6 ms·

Because they need developers more than developers need them. If they become as dominant as Apple and Google in their respective spaces, expect your experience t

Because they need developers more than developers need them. If they become as dominant as Apple and Google in their respective spaces, expect your experience to degrade.

jpadkins 7y ago
or put another way: when they become a target for bad actors to abuse extensions, expect the review process to be more difficult.
- dessant 7y ago
  I don't think becoming a target for malicious actors is the reason for Chrome Web Store reviews being awful, see the threads I've linked to above and explore the rest of the links. Chrome Web Store reviewers are simply not properly trained and qualified to do this job, and the review process dictated by Google does not leave much room for improvement. Reviewers make an awful lot of mistakes and they usually do not listen to reason, the only thing that works is to document everything and make it public. I've had some issues during Firefox extension reviews too, and Mozilla employees have usually changed their opinion after feedback. When they've made a mistake, sometimes they said they were sorry, which was a decent thing to do and it felt right. They talked and acted like human beings whom are capable of compassion and reasoning.
  - blowski 7y ago
    Exactly. Developers are going to submit apps to Google regardless of how bad the process is, so there’s no real incentive to improve the experience.
- rozab 7y ago
  I don't know, I've seen plenty of abuse on the windows store. Being a default choice for tech illiterates makes it a juicy target
gamblor956 7y ago
Microsoft has always been developer-first, even when they didn't need them, and even during the Ballmer era. Google has never been about the developer experience, and is quite hostile to developers even when they need them. (See, e.g., Stadia.)
- techntoke 7y ago
  What is your definition of developer-first? My experience working at Microsoft in 2015 was the opposite of what you describe. They were too focused on supporting legacy MS that they couldn't innovate or find and keep talented developers in open source because they were forced to adopt tools and frameworks that were crap compared to standard open source development tools. The only reason people went there usually was for the money and once they got enough to follow their passion, they left because none of them were passionate about Microsoft.
  - catach 7y ago
    External rather than internal dev support.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      We all know Microsoft has a lot more internal documentation than external, especially with Windows around that time.
- Asooka 7y ago
  One difference that stands out to me about Microsoft vs Google. Both are very heavy C++ shops. Both have invested in developing tools for enhancing developer productivity on their respective platforms (Windows and Linux). Yes, Linux is not a Google product (thank god) but it is what they build on. Microsoft's C++ IDE and debugger are the gold standard for productivity and ease of use - everyone who writes native applications for Windows uses Visual Studio. You can try it out for free and the price per developer is very reasonable if you want to publish a paid product. Google's C++ IDE and debugger are nonexistent. Whatever they've built is kept inside the Googleplex never to see the light of day. From time to time we see the occasional free software reimplementation of some facet of the beast (e.g. Kythe) but I haven't seen something catch on. In fact, the biggest contributors to developer productivity on Linux have been Microsoft (with Visual Studio Code and the lsp protocol) and Apple (investing in clang led to the development of advanced C++ indexers which were impossible to write using gcc due to Stallman making a conscious decision to not allow it) Of course there is a good reason for this - Microsoft and Apple make platforms. The easier they make software development, the more developers they get, which leads to more software being written, which leads to more users, which results in profit. Google on the other hand doesn't win by making development easy for others. They're themselves a third party and other developers are competition rather than partners. For Microsoft, the existence of developers outside the company using Microsoft's development tools to create software for Microsoft's platform is a win. For Google, the best case scenario is there being no developers outside Google.
moron4hire 7y ago
But Microsoft has a long history of providing good customer and developer support. Why would they change for just this one product?

Because they need developers more than developers need them. If they become as dominant as Apple and Google in their respective spaces, expect your experience to degrade.

jpadkins 7y ago

or put another way: when they become a target for bad actors to abuse extensions, expect the review process to be more difficult.

dessant 7y ago
I don't think becoming a target for malicious actors is the reason for Chrome Web Store reviews being awful, see the threads I've linked to above and explore the rest of the links. Chrome Web Store reviewers are simply not properly trained and qualified to do this job, and the review process dictated by Google does not leave much room for improvement. Reviewers make an awful lot of mistakes and they usually do not listen to reason, the only thing that works is to document everything and make it public. I've had some issues during Firefox extension reviews too, and Mozilla employees have usually changed their opinion after feedback. When they've made a mistake, sometimes they said they were sorry, which was a decent thing to do and it felt right. They talked and acted like human beings whom are capable of compassion and reasoning.
- blowski 7y ago
  Exactly. Developers are going to submit apps to Google regardless of how bad the process is, so there’s no real incentive to improve the experience.
rozab 7y ago
I don't know, I've seen plenty of abuse on the windows store. Being a default choice for tech illiterates makes it a juicy target

gamblor956 7y ago

Microsoft has always been developer-first, even when they didn't need them, and even during the Ballmer era. Google has never been about the developer experience, and is quite hostile to developers even when they need them. (See, e.g., Stadia.)

techntoke 7y ago
What is your definition of developer-first? My experience working at Microsoft in 2015 was the opposite of what you describe. They were too focused on supporting legacy MS that they couldn't innovate or find and keep talented developers in open source because they were forced to adopt tools and frameworks that were crap compared to standard open source development tools. The only reason people went there usually was for the money and once they got enough to follow their passion, they left because none of them were passionate about Microsoft.
- catach 7y ago
  External rather than internal dev support.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    We all know Microsoft has a lot more internal documentation than external, especially with Windows around that time.
Asooka 7y ago
One difference that stands out to me about Microsoft vs Google. Both are very heavy C++ shops. Both have invested in developing tools for enhancing developer productivity on their respective platforms (Windows and Linux). Yes, Linux is not a Google product (thank god) but it is what they build on. Microsoft's C++ IDE and debugger are the gold standard for productivity and ease of use - everyone who writes native applications for Windows uses Visual Studio. You can try it out for free and the price per developer is very reasonable if you want to publish a paid product. Google's C++ IDE and debugger are nonexistent. Whatever they've built is kept inside the Googleplex never to see the light of day. From time to time we see the occasional free software reimplementation of some facet of the beast (e.g. Kythe) but I haven't seen something catch on. In fact, the biggest contributors to developer productivity on Linux have been Microsoft (with Visual Studio Code and the lsp protocol) and Apple (investing in clang led to the development of advanced C++ indexers which were impossible to write using gcc due to Stallman making a conscious decision to not allow it) Of course there is a good reason for this - Microsoft and Apple make platforms. The easier they make software development, the more developers they get, which leads to more software being written, which leads to more users, which results in profit. Google on the other hand doesn't win by making development easy for others. They're themselves a third party and other developers are competition rather than partners. For Microsoft, the existence of developers outside the company using Microsoft's development tools to create software for Microsoft's platform is a win. For Google, the best case scenario is there being no developers outside Google.

moron4hire 7y ago

But Microsoft has a long history of providing good customer and developer support. Why would they change for just this one product?