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I've used MS products for a long time, I've been on beta products as well, etc.
Overall, I think MS has been improving majorly in the past few years.
Yes, there are many things I am not happy about, but at the same time I don't think Linux can offer as many tools, etc. I may be a great system, it doesn't have all the tools needed right now.
(As a side note, I think Unix users are a very good reason not to move to Unix systems; Have you ever asked a question to one ? besides pointing you to the manual and telling you that you suck if you don't know that you need rev 294.49 of package A if you want package B to work, unless you have rev 489.2 of package C, etc. The 'we're using Linux, we're better' attitude is a complete disservice to their cause.)
In the meantime, MS is improving their products...
Spyware is an interesting topic; Yes, I like my freedom and I don't like to be spied. However, what is really spying ? Are they prying in your private files ? no. Are they tracking what you're doing on the web ? anybody around you with a packet sniffer can do it. Net accesses have never been private. As long as it's not disruptive, I think it's useful for companies to monitor how people are using their products.
It's like an automated feedback on thousands of people. It's cheap and efficient.
The tool that reports errors is a great idea for example. As a software developper I think it is wonderful to have a way to get infos from crashes on as many different machines as possible.
The windows activation is not new either. I remember all expensive software on Unix system had similar schemes. It's just a way to curb piracy.
What I would worry more is the tendency to go toward renting computers and software rather than buying them. Some Intel people told me about that in 1998 or 1999, the industry is slowly moving there. I think this is the real issue, not really if it's Microsoft or Red Hat that will dominate.
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Paul Watson wrote:
Are there valid reasons not to use MS which do not apply to other companies?
Nope.
What other industries out there, have competing companies agree on using a standard anything? How often have to tried to fix something only to find company ABC used the XYZ wingdingy on that model. Sorry, no they don't really have standards for that stuff.
So why does it come as such a big surprise this thinking has carried over to software??
BW
{insert witty/thought-provoking saying here}
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MS tools are good, especially when you have the time to tweak them, read a lot of articles, go to hundreds of sites, and cycle again.
What makes me furious about MS is their .NET strategy. In short,
- they are relying on developers for .NET evangelization. What do you think developers are going to do when they start distributing .NET-base sharewares or freewares. They're will be a strong issue, because users are forced to download and install a shitload of run-times just to launch a simple .exe. Your program'd better be great, otherwise I am pretty sure you'll be flamed. That's about it, I believe users and customers are going to resent a lot individual developers about .NET if the user experience is worse than before.
That said, everyone must remember that launching a .NET-based application requires a few seconds just to let the CLR compile the IL code.
- they are faking the entire dev community with their multi-language CLR strategy. The only reason why the CLR, in marketing words, accepts more than one language, is that MS want Java implementations be translated as seamlessly as possible to C# or the like. Hence the goal is only to gain the lost business and comfort their monopol.
- the latest MS standards are locking customers and developers. Whenever (for instance) Xml namespaces changes in the future, individual developers are forced to upgrade their products so it keeps working. In other words, you can not develop a program and figure that it will work during 2 years without any change.
This means that, although MS runtimes are at the basis of everything, they not only take your time for you to figure out all the workarounds needed so your program works neatly, the MS runtimes infact lock you into a full-time job just to follow what MS is doing in their service packs and so on. You are glued!!! While you should be freeed!!!!!!!!!!!!
- and finally, last but not least, MS is applying scheduled obsolescence. I fear the day MS tells the world that W2K is legacy, no support for it, and everyone should buy XP licences. That day, that will be a major final f*** for the entire community, (developers, users, customers).
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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StephaneRodriguez wrote:
What do you think developers are going to do when they start distributing .NET-base sharewares or freewares.
The .NET framework has been on Windows update for months. I'm guessing that by the end of the year Windows XP will ship with it. Most magazine coverdisks seem to have a copy. I'm sure IE7 will have it too. This is a temporary thing.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
they are faking the entire dev community with their multi-language CLR strategy.
I think the CLR is the future for Windows development. I think MS know what they are doing with this and have a long term strategy (not just one of giving Java a good kicking)
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
- the latest MS standards are locking customers and developers. Whenever (for instance) Xml namespaces changes in the future, individual developers are forced to upgrade their products so it keeps working. In other words, you can not develop a program and figure that it will work during 2 years without any change.
