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But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it wor

But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it works out for Microsoft in the end.

Amezarak 9y ago
The NT kernel is very advanced and in many ways "better" than the Linux kernel. Backwards compat on Windows is fantastic compared to competitors. Even Powershell, though niche, can hardly be called primitive relative to the average default Linux shell. This is especially apparent to me, since I work in an old csh all day. :) If anything is primitive, it's passing around strings instead of objects. Saying Windows is "primitive" compared to the competition makes it sound like you're working in a bubble, to be honest. It's different, to be sure, but I'm hard pressed to think of normal desktop or laptop applications where I'd call Windows primitive. On the server side there's many things competitors undeniably do better, but even then I wouldn't call it primitive.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  That said, Windows has closed a lot of ground on the server too.
- sofaofthedamned 9y ago
  See my other replies - PS isn't primitive but it isn't bash. Bear in mind I can administer any program on the system with bash. I can't do that with PS. There isn't that ecosystem where everything has systemd/init.d bindings, etc. Put it another way - if I was to start a new internet based company now i'd give everybody Chromebooks, use either GApps or O365, there would be a domain nowhere near it. Do you disagree this is wrong for the majority of situations?
  - Amezarak 9y ago
    > Bear in mind I can administer any program on the system with bash. I can't do that with PS. What do you mean by "administer"? I can certainly launch applications, kill them, get various process properties, monitor it, etc. > There isn't that ecosystem where everything has systemd/init.d bindings, etc. System services are registered on Windows. Get-Service, Stop-Service, Restart-Service, Set-Service, etc all work fine and can be done remotely. You have more power with more arcane commands that I would have to look up (wmi stuff.) > Put it another way - if I was to start a new internet based company now i'd give everybody Chromebooks, use either GApps or O365, there would be a domain nowhere near it. Do you disagree this is wrong for the majority of situations? Yes. I think having a real, full desktop is important for most people's productivity if they're doing any serious work. Yes, it's possible to be a developer working on a Chromebook SSHing into everything. No, I don't think that's even close to ideal.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I agree with this reply, but I'd also add that any program that you can run in Windows you can interact with from PowerShell, although it obviously won't be quite as nice as utilities that return CLR objects.
emodendroket 9y ago
For instance? I actually think most of it is quite good now. I particularly like PowerShell.
- sofaofthedamned 9y ago
  So do I, but it's not bash. Used PS to manage WSUS which was a massive ballache. We had a 'sheep dip' situation, what with this being a secure environment, where we downloaded the WSUS updates from a separate network then moved it via USB to the secure one. PS? Fine. WSUS? Awful. You had to start WSUS, change the categories (it already was trying to download updates on a network without internet), restart the service, mess around, etc. With Linux i'd literally have one rsync command on each side of the sheep dip. I did again like the autocomplete - but I prefer a million times more the immediacy of SSH.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > So do I, but it's not bash. No, it isn't, but I think in a lot of ways it is much better. It is really nice that the use of an object system means you rarely have to mess around with text-munging code.
- EpicEng 9y ago
  PowerShell is good, if a bit verbose imo (small con, no big deal). The problem is the philosophy behind windows since its inception. On a linux box I can do _everything_ I need to do as long as I have a terminal. Windows is coming around, but it's not there yet. New stuff is better, a lot of old stuff still sucks, but not everyone can dump the old stuff.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    On the other hand, Windows' favoring graphical interfaces means that if I'm not looking to automate something, I probably have to spend little to no time reading documentation, in marked contrast to the terminal experience, where even commands I have used many times I can forget the arguments.
- 9y ago

But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it works out for Microsoft in the end.

Amezarak 9y ago

The NT kernel is very advanced and in many ways "better" than the Linux kernel. Backwards compat on Windows is fantastic compared to competitors. Even Powershell, though niche, can hardly be called primitive relative to the average default Linux shell. This is especially apparent to me, since I work in an old csh all day. :) If anything is primitive, it's passing around strings instead of objects. Saying Windows is "primitive" compared to the competition makes it sound like you're working in a bubble, to be honest. It's different, to be sure, but I'm hard pressed to think of normal desktop or laptop applications where I'd call Windows primitive. On the server side there's many things competitors undeniably do better, but even then I wouldn't call it primitive.

emodendroket 9y ago
That said, Windows has closed a lot of ground on the server too.
sofaofthedamned 9y ago
See my other replies - PS isn't primitive but it isn't bash. Bear in mind I can administer any program on the system with bash. I can't do that with PS. There isn't that ecosystem where everything has systemd/init.d bindings, etc. Put it another way - if I was to start a new internet based company now i'd give everybody Chromebooks, use either GApps or O365, there would be a domain nowhere near it. Do you disagree this is wrong for the majority of situations?
- Amezarak 9y ago
  > Bear in mind I can administer any program on the system with bash. I can't do that with PS. What do you mean by "administer"? I can certainly launch applications, kill them, get various process properties, monitor it, etc. > There isn't that ecosystem where everything has systemd/init.d bindings, etc. System services are registered on Windows. Get-Service, Stop-Service, Restart-Service, Set-Service, etc all work fine and can be done remotely. You have more power with more arcane commands that I would have to look up (wmi stuff.) > Put it another way - if I was to start a new internet based company now i'd give everybody Chromebooks, use either GApps or O365, there would be a domain nowhere near it. Do you disagree this is wrong for the majority of situations? Yes. I think having a real, full desktop is important for most people's productivity if they're doing any serious work. Yes, it's possible to be a developer working on a Chromebook SSHing into everything. No, I don't think that's even close to ideal.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I agree with this reply, but I'd also add that any program that you can run in Windows you can interact with from PowerShell, although it obviously won't be quite as nice as utilities that return CLR objects.

emodendroket 9y ago

For instance? I actually think most of it is quite good now. I particularly like PowerShell.

sofaofthedamned 9y ago
So do I, but it's not bash. Used PS to manage WSUS which was a massive ballache. We had a 'sheep dip' situation, what with this being a secure environment, where we downloaded the WSUS updates from a separate network then moved it via USB to the secure one. PS? Fine. WSUS? Awful. You had to start WSUS, change the categories (it already was trying to download updates on a network without internet), restart the service, mess around, etc. With Linux i'd literally have one rsync command on each side of the sheep dip. I did again like the autocomplete - but I prefer a million times more the immediacy of SSH.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > So do I, but it's not bash. No, it isn't, but I think in a lot of ways it is much better. It is really nice that the use of an object system means you rarely have to mess around with text-munging code.
EpicEng 9y ago
PowerShell is good, if a bit verbose imo (small con, no big deal). The problem is the philosophy behind windows since its inception. On a linux box I can do _everything_ I need to do as long as I have a terminal. Windows is coming around, but it's not there yet. New stuff is better, a lot of old stuff still sucks, but not everyone can dump the old stuff.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  On the other hand, Windows' favoring graphical interfaces means that if I'm not looking to automate something, I probably have to spend little to no time reading documentation, in marked contrast to the terminal experience, where even commands I have used many times I can forget the arguments.
9y ago