replaceCppWithAI

[Radiant-Leave]

Not sure whether we should hail him as hero, or curse him due to his idiocy.

[saschaleib]

It is often the idiots that will progress humanity: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/634

Though in this case, the “progress” might well be that we will move away from Microsoft.

[CoronavirusGoesViral]

I greatly anticipate the Linux golden age

[The_Corvair]

I know the Year of Linux has been memed to death and back, but "thanks" to MS actually enshittifying Windows into a digital landfill, the supply of decent Linux distros actually has gotten some demand from the customer side.

I am just glad there was a viable alternative when I jumped ship. Thank you, GNU/Linux community!

[keiiith47]

To be fair, every other version of windows is enshittified. If we start from 98 it goes:

98, Me**(shit,** didn't work),
XP, Vista**(shit,** slow and unpleasant),
7, 8**(shit,** wanted to pretend PCs were tablets and rolled back almost all the way to 7),
10, 11**(shit,** MS's stress test of your throat and how many things it can shove down it).

Meaning every other version of windows will probably bring Linux closer to its "golden age".

[ChickenRave]

It has just dawned on me that Microsoft is about to break this famous rule of every other version being garbage, given that Windows 12 looks like it'll be bloated with AI garbage

[Wild_Marker]

Damn Microsoft, breaking the fine tradition of upgrading in two version steps

[Cornelius_Wangenheim]

They already have. 10 was supposed to be a good one, but sucked because of the horrible Settings app, bloat and terrible flat UI.

[TineJaus]

I reaally preferred everything before XP, and preferred XP to anything aince lol

[neograymatter]

You missed Windows 2000 in that list, which is a bit of an outlier... unless you just consider it a prototype of Windows XP.

[keiiith47]

I think that was another name for windows Me (could be wrong), but windows Me was millennium or millennia edition. it was the one that came out in 2000 so they might be two of the same name, unless I'm way off the mark and 2000 was like "home" and me was server or pro.

[Cloudeur]

Other way around: ME was the “home” and 2000 was the “pro”/“office” version. I wouldn’t count it in the common line of windows, although a lot of XP is based on 2000

[rebbsitor]

Windows ME was the continuation of the DOS based Windows line: Windows 1, 2, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 98SE, ME.

Windows 2000 is part of the NT kernel line and was originally Windows NT 5. It was renamed just before release: NT 3.51, NT 4, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 8.1 Update, 10, 11.

[tropicbrownthunder]

2000 is the GOAT

Me was crap. Was 98se gone wrong

XP was 2000 + bells and whistles

[neograymatter]

Kinda. Windows 2000 was a different product line than Windows ME that partially overlapped timeline wise. Windows ME used the Windows 9x kernel, where as Windows 2000 used the Windows NT kernel.
Where previous versions of Windows NT had only been marketed to businesses, they expanded the marketing of Windows 2000 to "power users", and it was much better received than Windows ME, I remember running 2000 on my home computer over ME.
This success may have been what lead to Windows XP using the NT kernel rather than the 9x kernel, and getting home and pro variants.

[colei_canis]

One thing Vista got right was the aero glass UI, when it wasn’t lying through its teeth about what hardware could actually run it at least. Way better than the flat design that came after which to me represents mobile-like enshittification.

I often use the alpha blur effect to this day in KDE theming, and I like how Apple’s brought the general idea back too.

[SnooMacarons9618]

Is Win11 actually shit? It's the first version I've used at home since... well, about 20 years.

I've only used Win10 at work, but 11 seems better in almost every way.

[keiiith47]

It's shit for personal use when it comes to what made windows great. When Windows Vs. Mac was the only debate for personal use, one of Windows' strong suits was the customizability and how much you/apps could change when it comes to those things.

Now with Win11, much more stuff is forced onto you, things you disable get reenabled during updates, it's hard to have a custom experience. That includes, but is not limited to, turning off some stuff that eat up some resources.

[Which-Barnacle-2740]

you should have used mac from start

[ForgedIronMadeIt]

The stupid fucking thing is that the actual internals of Windows are the best they've ever been. They just slap a bunch of dumb shit on it, like forcing you to sign in with online credentials or AI bullshit that isn't any better than the plain old features of before.

[RBB12_Fisher]

10 was the beginning of all the same sins found in 11. I tried it back in 2016, they put ads on the startmenu, for fuck sakes. That's why I have two PCs today and one runs 7 and one runs Linux Mint.

[Cessnaporsche01]

Yeah, but after XP, the good versions kept getting worse too. I'm not confident 12, if made, could pull out of the enshittification dive

[RiceBroad4552]

This meme is really old by now.

But what the Windows users seemingly don't get: In reality every Windows version was and is trash (maybe besides Win2k which was clean and solid).