I'm puzzled, where did you learn this? I can't believe this is true. (If it is, then it is certainly a step backwards from MS - backwards compatability is part of the reason they are so dominant on the desktop)
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
- and finally, last but not least, MS is applying scheduled obsolescence. I fear the day MS tells the world that W2K is legacy, no support for it, and everyone should buy XP licences. That day, that will be a major final f*** for the entire community, (developers, users, customers).
Yeah, but at least we'll always get to play with new toys 
Michael
Programming is great. First they pay you to introduce bugs into software. Then they pay you to remove them again.
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Michael P Butler wrote:
The .NET framework has been on Windows update for months. I'm guessing that by the end of the year Windows XP will ship with it. Most magazine coverdisks seem to have a copy. I'm sure IE7 will have it too. This is a temporary thing.
You're thinking short term. The .NET run-time you have on your system is never up-to-date. There are so many people working on it, and so many customer feedback, that everyone must be ready to download and upgrade the .NET run-time at least two times a year. This is an acceleration on what happened in the past.
And it wouldn't be a shame if run-times were small in size. But that's gigantic!!! Several hundreds of megabytes from a just-formatted system to get up-to-date.
This means those who connect with dialup will never get in touch with it. That's exactly what I am talking about. I develop freewares/sharewares for everyone, not for those with 1GB/s who in addition love blindly upgrading their system.
Michael P Butler wrote:
I think the CLR is the future for Windows development
Multi-language is a fake. No one needs it, no one uses it. The only language optimized for the CLR is C#. People in software houses will start C# development by the 2 next years, and will trash their current VB or C++ stuff. Again, who gives a f*** about the multi-language.
Besides that, most people use Interop (native WIN32 calls) to fill the huge gap in the .NET framework features. So anyone talking about platform interoperability (what CLR is supposed to do in the long term) is just f***ing lying.
When you are a C++ developer, why should you need the CLR. If you need low-level, performance and control, you won't use CLR.
The only new stuff about CLR against MFCs is that typical CLR objects can get to know whether an object in hands is actually valid or if that's void. This prevents most stupid errors we know as C/C++ developers when we have a pointer and we assume it points to a valid object.
But that's all for everyday developers.
About Xml namespaces : you certainly know that a lot of MS products already use xml schemas or other namespaces in Xml streams. Namespaces is a kind of virtual contract (no code here), that's not a DTD or any scheme that would give the ability to validate and bind Xml data types.
MS is using a lot of namespaces already whenever they export or import Xml. Again, whenever MS change the namespaces in a service pack, or a major release, you developer are forced to update YOUR code to make sure the data types bind properly both the newest data types, and the former data types.
In other words, MS controls the change. For instance, IE5 used a 1998 XSLT stylesheet for whatever default Xml transform. And from IE5.5, they are using the 2000 XSLT stylesheet, which is not compatible in any way.
As Xml, XSLT, Xpath, ... are being upgraded by the W3C, new changes are to happen by next year or so.
If you are a developer, you'd better follow every W3C move, and every MS move, or YOUR software won't work.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Multi-language is a fake. No one needs it, no one uses it. The only language optimized for the CLR is C#. People in software houses will start C# development by the 2 next years, and will trash their current VB or C++ stuff. Again, who gives a f*** about the multi-language.
I remember, may years ago, developing a C (not ++) application that needed a grid control. There were billions of VB (COM) ones floating about, that I wasn't able to use. I would have given my eye teeth for multi-language facilities that would have let me use someone else control in my app. I ended up writing my own grid control. Good experience, but a lot more work.
One tremendous use for multi-language is for porting legacy software. Got an old COBOL app you want ported to C++. It's a big job rewriting it completely all at once. Much easier to port it to COBOL.NET, get it working, and then rewrite a bit at a time. If you do it right, you might even be able to leave it in production.
Cheers
The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest.
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A few points.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
- they are relying on developers for .NET evangelization.
Who doesn't. The best marketing technique in the world is word of mouth from a satisfied customer.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
They're will be a strong issue, because users are forced to download and install a shitload of run-times just to launch a simple .exe.
You mention Java later, so I'll bring you up on it. 
Do you remember when Java was released. I do. It was exactly the same. Users had to download and install the JVM and the JDK (if they were developing).
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
That's about it, I believe users and customers are going to resent a lot individual developers about .NET if the user experience is worse than before.
And so they should. But that is not a .NET issue. That is a developer issue. If you produce crap, you should be pulled up on it. But whose fault is that?
