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Mycroft Holmes wrote: to move from the MS development stack. I just wish the stack would stay the same for a reasonable length of time.
I enjoy Windows Phone development. But things have been changing too rapidly on the tech side and too slowly on the market / business side.
It was Silverlight first and then Xaml / JavaScript (WinJS) and now UWP.
All in a span of just a couple of years.
Even if I decide to move to UWP (which can still be Xaml but with different api), there is still no clarity when Windows Mobile 10 will be released.
There is the business side to it too (the delay in releasing Windows Mobile 10).
If there are fewer Windows Phone users there will be fewer people downloading apps and hence making apps will just not be fun anymore.
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: I say this as a dedicated WPF developer who does not expect to move from the MS development stack. I just wish the stack would stay the same for a reasonable length of time.
This is really interesting to me because as a 45-year-old developer I sometimes wonder if it is just me getting old or whether new 'technology' is coming out increasingly quickly. It appears that more and more changes happen to solve issues which any good developer should be ably to solve without the latest flavour-of-the month huge library or frameworks. Libraries/frameworks which frequently involve ugly code workarounds because there are some things the libraries or frameworks cannot do.
I know I am sounding like a grumpy old developer - there are some great advances out there, it just appears that we have to keep using 'new technology' to rewrite what were perfectly well working systems because some clever marketing convinces people that if you are not using the latest libraries or frameworks you are doing it wrong.
Basically my question is - what happened to software engineering?
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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GuyThiebaut wrote: as a 45-year-old developer
Whipper snapper!
Thankfully I work in the corporate software area where data and processing are the requirements, TSQL hasn't changed dramatically in decades, object databases, nosql, hadoop and most of the other new, shiny stuff has not impacted on my area at all.
The UI on the other hand has been a rather fractious, we went from winforms to silverlight because at last we could give the user a responsive UI similar to or better than winforms. We have now done to WPF because the knowledge transfer is excellent.
The current web stack is garbage, skill base must be 3-4 times larger, UI response is average at best and delivery times are at least double that of WPF.
The only thing I regret is that we may be forced into mobile UIs before there is a decent, stable platform to work with.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: The current web stack is garbage, skill base must be 3-4 times larger, UI response is average at best and delivery times are at least double that of WPF.
I generally regard that most site response times are so bad not so much because of the frameworks used, but because people are programming really bloaty sites beyond the framework - i.e. all the ad holders, trackers etc. For example, I know Bootstrap can be used to develop a reasonable speed UI, until you suddenly start adding a few megs of bloated adverts.
(47 year old dev....  )
Edit: BTW I have to agree that some of the engineering appear to have disappeared from software development.
modified 22-Jan-16 9:19am.
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: They have such a long track record of screwing the developers, releasing buggy software and trying to force the market into their concept of what should be that no one in their right mind will trust them anymore.
Indeed, and that's exactly why all twelve million of us huddle here, taking comfort in the fact that under-the-covers we are sharing our mutual traumas which cannot be named, and, thus, diluting our suffering.
A lot of warmth in that ... huddle
cheers, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: You KNOW they are going to admit defeat sometime in the near future and buy into Android.
God, I hope not.
My Lumia 1520 broke...not surprising, since it flew off the roof of my car at 45 mph and went bouncing down the road...
Anyway, the "insurance" I had sent an equivalent replacement. Their idea of equivalent is an HTC ONE M9 Android phone.
Android is ridiculous. Why does anyone like it? I've yet to get it to do anything useful.
Windows phone: Turn it on. Get in the car. Bluetooth connects. SMS message comes in and is read over the car's system. Then you reply to the message. Simples.
Android phone: Doesn't do anything like natively, so try out 7 hand free SMS apps for driving. Half don't work at all. The other half are divided between screwing up your phone's audio and not being able to reply via voice. Only another 100 or so apps to "test drive", so to speak. Maybe I'll find one that isn't crap.
Or maybe I'll just spring for the 950 XL and give the Android to someone who doesn't know any better.
