14 ms·

> Microsoft doesn't have any competent developers working on the Windows user interfaces Oh please. Do you really think that MS has nobody with any level of co

by lghh 5y ago

> Microsoft doesn't have any competent developers working on the Windows user interfaces Oh please. Do you really think that MS has nobody with any level of competency on any single team in their entire org? Do you really think that low of others? Could it possibly be that sometimes... things have bugs? Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. Things happen. Painting an entire group of people you've never met with such a large brush is gross. It's just software and these are just people.

bodge5000 5y ago
Its a controversial opinion (I think) but I'm inclined to agree. I do tend to find that devs are often much harsher to other devs, sometimes unfairly so, than any other profession that I know of. If you complain your mechanic is slow and expensive, a load of other mechanics will come and tell you (and probably rightly so) that the job is more difficult and complex than you know of. But you don't see that often with devs, which is a bit disappointing.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Probably because your mechanic isn't actively making your car perform worse, gluing ads onto the body, or redesigning your steering wheel based on the latest fads.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    I highly doubt the devs themselves run microsoft. I could be wrong but theres probably a manager or two in there as well. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but I was under the impression that devs build the thing, others decide what it is thats built. If that is the case, then I personally wouldn't call a dev 'incompetant' because of a decision not made by them. Of course you could say they should stand up against this, but again, whilst theres this hostility towards other devs, why are you going to risk not being able to put food on the table for someone on the internet who thinks your an idiot? (As an aside, the analogy doesn't really stretch that far since developers are hired by companies whereas mechanics are paid directly by customers. Perhaps car designers would be a better fit here, but again, other car designers would be quick to point out the problems with your complaints, but thats by the by)
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > Of course you could say they should stand up against this, but again, whilst theres this hostility towards other devs, why are you going to risk not being able to put food on the table for someone on the internet who thinks your an idiot? Very few developers are in the position of starving if they refuse to implement terrible ideas. If they are in that position, fine, but at least feel an appropriate amount of shame for the garbage you're making. > Perhaps car designers would be a better fit here, but again, other car designers would be quick to point out the problems with your complaints, but thats by the by I think the car designer version supports what I'm saying: Tesla wants to replace the steering wheel with a yoke and people are rightly criticizing them for it.
      - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
        I’m a contractor working for a consultancy who is working for a tobacco company, I was told it would be a retail client and I feel bad, not bad enough to quit immediately as i do genuinely need the money right now but I’ll leave when I can. (I tried passive aggressively quitting by insisting they put my day rate up expecting them to say no but they did)
    - throwaway675309 5y ago
      All things aside, I really doubt that engineers working on critical infrastructure of one of the most popular OS for Microsoft couldn't INSTANTLY get another dev job literally almost anywhere else.
  - nhinck 5y ago
    > gluing ads onto the body Surprisingly I have heard of this being done. Mechanics placing stickers on windows without permission.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      I see this in Europe a lot. Brand new cars often have the dealership name and logo on a sticker on the back window, or the license plate frame, or even the body of the car. Jesus Christ, is the dealership playing me to advertise their business on the item I just paid them money for?! If not, then take that branding shit off!
      - jagger27 5y ago
        This happens in North America too. I explicitly asked the dealer where I bought my car not to slap their unpaid adverts all over it, and they still put a sticker on the trunk lid, a license plate frame on the rear, and an inventory tracking sticker on the windshield.
      - BugWatch 5y ago
        I also prefer all my cloths unbranded.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I see you've never been in a video editing bay. An editor is where all of the results from the other crafts of trade all land in one pile. Plus, it's actually the editor's job to get rid of the crap and pull out the gems. The vitriol I've heard (and given) from an edit bay would make for a great niche series that would only be understood by other editors (meaning it would not be succesful).
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    That sounds more like banter (or something like that) to me to be honest, I haven't been to a video editing bay so yeh I have no idea, but to be honest in my experience the vitriol given is inversely proportional to how serious it is. As I said, could be wrong though, maybe developers arent alone in not liking each other
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >As I said, could be wrong though, maybe developers arent alone in not liking each other of course there are other groups of people that don't like other people. have you seen the world today?
      - bodge5000 5y ago
        I assume your joking, but there has been a problem of people taking things far too literally in this thread, so in case not, I meant developers being often unfairly harsh to other developers.
        dylan604 5y ago
        >maybe developers arent alone in not liking each other Of course I'm not dead serious, but there is some seriousness implied. You called out devs specifically not being alone in not liking one another. I made a reference to another profession that doesn't like their direct related counterparts. What in the world did you think that meant? There are not chefs that don't like other chefs or that there are not chefs that don't like devs?
- veltas 5y ago
  I told my current mechanic about my last mechanic's quote for a job and they laughed and said it was a rip-off and otherwise derided them. And my current mechanic works fast and doesn't waste my money.
  - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
    Have your wheels fallen off yet :)
- shawnz 5y ago
  Anecdotally I think it's pretty common for mechanics to claim that their competitors don't know what they're doing.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    Maybe that was a terrible example, although I could be wrong. It kind of makes sense actually, of course I hear of more developers being hostile to other developers compared to say mechanics, but that could be because I hear from more developers full stop. There's probably a term for it and everything. That being said, I'm sure I've come across a lot more camaraderie amongst other professions than developers. Anecdotally, I know theres been a few times I've complained about or seen people complain about a certain profession and seen a wave of posts come in from other workers defending them. Then again, its possible those just stick out in my mind more than the many times that presumably hasn't happened.
    - ralgozino 5y ago
      I think that you have this impression because you are comparing the inside of a professional environment with the outside of others. I'm pretty sure that in inner circles of other professions they speak trash of others, but you don't see it from the outside, just like a random Joe won't never read HN whrrry devs speak trash of other devs
- Rd6n6 5y ago
  Other professions have professional organizations that have strict rules about maintaining the public trust in the profession. Challenging each other’s competence publicly is really discouraged. By contrast, many trades people can criticize each other and do so endlessly… even though those trades have a higher bar for being allowed to practice than software does. It’s harder to make a spaghetti mess that somebody else has to build on because of standards and physical constraints too
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    I think that might be it, mechanics wasn't really the example I was going for, but I couldn't think of the actual profession (something like an architect I guess). I guess it might just be a trades thing, which as you say makes sense
aspaceman 5y ago
It's gross incompetence. If you have Microsoft's resources, you should be able to compete with a good UI. They can't. To me, that's a sign of complete incompetence. Excuse it however you like, but those guys are getting paid and failing at the job. I don't understand the need to apoligize for shit software. It's shit. I don't care that some idiot spent their whole life taking that shit. It still smells, looks, and tastes like shit. I'm not going to enjoy it as a delicacy because they "care".
api 5y ago
Really really good developers are in high demand, and they're hard to find. At the top there's a ton of salary competition with the FAANG companies and other large companies, or with startups that offer equity and more interesting work. MS is neither of these.
hulitu 5y ago
Taking into account the mess win 10 UI is together with Teams and Office 365 i would say that, yes, they don't have any competent developer in those teams.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> Oh please. Do you really think that MS has nobody with any level of competency on any single team in their entire org? I dunno, let's see: > Microsoft doesn't have any competent developers working on the Windows user interfaces Looks like I am specifically calling out one subset here in particular. So I would say that no, no I don't believe what you're implying I believe. > Could it possibly be that sometimes... things have bugs? Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. Things happen. Bugs happen to everyone, but the people working on the Windows interfaces have poor architectural choices, nonsensical user-hostile decisions, and a history of reinventing the wheel with slower (and buggier!), less featureful, interfaces. > Painting an entire group of people you've never met with such a large brush is gross. It's just software and these are just people. This is the image they project into the world, if they want to be thought of differently then they should actually do something to project that image instead.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I suspect the nonsensical user-hostile decisions are not being made by the devs themselves. And if I was in their position (of implementing nonsensical user-hostile decisions) I would probably not give two shits whether it was done well or not.
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    And I don't think anyone would blame you as a person for making that choice, but I also wouldn't call you a highly competent developer.
- jerhewet 5y ago
  It's very refreshing for me to find someone that can succinctly describe how fucking incompetent almost all of the UI / UX designers and developers at Microsoft are without being hammered down as "a troll" in the comments. There are a LOT of us out here that remember how well things were designed and implemented 20, 30, and 40 years ago, and how disgustingly broken everything is now, and how everyone nowadays ACCEPTS THIS AS NORMAL. Microsoft Teams is a steaming pile of shit. Windows Desktop Explorer is a steaming pile of shit. The XAML bullshit they're using for the Start Menu button in Windows 10 (and I'm guessing Windows 11, since I am not going to be installing it) is a steaming pile of shit. Microsoft's invasive advertising and telemetry IN A DESKTOP OPERATING SYSTEM is a steaming pile of shit. People need to stop pretending this shit isn't broken. People need to stop calling people who point out how fucking broken this shit is "trolls".
tapoxi 5y ago
It's part of the HN Cycle™ * Blog complains about Windows being a mess * Comments about how the Mac workflow is better * Blog complains about how the Mac is too restricted * Comments about how Linux is finally good now® * Blog complains about Linux desktop * Comments about how WSL2 saved them from the nightmare that is GNOME/KDE/etc repeat ad nauseum
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Except it's not a cycle, those are different people commenting different topics.
  - hapidjus 5y ago
    Its a cycle on HN.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      Yes, if someone from one group states a position, someone from another group will rebut it. It's not a quirky pattern, it's just how discussion works.
- AQuantized 5y ago
