].

Light moves faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright, until you hear them speak.
List of common misconceptions

That's why I asked here a while ago for sensible opinions from pros -- I'd spent over an hour searching, but couldn't find any on the net.

Blogs, etc, are even worse than standard press, when it comes to exaggeration and sensationalism, because the moment an "opinion poster" realises that making loud noises gets more attention, he starts talking nothing but bollocks -- and they don't have editors to rein them in or demand fact checks.

I keep promising myself that I'll set up a filter to exclude blog addresses and wikipedia (but laziness protocols dictate that I give precedence to hoping that someone will make one that I can just download).

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

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