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
- they are faking the entire dev community with their multi-language CLR strategy. The only reason why the CLR, in marketing words, accepts more than one language, is that MS want Java implementations be translated as seamlessly as possible to C# or the like. Hence the goal is only to gain the lost business and comfort their monopol.
Welcome to the world of business and marketing. What is the goal of business? It is to make a return on investment. No-one runs a business to give their competitors an advantage. No-one runs a marketing campaign to give their competitors an advantage. Can you imagine Coke advertising that Pepsi tastes better?
It is still a case of Caveat Emptor. If you don't believe MS claims about .NET... don't use it. No-one is forcing you to use it. Time will tell if the claims of the MS Marketing department are true.
I also believe that the reason CLR works with multiple languages is to shaft Java. But there is another good business reason. It's called reuse. It means that less work has to go into upgrading their products. When all the languages are updated for .NET v2, there will be a hell of a lot less work to make all their features work. They don't need to update MFC, and the VB libs, and the C# libs, and the Eiffel libs. Only one set of libraries need to be updated.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
- the latest MS standards are locking customers and developers. Whenever (for instance) Xml namespaces changes in the future, individual developers are forced to upgrade their products so it keeps working. In other words, you can not develop a program and figure that it will work during 2 years without any change.
I'm not a hundred percent sure what you mean by this, but XML doesn't lock us in as much as the old proprietry formats used to. It would be much faster to upgrade with XML than it would be with any of the old binary formats they used to use. Apparently, much of MS Office will store it's data in XML. Makes it a lot easier to write a converter for say, a Word document.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
This means that, although MS runtimes are at the basis of everything, they not only take your time for you to figure out all the workarounds needed so your program works neatly, the MS runtimes infact lock you into a full-time job just to follow what MS is doing in their service packs and so on. You are glued!!! While you should be freeed!!!!!!!!!!!!
I honestly don't see this. MS runtimes are at the centre of everything whether you use .NET or not. If you use Linux, their runtimes are at the centre of everything. If you use Java, ectcetera, etcetera.
I think you are making an assumption that MS will deliberately go out of their way to make things harder for developers. I don't agree with this viewpoint. First it will be quite foolish at a time when Linux is gaining market share. One thing about MS is that they aren't foolish. Second, and related to the first point, you catch more flies with honey. MS are more likely to make things easier to use as time goes by. It will get them more developers. Look at Direct3D. Early on it was real hard to use. OpenGL was a lot easier. MS iteratively refined it until D3D was easy to use and provided more features than OGL. Now it is the dominant 3D platform on the PC.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
- and finally, last but not least, MS is applying scheduled obsolescence. I fear the day MS tells the world that W2K is legacy, no support for it, and everyone should buy XP licences. That day, that will be a major final f*** for the entire community, (developers, users, customers).
Who doesn't?
One day W2K will be obsolete and unsupported. Just as Windows 3.0 is. It's called progress.
Is this a MS thing? Well not really. Sun have released a number of new Java versions. All of the shrinkwrap software companies I have worked for have released new versions of their software. Not because the customers need the extra features, but because the company needs the cash flow.
MS also need to keep up with the competition by adding new features. Software is a feature driven industry. In a purely business sense, do you think any software company can survive for long on one release if their competition makes a release with new and improved features?
When all is said and done, my sig says it all.
Cheers
The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest.
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Mr Morden wrote:
Users had to download and install the JVM and the JDK (if they were developing).
That's untrue. JVM is bundled in both Netscape and IE packages. Besides that, the JVM was 5MB or less at the time it came in the mass market. Compare it with .NET : base framework, service pack, IE6, MDAC, ... (a hundred megabytes, two hundred megabytes ?)
Mr Morden wrote:
Welcome to the world of business and marketing. What is the goal of business?
Don't play me. I am ok with buying MS product and relying on them in my developments. But what I want is consistent, reliable, run-times. MS happens to do the exact contrary of that (how many MSDN topics have been removed from the documentation according to you ?), and worse : it is accelerating a lot. APIs are said to be legacy very very fast these days.
That said, MS hasn't been able to come up with a .NET framework able to cover all dev needs in one package. Because of this, many people rely on interop and marshaling to do even simple things such like SendMessage ! That's just incredible. In this point of view, CLR is just a propaganda.