  I do think it's finally become true (for me at least) that desktop linux is Actually Good © Previously on more user friendly distros like Ubuntu I didn't feel that the advantages over Windows were significant enough to warrant certain software suites being unavailable (adobe, autocad, etc.). And lightweight distros like Arch caused too much headache even with the wiki and knowing "what you were doing." Arch now feels both relatively easy to use day to day, while still being incredibly customizable with almost no bloatware. The only real problem is certain almost non-negotiable utilities like PulseAudio not necessarily being as high quality as most of the user utilities.
  - 5y ago
cortexio 5y ago
watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99dKzubvpKE&t=70s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99dKzubvpKE&t=70s
HumblyTossed 5y ago
> Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. It broke because it could not hit an unessential cloud service. This is absolutely something someone should have expected.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >This is absolutely something someone should have expected It's ok, we rushed the implementation to meet this sprint's goals, the fix is part of the next sprint. /s
  - ziml77 5y ago
    I had the misfortune of working with a vendor that did work in sprints. I couldn't see it as anything other than an awful way to work that caused things to take longer than they needed to because priorities couldn't be shifted on the fly and anything other than break fixes couldn't be released mid-sprint. That fixed release cycle might make certain things easier, but it also causes a forced lag on all changes and encourages shipping code that isn't actually complete so you don't have to tell people to wait another 2 weeks for the change.
    - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
      This pretty much sums up sprints, extra meetings at start and end, less flexibility (we don’t want to change the scope of the sprint) and generally worse for everyone. I wish some of Kanban was more widely accepted, especially things like making sure you have enough worked planned in the backlog to just keep taking tasks and working on them till completion.
      - robocat 5y ago
        https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213 - “An epic treatise on scheduling, bug tracking, and triage” includes comments on software Kanban and has same well written hate on sprints.
  - 5y ago
seph-reed 5y ago
As a competent developer of user interfaces, I'd consider working for Microsoft career suicide. It would look bad on my resume. And given how much of a mess it is, it sounds like a terribly stressful job. I think any dev who doesn't see those red flags (or care about them) is very, very likely incompetent. Honestly, even they weren't it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. It's fairly incompetent to take a job that people believe is for incompetent people. Unless you totally turn shit around, which obviously nobody has.
- sk5t 5y ago
  Might it be that not everyone would view taking on a big challenge with a potential ton of impact "career suicide"--or, would you shun an industry peer who tried to make Windows better?
RHSeeger 5y ago
> Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. Well, to be fair, the cause and effect in this case shouldn't even be connected in a way that allows for this. It's like a bad CD in your car stereo causing your engine to fail. A smart car manufacturer makes it so that the data bus cannot send information from the public areas to the engine area. A bad car manufacturer does not put up those blocks.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Cars aren't always the greatest either - never mind the CD player, the radio receiver can be an entry point: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33622298 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33622298
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Automotive EE here. Worth noting that almost every infotainment system is android or Linux-based right now. They crash all the time. They’re absolutely awful quality. they are made almost exclusively with cheap foreign engineering. It’s really the wild west when it comes to things. The vehicle interfaces are usually subsystem modules in the radio. Your Linux side talks to your “vehicle side” over usb, uart, SPI, etc. There is still a good module there most of the time, but it has 100% trust of its main processor. Since 2018, US vehicles since almost all come with a firewall to separate the radio/telemetric/infotainment busses from the vehicle busses. Their solution wasn’t to harden the fancy systems, it was just to separate them from the important ones. So the vulnerabilities are still there, just moved a little. I despise these big stupid complicated displays that encourage accidents.
- habeebtc 5y ago
  It is unlikely. But that can actually happen. A catastrophic failure of the head unit can impact the electrical system which can do weird things with the spark plugs or other systems.
flohofwoe 5y ago
If it would be the exception to the norm that would be fair. But the bugs and regressions in the Windows desktop UI are so numerous these days that there must be a reason why the quality is so much below the average. Poor management driving the good developers out could be one of them (or it's just because they fired their QA, who knows).
bbarnett 5y ago
Oh please. Do you really think that MS has nobody with any level of competency on any single team in their entire org? He said no such thing.
- Arainach 5y ago
  " Microsoft doesn't have any competent developers working on the Windows user interfaces" Verbatim quote. The commenter being responded to said exactly that.
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    And?
    - lghh 5y ago
      > And? It seems the did in fact say such a thing that you said they didn't say. I imagine you're misinterpreting what I said. That's reasonable, I can see how I was not clear. I was saying that there's no way there's a single team at MS that does not have a competent person on it, not that there's no way ALL teams have 0 competent people on it.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
burnished 5y ago
Its a little hyperbolic of them, but the root issue is still that a buggy advertisement in the operating system, as part of a non-vital cloud service, caused the operating system to break. This doesn't feel like an "it happens", right?
908B64B197 5y ago
I think someone is angry he failed his interview in Redmond...
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
As others have pointed out, the very reason they're facing this much criticism is because this bug was very foreseeable and avoidable.