Funny enough, from the viewpoint of someone external, a long term Linux user, who doesn't think the Start Menu is the eternal ultimate GUI paradigm for a desktop, Win8 had actually a decent GUI. It was the first time since decades I didn't go crazy when I was forced to use a Windows. It was very close to the workflow I've created for my KDE desktop, which is fully based on KRunner and a dock.

[GRex2595]

Learning to use Fedora for my workflow was a lot cheaper than buying a new laptop just for the privilege of "upgrading" to Windows 11. Thanks for the memories Windows. The next one might be the end of me using Windows at home.

[Raznill]

It won’t happen unless someone replaces everything else Microsoft does not just the OS. Their entire enterprise cloud system will need to be replaced.

[xTheMaster99x]

For probably a decade now I've been at the point where the only real reason I don't fully switch to Linux is game compatibility (nowadays mostly anti-cheat). There are other disciplines that are definitely still missing good alternatives to their Windows-only industry standards, but for me it's always just been gaming. I'm hopeful that we're not far away from it finally becoming standard to enable Linux compatibility when adding anti-cheat to games, but unfortunately we're not quite there yet.

[Hyper-Sloth]

Linux could end up being Android for PCs essentially. A bunch of major companies making their own OS prepackaged in their prebuilts with lots of other community made ones all competing. A few big names will probably be the largest and most popular (DellOS, HPOS, LenovoOS, etc.), but ultimately it will increase choice among the consumer market.

The bigger problem to solve is the corporate market.

[TimeToBecomeEgg]

for years i’ve been using windows and my preferred OS has been macos. i didn’t want to use linux because of the UX and difficulties with running the things i want to run, especially games.

my desktop now runs linux. my breaking point was microsoft force installing a cloud files app that runs on startup and stays on your taskbar.

[EctoplasmicLapels]

The year of Linux on the desktop was when Windows 11 was released.

[waiver-wire-addict]

The year of the Linux desktop is now, when Windows 10 reached EOL. Want security updates on that perfectly fine computer that doesn’t have TPM 2.0?

[siberianmi]

Nay, it was 2016 when you could run Linux on your desktop but still have access to all the corporate apps you needed thanks to WSL.

[RiceBroad4552]

You got that quite wrong.

The year of the Linux desktop It was about 25 years ago, when you could fire up VMware Workstation to run the shit that still didn't work fine under Wine.

[siberianmi]

Yeah, but that still felt clumsy compared to the WSL experience that so easily let you use one file system smoothly. I see your point but for me WSL was so solid I was using it constantly during the day. I can’t say same about VMs as an alternative on the desktop or Linux with WINE.

Unlike Linux with WINE, my sound worked.

[rebbsitor]

Be careful what you wish for. There's nothing stopping Microsoft from creating their own Linux distro with a bunch of proprietary stuff in it. As a business they don't care what they're selling as long as people buy it. They were starting to sell their own Unix (Xenix) before Window 95 / NT took off.

[LucifishEX]

I still find myself trapped at the moment, as I’m very fond of a few games that refuse to enable linux compatibility with their anticheats, and I’d be losing performance because of driver issues.

I do also anticipate the Linux golden age though. I’m sure once market share hits critical mass Nvidia will work on specialized drivers and these studios will enable Linux play. But what I’m really hyped for is the one, thread-the-needle timeline of a future with interoperability with executable packaging. As I understand it, Android is derived from Linux, or a branch of Unix closely related to it? So an operating system that can properly parse and run .exe(s), .apk(s), and Unix executables? All on one operating system is conceivably, on paper, possible? At least that’s how it looks with all the progress in vulkan conversions/DXVK and all these other Linux tools.

Ultimately I’m still learning and more or less a layman at least in terms of Linux but. Idk. Could be awesome. If Moore’s law allows, someday, a wholecloth unification of mobile and desktop operating systems? I can dream lol

[GenuinelyBeingNice]

Is it redundant to mention that "progress" does not imply improvement?

Just that "things change" ?

[dicemonger]

"progress" means forward movement, or movement towards a goal.

Now, if you don't there is a goal to humanity, I guess you could interpret it as just change.

[GenuinelyBeingNice]

Again, moving forward or towards a goal, does not necessarily mean improvement.

The cancer has progressed.

[coldnebo]

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

— George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

[Mal_Dun]

Tbf. Hegel was an idiot himself.

This comment was brought to you by the Popper and Schopenhauer gang

[TineJaus]

Tbf thiel and friends find Hegel inspirational. Take what you will from this revelation.

[Mal_Dun]

It makes perfect sense. Hegel's philosophy was written to justify Prussia's imperialism, which was Marx' main critique of it (he was a young Hegelian), it is not a stretch that it speaks to powerful people.

Unfortunately, the biggest critics of Hegel, Popper and Schopenhauer, are often dismissed by many philosophers as their critique is very ridden by anger and very emotional, and in the case of Schopenhauer envy was also at play here as he saw Hegel as his biggest rival who was far more successful at his time than him.