And because of that, we won't get rid of COM and the registry until the end of time, unlike what MS marketers and supporters say.
Mr Morden wrote:
I'm not a hundred percent sure what you mean by this, but XML doesn't lock us in as much as the old proprietry formats used to.
When you are using Xml, most of the time the application logic is written using any language such like VB, C++, C#, ... If an Xml namespace change, the data type binding changes (for instance date formats change), thus you must change the application logic because that's where you had a date parser. That's all. All MS products released since 2 years have MS Xml namespaces built-in. Whenever these namespaces change, you must change your code. Worse than that, you must support both older and newer versions. What else could you do when you intent to sell products that support SQL server, etc.
Mr Morden wrote:
Look at Direct3D. Early on it was real hard to use
DirectX is a failure though in the dev point of view. It is supposed to provide software support whenever the hardware capabilities of your display card says no. It is simply wrong. Programming DirectX or DirectXMedia is a knightmare (especially with versioning, and features that have been removed in newer releases without notice (for instance color-key blitting)).
Mr Morden wrote:
One day W2K will be obsolete and unsupported. Just as Windows 3.0 is. It's called progress
That's just plain insolence from you! Tools that came earlier than Windows XP were freeing the customer, letting him install whatever he wanted, and actually do real work. OS like Windows XPs, XP service packs, and all incoming XP sh*t are locking customers into key-validation, continued upgrading (IE6 SP1 package is 75MB in worst case), MS tracking (in the name of better support), and scheduled software obsolescence.
By the two next/four years, you'll certainly see more concern about it. Just wait W2K is no more supported by MS.
Again, I certainly buy MS products if they have a simple, consistent install process, allow me to do REAL WORK, and don't upset with so-called required upgrades all the time. Don't call me anti-MS, that's not the point.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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StephaneRodriguez wrote:
That's untrue. JVM is bundled in both Netscape and IE packages. Besides that, the JVM was 5MB or less at the time it came in the mass market.
Not initially. I remember having to download it. Or maybe I had to download the new IE. I know I had to download something to use it. Let's just say it didn't come standard with my version of Windows.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Compare it with .NET : base framework, service pack, IE6, MDAC, ... (a hundred megabytes, two hundred megabytes ?)
I believe the .NET framework is about 20MB. I downloaded the SDK, that was 130MB.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Don't play me. I am ok with buying MS product and relying on them in my developments. But what I want is consistent, reliable, run-times. MS happens to do the exact contrary of that (how many MSDN topics have been removed from the documentation according to you ?),
Don't play you!  You certainly seem to be taking what I said somewhat personally.
I haven't found MS products getting unreliable. If anything my experience is that they seem to be getting more reliable. W2K and WXP are about a million times more reliable than that evil Win98 that I had to put up with.
I am still using VC6 with April 2001 MSDN. My sub ran out so and I didn't upgrade. I've heard stuff has been removed, I don't agree with that however.
I am using SharpDevelop and the .NET SDK to develop. The upgrade price of VS.NET was a bit of a shock, and wasn't in the budget. I'll probably get it sometime in the next year or two though since I want to do some add-ins for it.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
That's just plain insolence from you!
Why is the truth insolence? One day XP will be obsolete, just as Linux, or MacOS or any other human invention.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
DirectX is a failure though in the dev point of view.
Bull! More game developers use DX than use OGL. That doesn't appear to be a failure to me.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
When you are using Xml, most of the time the application logic is written using any language such like VB, C++, C#, ... If an Xml namespace change, the data type binding changes (for instance date formats change), thus you must change the application logic because that's where you had a date parser. That's all. All MS products released since 2 years have MS Xml namespaces built-in. Whenever these namespaces change, you must change your code. Worse than that, you must support both older and newer versions. What else could you do when you intent to sell products that support SQL server, etc.
That's true only if you rebuild your application. As for breaking existing apps, well, from my experience MS have been really big on backwards compatibility for years. After all, most versions of Windows (for the consumer not business) up till now have been based on the old DOS 16bit framework.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Don't call me anti-MS, that's not the point.
I didn't.
You seem to think I was criticising you directly. I wasn't. I was just making a couple of points about your post that I thought were wrong.
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Londo wrote:
You seem to think I was criticising you directly
I don't. That's something I put now in my post so people don't say useslessly that I am bashing MS. This is kind of filter out, only those who are willing to understand actually stay.