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Actually I find the Note 4 quite useful, then again I don't expect too much from it, set the bar low and you will not be dissapointed 
Blue tooth works with both car (rented) and sound bar automatically. I never use hands free anything so it is not an issue thank Ghu!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Exactly, but I don't think Windows Mobile 10 is late, I think Windows 10 was released very soon. Even today, they are sending major bug fixes, driver support and other stuff. I bought Windows Phone (Lumia 532) as a gift for my mother and I recommended Windows Phone (Lumia 535) to my love (Note: Both of these mobiles support Windows 10 and are waiting for the update), and now that I have tried them I feel sorry for not trusting Android with it and when time came to select a phone for myself, I selected LG G3. A perfect mobile!  But, as Windows fan, I am still going to invest some leap of faith in Lumia 950 XL (if that doesn't fit, I am going to be an Android evangelist).
They are not "losing the trust", they have already lost it. At least, I can speak for myself, and I personally think Ubuntu is way better than Windows 10. I would like to get the Ubuntu's mobile version and install it on my previous mobile device to see if that works.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan wrote: Exactly, but I don't think Windows Mobile 10 is late, I think Windows 10 was released very soon
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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan wrote: Windows 10 was released very soon
I figure the "real" RC will arrive around June.
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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Abhinav S wrote:
They are also loosing the trust of their last bunch of loyal supporters (at least for the Windows Phone).
What? BOTH of them? 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I am (mostly) enjoying as Insider for almost a year now on Lumia 1520 ... it's not sooo buggy though ... only soo 
modified 19-Nov-18 21:01pm.
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Dry ice screaming[^]
That's... freaky.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Yeah saw it the other week, neat huh.
The general consensus is that it's just a result of the hard edges of the steel part combined with the fact it's wrapped in the plastic bag. Since the CO₂ itself doesn't make any noise when it changes state, something else is going on here. If you pay close attention to the surface facing the camera, you can see what appears to be increasing vacuum created each time the guy presses the ice up against the part.
Others speculated that it had something to do with the corrugations in the cardboard. Indeed, I'd initially thought that to be the mechanism, but someone else pointed out the suction effect created on the bag.
It sounds a lot like a leaking vacuum line, as opposed to leaking positive pressure.
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I never heard that sound before; but gently pressing things like a spoon against a block of dry ice to make noise is a lot of fun.
The noise comes from it oscillating as each contact sublimates enough CO2 to briefly bounce it off the surface.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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"Discovered" that when I was 8 or so, and dropped a piece of dry ice on the linoleum.
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I'm starting to really hate InstallShield, so to vent a little bit I am looking around for alternatives and see if the grass is greener on the other side.
One product I just found is Advanced Installer[^].
We are installing a Windows desktop application, with a couple of pre-requisite and a couple of DLL to register.
Anyone used it ?
I'd rather be phishing!
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I use the WiX Toolset. It can do all I need as far as creating installation files is concerned. And: It's free!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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That's a failure in globalization.
WiX toolset becomes quite funny in German.
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Yes, and in German it belongs in the Soapbox!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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I second WiX. Easy to use, and VERY powerful.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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If anyone starts out with WiX, I would recommend the book by Nick Ramirez: "WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML."
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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I would not say easy... You have to read a lot of documentation and try to find information...
The good thing is that the format is based on XML and that it can be split in multiple files which is good for source control and history.
The bad things is that it seems that are not many good tools to help creating those files nor much good tutorials on how to do things.
Philippe Mori
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I use Nullsoft Installer[^] - it's definitely not an advanced solution, but it's free, and I feel that I have more control over what's actually happening when I write the script myself. Many of the advanced GUIS (like InstallShield) have so many options, that they're hard to customize because you can't figure out how and where to do it.
Alse, I've had a lot of problems with the installation localization (even for installations where I don't even have localization). Suddenly - without notice - InstallShield will start to claim that it can't locate certain strings - without telling you exactly what strings it is... 
And InstallShield is of course WAAAAAY too expensive...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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My experience with InstallShield was a nightmare! And it is ridiculously expensive. 
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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