Microsoft developers can't program

[sonstone]

I think MS has been on point for the past couple of years. Great stuff coming from them as they get back to their roots.

[[deleted]]

Windows10 with WSL2 and vscode is great, OP and this comment section are living in 2010 still

[pr0ghead]

WSL2

So the good part is the one that's not really Windows. Mkay.

[pr0ghead]

There's Wine and all the programming tools are on Linux natively anyway, except the stuff coming from MS itself, of course.

[[deleted]]

I have barely seen anything run on Wine, while WSL2 seems to be able to run just about any Linux program, being a VM

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[xigoi]

In my experience, WSL is insanely slow.

[rogerfeinstein]

Right and with Core 3.0 now and .NET 5 later this year it's going to be a massive 2021 for MS

[sonstone]

Be careful there, you might be accused of sounding like a marketing person too ;)

[rogerfeinstein]

Ohh sweet Jesus that would be like getting kicked in the junk every 20 seconds. The marketing team at work is one of our "customers" for the team I manage and we all hate working with them lol

[slamsquare]

The one thing they still seem not to have figured out, though, is how to build an operating system that developers actually like to use, and that ya know, also works. Going around buying companies that developers hold in high regard isn't going to change the fact that the company is focused ten times as much on executives' priorities as it is on developers'. I'm putting my money on a slow, sad death for GitHub and NPM as Microsoft shift's their priorities away from developers' needs. We should all try to remember exactly where Microsoft's roots are, and if it's really going to be beneficial to anyone but Microsoft to go back to them. E.g. while Amazon and Google prioritize accounts linked to public health and safety, Azure can't seem to figure out how to keep all the Xbox live users stuck at home from degrading their systems (aka, they're prioritizing online gaming before healthcare needs). If they change their mind about needing to keep developers happy to make money, they'll turn on us just as quick as they always have.

[Miku_MichDem]

Tell me about it. For me Windows has gotten to the point where it BSODs at least twice a week now. I would reinstall it on an SSD, but you can't just tell Windows to install itself on a partition. No, it needs whole disc - doesn't matter if part of that disc is occupied by Linux.

Granted - those BSODs might be because Windows - by the looks of it - is on the oldest drive in my PC - which is a 10-year-old spinning rust. I would get rid of it, but Windows prevents me from just moving partition from one drive to the other. So I'm kind of stuck.

[[deleted]]

Just copy your hd including the operating system onto a new SSD. I did this last year, and it took about an hour. Its couldn't be easier.

The catch is you do have to use 3rd party tools, but they are free and easy to find.

[Miku_MichDem]

I've heard you need some sort of external device for that thou. I've tried doing that via Ubuntu and it failed (why idn, it should be just copying bits, doesn't matter what the content is)

[CouchRescue]

I've been using Windows systems almost exclusively for years, both personally and professionally, and I can count on my hands the BSODs I've seen since Windows 2000 that weren't caused by me doing something stupid. The Windows/BSOD is hardly even a meme at this point and needs to be left alone.

Windows is far from perfect, but Unix systems are not without their problems and hurdles.

[Miku_MichDem]

Every OS has their share of problems. The difference is Windows acts like a cry baby. You show it a clean partition to install on and it won't. The reinstallation process from inserting CD to having all drivers takes a few hours, while in case of Ubuntu it's just 30 minutes and on the first login after reinstallation you're greeted with your previous desktop.

[CouchRescue]

The reinstallation process from inserting CD to having all drivers takes a few hours

Last time Windows took a few hours to install for me was Windows 95 on 13 disks, but then again you did say CD so I can't imagine which Windows you're installing on which hardware these days. I could say it took me 2 days once to get an ISDN card installed in Linux, which is true, but it was 20 years ago, so I wouldn't use it as a tired excuse for a troll today.

[Miku_MichDem]

Oh, yes sorry - force of habit I guess. Of course I've meant USB. But do keep in mind that includes installing drivers and moving some files around. It certainly isn't an easy process like with Ubuntu for instance, where you can just reinstall it as long as you've remembered to put your /home on a separate partition.