Londo wrote:
Let's just say it (Java) didn't come standard with my version of Windows
Have you been on earth planet since 1997 and have you ever used Netscape or IE ? If answer is yes, then you have the JVM installed on your system with no need of an additional download. (to be honest, these days the JVM has become weird and needs something called the java plug-in or something like that, which is not the best thing I have seen from Sun!).
Londo wrote:
I believe the .NET framework is about 20MB
So I have to repeat myself again. The base run-time is 21MB. But the .NET SP2 is 6MB. In addition, if you are a simple user, you also need to download IE6 (75MB), MDAC2.7 (only if the app uses data access, which is likely however), plus all required assemblies (for instance you may need the MSORACLE .NET driver). We have already totalled more than 100MB here...just to run the .exe
If you are running W2K, you must also have W2K SP2.
And of course, all of this is not done automatically, with a user-friendly GUI, all this occurs with ugly modal error boxes telling you for instance that mscoree.dll is missing.
That's not exactly what I expect from MS as a next generation platform!
I am on the end-user side. I don't give a sh*t that the so-called assemblies can be copied in the application folder, as long as .NET-based applications can not install with smooth installers. That's what I expected from MS. InstallShield is still lagging behind with their f***ing .msi things, so there is nothing good, easy and seamless to expect from the deployment side in the future.
Londo wrote:
Why is the truth insolence? One day XP will be obsolete
The point is MS is putting a lot of bad practices behind the XP OS. And it's putting ALL his strength to make sure that current W9X/NT/2K customers are REQUIRED to upgrade to XP as fast and as relentlessly as possible. That's plain monopoly here, not customer empowerment. I am willing to buy an MS product, but once done, I want the program to work as sold for at least 4 years, and I don't want to hear about MS, especially if MS tells me that if I don't upgrade, any number of things on my system will stop working.
XP SP1 is 132MB.
IE6 SP1 is somewhere from 10 and 75MB.
Office SP is ?
W2KSP3 is ?
.NET+SP2 is ?
And service packs are just supposed to fix things. There is no feature.
So what ? Isn't there anything wrong here ?
Londo wrote:
Bull! More game developers use DX than use OGL. That doesn't appear to be a failure to me.
You don't read what my say. I have said "in the dev point of view". I know developers use it, how couldn't they ? DirectX is the defacto platform for game development if you want to take advantage of the hardware. But I am saying that this encourages hardware upgrade to the newest display card (and by the way the unsafest drivers), while in the mean time DirectX was supposed to do a lot of things other than simple hardware. After all, in today's games, DirectX COM interfaces are pointers to the hardware. There is no software and no MS there anymore.
If you have a 2-year old PC display card, even with a 800Mhz PC, you won't be able to play the latest games. What the f*** is that ?
Again, customers is supposed to buy as recklessly as possible. Instead of affording a buy once, and then be safe for the next 4 years, you must upgrade. Only the richest can survive in this economy.
Londo wrote:
That's true only if you rebuild your application. As for breaking existing apps, well, from my experience MS have been really big on backwards compatibility for years. After all, most versions of Windows (for the consumer not business) up till now have been based on the old DOS 16bit framework
You seem to misunderstand what an Xml namespace is, and where it actually lies.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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StephaneRodriguez wrote:
I don't. That's something I put now in my post so people don't say useslessly that I am bashing MS. This is kind of filter out, only those who are willing to understand actually stay.
Cool.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Have you been on earth planet since 1997 and have you ever used Netscape or IE ? If answer is yes, then you have the JVM installed on your system with no need of an additional download. (to be honest, these days the JVM has become weird and needs something called the java plug-in or something like that, which is not the best thing I have seen from Sun!).
I've actually been in earth since 1965. I've been programming since 1984, and using the internet since about 1995.
I got really pissed with Java a couple of years ago when I couldnt find a decent development environment that wasn't about ten times slower than the VC IDE. I've been pretty much ignoring it since.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
So I have to repeat myself again. The base run-time is 21MB. But the .NET SP2 is 6MB. In addition, if you are a simple user, you also need to download IE6 (75MB),plus all required assemblies (for instance you may need the MSORACLE .NET driver). We have already totalled more than 100MB here...just to run the .exe
If you are running W2K, you must also have W2K SP2.