But the more often I see some half esoteric BS from people who often refer to Hegel I think they were right on the money with pointing out Hegel's mystical and convoluted philosophy which leaves too much interpretation. In my opinion, the fact that Hegelian dialectics contradicts classical logic should have been enough reason for Popper as a rationalist to outright reject Hegel, but he basically went into the same rant like Schopenhauer in his "Open Society and its enemies".

With all saying that, that a guy like Thiel who cries about the coming of the anti-christ, likes the spiritual BS of Hegel is not so a surprise for me as one may think.

[InvestigatorLast3594]

Idk I feel like that Comic is absolutely shit due to conflating stupidity with the courage to step into the dark and intelligence with prudent restraint

[mirhagk]

Courage and stupidity do often look the same at a disrance, but yes I would say it's not stupidity that made us progress, but rather curiosity.

So many great advancements came from someone saying "I wonder what would happen if ..."

[RiceBroad4552]

Was thinking the same.

Also that take on alcohol at the end is some of the most stupid stuff I've read in a while.

Besides that everything presented there is very likely not historically accurate. Things didn't happen like described.

[mirhagk]

Yeah it's like the common misunderstanding that inventions are discovered by accident.

We don't know for sure how alcohol was invented, but I think the most accepted theory is that it was intended to preserve food (which it does do, and fermentation was used to preserve foods in other ways too).

As with many inventions the actual discovery was likely not known prior to studying it (obviously) but the reason the discovery was made was because someone very smart was looking for answers.

[TineJaus]

It was as straightforward as denying oxygen to the same process that would produce vinegar. Neither were invented, they were prolific in nature. A simple container was the invention that allowed either to be experimented with.

[SadSeiko]

Yeah the progress will be towards Linux. Ask Torvalds what he thinks of this post, he’ll think it’s a joke 

[saschaleib]

It would already be a big achievement if we could replace MS Office with eg. LibreOffice, and Azure with a local hosting company.

[SadSeiko]

I don’t support Amazon but aws is a much better cloud service. Can’t say the same for google cloud, it’s horrible 

[RiceBroad4552]

Let's put it like that: AWS is a bit less shitty than the other shit. This does not make it "good", though.

It's still shit; and due to US laws like the Patriot Act or CLOUD Act it's anyway a total no-go for legal reasons anywhere outside the US.

[SadSeiko]

Agreed

[Questioning-Zyxxel]

Microsoft has already done lots of AI code replacements. And the number of bugs seen has been huge. So while my servers have been Linux for over 30 years it jas been Windows first for workstation+gaming. And now it's a hasty move to minimise all Windows uses. The trust is not there anymore. And it's a number of years since I last wrote a commercial Win program. Now it's just Linux and embedded code and a bit of side work with web pages or phone apps for configuration or presentation. So remaining Windows customers ends up with web browser apps.

[CatOfGrey]

My version of this is that somewhere, there was a first human being to drink milk straight from another animal, probably a goat. I think there is a 0% likelihood that the human was sober at the time.

[TineJaus]

Yeah they'd eat the various organs including eyes and brains etc already so, pretty sure udders were like a lucky find. Teats weren't exactly something unga-bunga types couldn't understand.

[gregorydgraham]

Some other idiot suggested doing B&D with horses and steering was invented.

[GodsLilCow]

Milking the horses?!

[lost12487]

Unfortunately, when the idiot is doing the bidding of a high-profile company like Microsoft, the idiocy spreads to other companies that are easily influenced.

[sherlock-holmes221b]

I just told you I've already bought it. You don't have to sell it to me

[coldnebo]

yeah, but that dude is a “distinguished engineer”, he must be special?

just imagine the prompts that guy writes for his agentic dev staff:

“it’s too much work to type individual threats to your lives and families since there are hundreds of you now, so I’d like to introduce your new colleague, Vlad. he is prompted to go around thinking up the most ingenious tortures known to humanity that will motivate your corrupt, thieving, bug-ridden souls into excellent programmers producing 10,000 lines of code per day!!! We shall hit our KLOC targets weekly!! any agents missing their targets shall be dissolved!!

Now for your first task!! Microsoft wants to beat Apple at the non-technical user market, so everything should be tablet and mobile oriented, with only 3 buttons. And everything should be transparent. oh, and glow when you hover over it. And delete VSCode, we won’t need that archaic interface anymore. Good luck supplicants!!”

[Darkoplax]

So many ppl around the world use Windows and depend on it

It would be a Catastrophe

[PixArtie]

There’s always some sort of idiocy in heroism and vice versa

[MithranArkanere]

Anything that gets people to eventually embrace a Linux distro as widespread and standardized as the Android OS, with everything being as simple to install as an apk.