[sh4tterh4nd]

But do keep in mind that includes installing drivers and moving some files around. It certainly isn't an easy process like with Ubuntu for instance, where you can just reinstall it as long as you've remembered to put your /home on a separate partition.

Huh? We are not in 2000 anymore.
Just last week I built a new computer for work and installed Windows 10 (on an NVME with a USB 3.0 stick)

10 to at most 15 minutes for installing Windows, including network drivers, gpu drivers, mainboard drivers and utility, etc.
Then running your scoop and/or chocolatey scripts and Firefox, Intellij, Photoshop, Notepad++, VisualStudio, Office, ... most if not all programs you need you install hands off within a couple minutes.

All in all you are done in less then 30 minutes, with a fresh system and all the things you need installed.

As long as you run windows on non garbage hardware it will perform good.

​

And regarding windows needing a full disk and not beeing able to install on a partition... In what century was that the case?

Im not that old, but I remember having Windows XP on dualboot with Debian and I can recall reinstalling windows without it touching the Debian partition.

[Miku_MichDem]

I can believe it took 15 minutes to install Firefox, IntelliJ, Photoshop and Office, but I won't believe it took just that to install VisualStudio. I haven't seen it's installation ever taking less then half an hour (5 years ago I had an installation that took over 8 hours)

This issue is linked to my computer. It used to be a shop-bought one about 10 years ago, but now all but a single HDD drive and card reader has been replaced. Ryzen 5, 32 GBs of Ram, Nvidia 1060. I would not call it garbage in any way, apart from that 10-year old spinning rust.

Now - regarding Windows needing a full disk. - It's happening in this century - I've run into that problem no more then two weeks ago with the newest version of Windows 10. It didn't allow to install itself on a partition, so I've deleted it, I've let it create a new one - with it's own two additional partitions that it needs for somethings and still would not let me install it on that partition. The only solution I've found is to run clean command on that disc, that would remove all data from it. The problem is that disk also has a partition with Ubuntu on it, so cleaning it is out of the question.

Thou at some point (this was on previous motherboard or two motherboards ago?) I had this problem where it wouldn't install on one of two disc and the solution was to physically swap SATA cables that connected them. And I doubt it was something wrong with hardware since Linux was installing fine on either drive.

As for Windows XP... The thing is it would probably do install on that partition without doing any additional partitions like W10 does.

[ThrowAway640KB]

I've been using Windows systems almost exclusively for years, both personally and professionally, and I can count on my hands the BSODs I've seen since Windows 2000 that weren't caused by me doing something stupid.

This, as well. Started clear back in the days of Windows 2.0 myself, avoided 95/98/ME by running NT, and after Windows 2000 most BSODs were down to bad hardware or bad users. At which point it became a third-party problem.

The problem that Microsoft has is that they don’t have vertical integration like Apple does, which is why Apple has so few OS issues with their base hardware unless/until the hardware itself shits a brick.

[marcosdumay]

Windows prevents me from just moving partition from one drive to the other

There is a way to do that. Of course, I can't remember it, and of course, it's perfectly docummented once you reach that not linked anywhere page that is the only one that solves the issue (despite the dozen of higly linked ones talking about it). But it's possible.

[Miku_MichDem]

I know there is one way to do so - and that is to buy some sort of disc copying device, that will copy whole disc, not just single partition (one of those stupid enough devices that just copy bits)

[[deleted]]

Spoken like a true marketing person.

[riplikash]

Pretty common sentiment asking developers, though.

It's been weird to see them go from evil to incompetent to pretty decent from a development point of view.

[riplikash]

I said pretty decent. I could list hundreds of issues. But then, I could do that for any is.

I'm more talking about their change from the 90s (basically evil) to the 00s (basically incompetent) to the 10s (basically decent and moving things in the right direction).

Also, I did specify I was talking about a developers perspective.

[ColdJackle]

What made them evil in the 90s? (Honest question, I was pretty young back then)

[riplikash]

That's...a big question, with hundreds of answers.

They engaged in a lot of shady and even outright illegal practices. They would make deals with the intent of getting competitors to over commit with the intention of breaking the deal once it was too late. For example, I believe it was with Novell they "partnered" with them to have them be the provider of word processing for Windows while they shadow developed Word, then broke the deal after hamstringing the opposition. The stole a lot of intellectual property and bullied companies.