Ok. I'm not convinced you *have* to download IE6. But the developer should provide any required assemblies in their distro. It's not MS responsibility to distribute Oracles drivers.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
And it's putting ALL his strength to make sure that current W9X/NT/2K customers are REQUIRED to upgrade to XP as fast and as relentlessly as possible. That's plain monopoly here, not customer empowerment.
No. That is business. It's what I said before. If you don't get your customers to upgrade you run out of cash-flow and your shareholders get really, really angry. MS leverage their size and monopoly (though I don't agree that it really is) to get customers to upgrade. Good or bad? Depends on your point of view I guess.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
And service packs are just supposed to fix things. There is no feature.
So what ? Isn't there anything wrong here ?
I agree. Service packs are supposed to add just fixes. But what I said before also applies. Software is a feature driven industry. When new releases are years apart, marketing departments often like to "keep everyone up to date".
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
You don't read what my say.
Actually I did.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
I know developers use it, how couldn't they ?
OpenGL is still a viable option supported by the major graphics chip makers. Developers have chosen to develop with DX. Maybe some have been marketing driven decisions, but the fact remains, there are other options.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
DirectX is the defacto platform for game development if you want to take advantage of the hardware. But I am saying that this encourages hardware upgrade to the newest display card (and by the way the unsafest drivers),
Not at all. DirectX doesn't encourage the hardware upgrade cycle. The fact that ID Software write a game (Doom3) that requires the latest hardware causes that. ID, BTW, use OpenGL.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
while in the mean time DirectX was supposed to do a lot of things other than simple hardware.
It does. DX is more than just graphics. It provides sound, network, and input support as well.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
After all, in today's games, DirectX COM interfaces are pointers to the hardware. There is no software and no MS there anymore.
No. DirectX is effectively a common interface to the hardware vendors drivers. It is a layer above the layer that sits on the hardware.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
If you have a 2-year old PC display card, even with a 800Mhz PC, you won't be able to play the latest games. What the f*** is that ?
I have a GF2 MX and a 1.2GHz machine and can play Warcraft 3 and NeverWinter Nights without having to go to the minimum settings and without poor framerates and other problems.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Again, customers is supposed to buy as recklessly as possible. Instead of affording a buy once, and then be safe for the next 4 years, you must upgrade. Only the richest can survive in this economy.
That is not MS. That is, for better or worse, the industry we are in. My first computer was a Vic20. I bought it for $299. One month later it was selling for $199. Moores law has had the power of computers doubling every 12 to 18 months. Like it or not, we will have to put up with this phenomenom for a while yet.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
You seem to misunderstand what an Xml namespace is, and where it actually lies.
Probably. 
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Londo wrote:
I got really pissed with Java a couple of years ago when I couldnt find a decent development environment that wasn't about ten times slower than the VC IDE
So is VS.NET when you "only" have 128MB of RAM.
Londo wrote:
But the developer should provide any required assemblies in their distro
So it's ok if my shareware is 100MB instead of 1MB. Be ready to be flamed. Be ready to fail.
All in all, a .NET application works great when the end-user has the exact replication of the developer environment, which is not exactly what I would call an improvement over the former VC++6.
Londo wrote:
DX is more than just graphics. It provides sound, network, and input support as well.
Let's forget about DirectX. It has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Especially when, in former high times, when I asked DirectX people (phil taylor, brian marshall, ...) about the DirectX bugs, they often replied that I was using legacy code and thus required to upgrade to the latest beta. (in fact bugs were not fixed, just nex unecpected behaivours instead. And new COM interfaces forced upgrading the code).
Londo wrote:
That is not MS. That is, for better or worse, the industry we are in.
The way you see it is because you can afford it. So do I, but it's clear in my mind that we are nerds and are failing what IT should do for the "normal" people as a whole.
If your repository of Word documents cannot be read by 5 years, what do you do then ? Would you give MS a million dollars so they return you your documents in the latest format ? Come on, scheduled obsolescence is something that you cannot stand, especially with such an acceleration.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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StephaneRodriguez wrote:
So is VS.NET when you "only" have 128MB of RAM.
I don't use it, so I don't know about that. In anycase RAM is as cheap as chips at the moment. Pardon the pun.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
So it's ok if my shareware is 100MB instead of 1MB. Be ready to be flamed. Be ready to fail.
If you are using third party libraries, aren't you responsible for the size of your application? Why is MS responsible for the size of Oracles assemblies? (or anyone elses for that matter.)
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Let's forget about DirectX.
