4 ms·

It's interesting how Microsoft both showcases a really bad example of a JS hybrid application (Teams) and the more rare good example of it (VS Code). These guy

by dep_b 5y ago

It's interesting how Microsoft both showcases a really bad example of a JS hybrid application (Teams) and the more rare good example of it (VS Code). These guys should have talked sometime I hoped.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> These guys should have talked sometime I hoped. Hah. DevDiv never talks to the Office org. For one thing, they’re on opposite sides of the campus; secondarily (and most disappointingly) the golden-age of Office/VS integration ended by Office 2007 when it was clear the VB6-derived VBA editor in VS was frozen on ice (and remember the InterDev-derived Script Debugger in Office 2003?). For the past 14+ years, the Office org built up their own UI/UX framework completely separate from both OSG/Windows and DevDiv/VS/etc: that “DirectUI” stuff. It has a lot of potential (and room for improvement...) but instead we get exports like WinUI 3.0, aka “We won’t let XAML die, but we won’t invest in tooling or making it not horribly verbose despite the fact it’s now 15 years old”. I don’t understand why Microsoft seemingly wilfully abandoned any semblance of a roadmap or reasonable guidance for the Windows desktop dev story. It’s insane because Office+VBA+VB6 is the reason people still buy Windows licenses even though 75% of people have no other reason to be bound to Windows.
- dep_b 5y ago
  Thanks for the insights. I would like to hang around for a few months at Microsoft just to see how such a big organisation (dis)functions. I really enjoy using MS tools for development, always had as I discovered C64 BASIC was made by them and I was a C# developer for about ten years (if I'm allowed to forget about WebForms). All of the other stuff I don't really care about anymore. I'm fine using Numbers and Pages or LibreOffice and macOS replaces Windows since I'm not a gamer and not doing any non-cross platform C# / F# development anymore.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    > I would like to hang around for a few months at Microsoft just to see how such a big organisation (dis)functions. Put in a job application. The company has always been hiring. Judging by the fact they employed me right after uni I guess they’ll hire anyone who can explain mergesort on a whiteboard. ——— I believe we’re witnessing the slow death of Windows into irrelevance, the same way mainframes and minicomputers aren’t relevant today, the way most “apps” for business are just public web-apps or Electron distros - Windows is just another fungible host for Chrome.exe.
- k__ 5y ago
  Can't someone from the top force the office people to use code libraries?
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    Microsoft made an announcement recently that the next major version of Office Access will use the Monaco editor for the SQL editor (with auto-complete and intellisense) instead of the horribly broken black+white editor presently in Access. Their choice of Monaco is interesting because it's a HTML+JS-based editor - this hints that Access might be transitioning its entire UI over to HTML+CSS+JS - this might be a good thing - or it might be a very bad thing.
- Closi 5y ago
  I think another reason that the VBA editor is frozen in ice is because Microsoft doesn't really want you to build stuff in VBA/VB6 anymore. VBA doesn't play well with the multi-user and cloud-based push that Microsoft has been trying to go for.

by dep_b 5y ago

It's interesting how Microsoft both showcases a really bad example of a JS hybrid application (Teams) and the more rare good example of it (VS Code). These guys should have talked sometime I hoped.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

> These guys should have talked sometime I hoped. Hah. DevDiv never talks to the Office org. For one thing, they’re on opposite sides of the campus; secondarily (and most disappointingly) the golden-age of Office/VS integration ended by Office 2007 when it was clear the VB6-derived VBA editor in VS was frozen on ice (and remember the InterDev-derived Script Debugger in Office 2003?). For the past 14+ years, the Office org built up their own UI/UX framework completely separate from both OSG/Windows and DevDiv/VS/etc: that “DirectUI” stuff. It has a lot of potential (and room for improvement...) but instead we get exports like WinUI 3.0, aka “We won’t let XAML die, but we won’t invest in tooling or making it not horribly verbose despite the fact it’s now 15 years old”. I don’t understand why Microsoft seemingly wilfully abandoned any semblance of a roadmap or reasonable guidance for the Windows desktop dev story. It’s insane because Office+VBA+VB6 is the reason people still buy Windows licenses even though 75% of people have no other reason to be bound to Windows.

dep_b 5y ago
Thanks for the insights. I would like to hang around for a few months at Microsoft just to see how such a big organisation (dis)functions. I really enjoy using MS tools for development, always had as I discovered C64 BASIC was made by them and I was a C# developer for about ten years (if I'm allowed to forget about WebForms). All of the other stuff I don't really care about anymore. I'm fine using Numbers and Pages or LibreOffice and macOS replaces Windows since I'm not a gamer and not doing any non-cross platform C# / F# development anymore.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > I would like to hang around for a few months at Microsoft just to see how such a big organisation (dis)functions. Put in a job application. The company has always been hiring. Judging by the fact they employed me right after uni I guess they’ll hire anyone who can explain mergesort on a whiteboard. ——— I believe we’re witnessing the slow death of Windows into irrelevance, the same way mainframes and minicomputers aren’t relevant today, the way most “apps” for business are just public web-apps or Electron distros - Windows is just another fungible host for Chrome.exe.
k__ 5y ago
Can't someone from the top force the office people to use code libraries?
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  Microsoft made an announcement recently that the next major version of Office Access will use the Monaco editor for the SQL editor (with auto-complete and intellisense) instead of the horribly broken black+white editor presently in Access. Their choice of Monaco is interesting because it's a HTML+JS-based editor - this hints that Access might be transitioning its entire UI over to HTML+CSS+JS - this might be a good thing - or it might be a very bad thing.
Closi 5y ago
I think another reason that the VBA editor is frozen in ice is because Microsoft doesn't really want you to build stuff in VBA/VB6 anymore. VBA doesn't play well with the multi-user and cloud-based push that Microsoft has been trying to go for.