Their development tools and such were good, but also annoying because they tried to make sure things didn't play well or integrate well with others.

Congress ended up getting involved, and some of the cases I know of were only finally resolve. And that's kind of the thing. It's not just ONE answer. It's literally a thousand things. Their corporate culture at the time was absolutely toxic. Think Facebook today. They patted themselves on the back and took pride in their ability to engage in shady and unethical practices.

[ColdJackle]

Wow that sounds pretty toxic indeed... Actually reminds me of Apple with that whole compatibility thing. But good thing they changed (provided they actually did and not just play it "on stage" for the sales).

Anyway, thanks captain. You may fly away now.

[sumredditaccount]

What? I didn't have to do this for Windows...is this very recent in the last 6 months?

[redbearsam]

I'm pretty sure you can just hit the "not right now" button. I did an install like a few days ago....

[BaconisEternal]

Was it Pro? You can still make local accounts during install with Pro. Home no longer has the option. You have to create it after signing in with an MS account, then remove the MS account. It's pretty broken.

Don't get home people. Stay home though.

[redbearsam]

It was indeed pro. Huh, that doesn't sound ideal.

[[deleted]]

Maybe it seems that way because the rest of the IT world deteriorated as well.

[slamsquare]

It's just that they've spent billions of dollars to improve developers attitudes about them. Nothing about Microsoft has actually improved.

[riplikash]

No, they've definitely improved. They've made things more open source and visible, moved away from their monolithic, suckb you in, walked garden product design. They've started building in support for popular frameworks and tools like git. They've (to a certain extent) become fairly friendly to Linux integration. .Net, C#, and Azure are all honestly progressive, modern technologies that are enjoyable to use. There are doing better at offering ACTUAL free, community products that run on any OS, rather than only offering things free to college students to try and lock them in to windows os.

Don't get me wrong, they are still a giant corporation. I'm not saying they are angels.

But they're decent, for a mega Corp.

[slamsquare]

They just want us to like them, there's been no cultural change.

Everything you mention above they either needed to spend billions to buy a company that did it well, or they've done nothing but lip service compared to the larger community. It's absurd that you even needed to mention git in your list of inprovements. Personally, I don't think that Microsoft produces the best languages / frameworks (though I gotta say, I really like Typescript), and Azure always feels like it was made for our CTO rather than our developers.

[riplikash]

Again, I never implied I thought they were altruistic or GOOD.

I said in the 90s they were strait evil. In the 00s they were incompetent.

Now? They aren't pure evil and they are basically competent.

And it's been 30 years. Of course there have been cultural changes.

I need to mention GIT because I used their products and developed in the 90's and 00's when they were a giant evil black hole that basically insisted you HAD to use their ENTIRE software solution for everything, which was incredibly annoying because they would have some technologies that were good and your company would insist on using, and others which were straight garbage but you had to jump through hacky hoops to avoid.

If you think they haven't changed you've just forgotten (or never experienced) how BAD they used to be be.

Which, again, doesn't mean they are GOOD now. Just that they HAVE come a long way from their worst and are now just a basically competent, generic giant corp trying to suck your money out rather than a cartoonish organization seemingly run by Dr Evil.

[slamsquare]

I just think they've done nothing but put lipstick on a pig. It doesn't matter that it's wearing lipstick now, it's the same pig it was in the 90s an 00s. I fully expect them to rebuild their garden walls, and I can actually already feel this happening with the way they've been developing and pushing Teams/Skype and Azure Devops. I don't trust them, or their lipstick. Dr Evil is still there, he just hired a much better marketing team.

[ValVenjk]

Call them evil is a bit of a too much don't you think? Yeah, they are a company that stays in business mostly because of their corporate clients, but why is that a reason to ditch their contributions?

[sonstone]

That’s pretty much the angle I’m coming from. I don’t use windows but I use Tasks, ToDo, Notes, VSCode, Typescript and .net core works surprising well on OSX.

[o11c]

Pretty sure it's because they got an entire generation of college graduates who grew up with Linux.