Ok.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
The way you see it is because you can afford it.
I wish I could. I'd love to upgrade to the top end system every 18 months. I just don't have $18K to spend that often.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
So do I, but it's clear in my mind that we are nerds and are failing what IT should do for the "normal" people as a whole.
I don't think so. It's my belief that several things are driving this incredible rate of advance that we are seeing.
1. Marketing departments pack in the features which require faster and better systems.
2. Computer Games have been somewhat responsible over the last number of years by always pushing the envelope of graphics and AI. Most gamers now expect the next game to be an order of magnitude better than the previous.
3. The technology is feeding on itself. Faster computers mean more power to design the next generation of chips.
4. People themselves are now expecting that rate of increase. Some of them are nerds like us. Others are just ordinary folks who have heard about it for so long they now expect this rate of increase to continue.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
If your repository of Word documents cannot be read by 5 years, what do you do then ? Would you give MS a million dollars so they return you your documents in the latest format ?
Doesn't Word still read files produced by Word 2.0? I think they still have loaders for Wordperfect. MS will always have a way of importing older files. They have to when some of their biggest clients including governments have repositories of documents going back years.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Come on, scheduled obsolescence is something that you cannot stand, especially with such an acceleration.
I'm not particularly a fan of scheduled obscelence anymore than you are. My car, fridge, washing machine, television and VCR are all designed to fail in a few short years. Unfortunately computers aren't any different.
BTW, did you know that it was possible to build a light bulb that never burns out. In fact the companies that make them have known how for years. None will ever make one though. The company that does will bankrupt every other lightbulb company and then put itself out of business. Obscelence is necessary for a healthy economy. It's just a pity things become obsolete so quickly.
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Londo wrote:
1. Marketing departments pack in the features which require faster and better systems.
By better systems, you mean New systems. It's too bad that big companies such like MS do this successfully (until now, and it's slightly changing because most corporate people figure out they don't need more than 2Ghz to run Word...), while small companies would automatically die for having such a behaviour.
Londo wrote:
2. Computer Games have been somewhat responsible over the last number of years by always pushing the envelope of graphics and AI. Most gamers now expect the next game to be an order of magnitude better than the previous.
Gamers want entertainment. Tetris is entertainment.
Londo wrote:
4. People themselves are now expecting that rate of increase. Some of them are nerds like us. Others are just ordinary folks who have heard about it for so long they now expect this rate of increase to continue.
That's very true, not only about IT. People zap as fast as hell. The trouble is that without an attitude, culture, memory, and direction, they are not going anywhere.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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StephaneRodriguez wrote:
By better systems, you mean New systems. It's too bad that big companies such like MS do this successfully (until now, and it's slightly changing because most corporate people figure out they don't need more than 2Ghz to run Word...), while small companies would automatically die for having such a behaviour.
By inference, yes. I've always told people who ask me if they should get a new computer that they should only if they need to.
I reckon you're right about the big companies being the culprits here. Smaller companies are going along for the ride on this one too. I think people are expecting broadband to solve their problems with big downloads. Unfortunately the downloads will get bigger.
StephaneRodriguez wrote:
Gamers want entertainment. Tetris is entertainment.
True. I enjoy a good game of Tetris now and then. You should read some of the game reviews though. A game doesn't really rate highly these days if it doesn't have the best graphics. (In general, some less graphically oriented games rate well, but they don't get Game Of The Year.)
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So anyway, can everyone please list why they feel they shouldn't be using MS products? Are there valid reasons which do not apply to other companies?
My issue with Microsoft is that their products are the best because they have nudged out every other competitor, and this strategy is always bad for the consumer.
I still remember when the only way to get a performance CPU was to buy Intel's latest offering. I remember those high end 200 MHz Pentium processors costing $900 a pop. When a competitor came in with an equal performing processor (The Athlon, don't count those K6 pieces of junk) the result was that plumetting processor cost and skyrocketing processor performance. A huge win for the consumer.
Microsoft has been found guilty of illegally acquiring and abusing its monopoly. Nobody is coming out with competition to microsoft's products, because there has been no indication that any of the rulings have been effective in curbing microsoft's continued leveraging of its monopoly to dominate other marketplaces.
So there's nothing technically wrong with Microsoft's products. They are the best out there. But there's good evidence to show that we would have even better products if a competitor had survived and microsoft was fighting someone for marketshare. Microsoft products are good, but we lack something to compare them against, and that's what is actually wrong with them.
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Thanks for the reasons, they are valid ones and we should all consider them.
However until there really are competitors what are we, people who want to get our jobs done, supposed to do? Suffer with inferior tools but be proud that we are not using the spawn of an unethical company?
For instance I won't buy Nike anymore after all that came out about them. However there are equally good alternatives, so it is not hard to swap.
So we are in a tough area. We can continue to buy and use MS products, so prolonging their dominance and giving them ammo to continue being unethical, or we can try alternatives.
What do you do, anonymous?
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Anonymous wrote:
Microsoft products are good, but we lack something to compare them against, and that's what is actually wrong with them.
Actually no. MS has introduced CRM software a couple of months ago. CRM they have bought from somewhere (I can't remember who at the mo). This directly competes with Siebel, SAP, BOBJ, etc.
And when you compare features, etc. that's useless and clueless because what counts is customer penetration, and those I mention have all the market share, MS has none.
This means most of the time competition is not matter of technical sh*t.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site. Support for development will ship at the same time as the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) release.
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Well, there's probably no point in replying to this now, but for the record -
Of the operating systems i've used, the first, second, fifth and sixth have been from MS. The second, third, fourth, and eighth programming environments i've used were as well. Even though i'm relatively young, MS has still been part of my computing experience for a rather long time.
And until very recently they've done little but disappoint me.
DOS, Win3.1, Win9x all were *bad* operating systems. DOS at least was minimal enough that it didn't get in the way of the better software, but both Win3.1 and Win9x tainted everything they touched. Nothing i've used before or since has come close to the frustration i experienced using Win9x. Win2k and up have been very good, IMHO, but the memory lives on.
Until quite recently, i could not afford to purchase Visual Studio, and so my experiences with Microsoft languages were dominated by variations on BASIC. There is really nothing i can say that will make that any worse. The memory still scars me.
Worse yet, prior to Win2k, there *were* better operating systems. I lived happily with OS/2, and then Linux. The thought that if MS had just adopted one of these (though i'll admit in the case of OS/2 it's not entirely their fault) we could have skipped five painful years of Win9x (hah! as though it were gone now...  ) haunts me.
So my answer is, although there are always many little reasons not to like a company or it's products, i don't have any huge blanket reason not to use MS software - which is why i currently *am* using MS software to make a living. But I have no love for the company, and though logically i should consider them in the same class as many others, the thought of MS software still fills me with a greater feeling of disgust.
---------------- Shog9 ----------------
------- Drink Coca-Cola -------
---- Use SciTE ----
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i dislike them because they use their enormous weight to push other people out of the market. Netscape is the obvious example, but there are others.
yes, i realize that capitalism is the best thing in the world, ever.
-c
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming:
"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
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This is a true thing but one must have a humanitarian side. I chose to express my capitalistic side personally. 
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Paul Watson wrote:
So anyway, can everyone please list why they feel they shouldn't be using MS products? Are there valid reasons which do not apply to other companies?
Most people look at it backwards.
I think you should be asking what can MS/windows do that other products/companies can't.
Lets say you needed a toaster and you were looking at two different options, one was free and the other one cost $50. Wouldn't you ask yourself if the one that cost you some of your hard earned money was worth paying for? Or would you feel compelled to pay for that one unless someone else could talk you into the free one? Personally I would look at what the free one had to offer and then make sure that the other one could load the toast into itself without my assistance before I forked over $50.
So this brings up a question. What can you do on your windows box that I can't do on my linux box?
-Jack
If things are as bad as they can be, you can be sure there'll be a brighter tomarrow.
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As a user, I think I'll probably always use Microsoft software. As a programmer, I think I'd have little trouble moving to a non-M$ environment in C++.
This question seems a little odd to me.
Christian
Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002
Cats, and most other animals apart from mad cows can write fully functional vb code. - Simon Walton - 6-Aug-2002
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This reminds me of some marketing research stats we got fed at Symantec. Some firm asked people two quesions regarding satisfaction: 1) Do you think you will use Company ABC's software in the future? and 2) Would you recommend Company ABC's software to your friends? Microsoft always scored 100% on #1, because can you really say you'll never use anything from MS again?
And yes I know us computer geeks can go w/o MS if we want. This was research done with lots of users from the general [non-geek] public.
--Mike--
Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.4 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer
My really out-of-date homepage
Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm
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