by lghh 5y ago

bodge5000 5y ago

Its a controversial opinion (I think) but I'm inclined to agree. I do tend to find that devs are often much harsher to other devs, sometimes unfairly so, than any other profession that I know of. If you complain your mechanic is slow and expensive, a load of other mechanics will come and tell you (and probably rightly so) that the job is more difficult and complex than you know of. But you don't see that often with devs, which is a bit disappointing.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Probably because your mechanic isn't actively making your car perform worse, gluing ads onto the body, or redesigning your steering wheel based on the latest fads.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  I highly doubt the devs themselves run microsoft. I could be wrong but theres probably a manager or two in there as well. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but I was under the impression that devs build the thing, others decide what it is thats built. If that is the case, then I personally wouldn't call a dev 'incompetant' because of a decision not made by them. Of course you could say they should stand up against this, but again, whilst theres this hostility towards other devs, why are you going to risk not being able to put food on the table for someone on the internet who thinks your an idiot? (As an aside, the analogy doesn't really stretch that far since developers are hired by companies whereas mechanics are paid directly by customers. Perhaps car designers would be a better fit here, but again, other car designers would be quick to point out the problems with your complaints, but thats by the by)
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > Of course you could say they should stand up against this, but again, whilst theres this hostility towards other devs, why are you going to risk not being able to put food on the table for someone on the internet who thinks your an idiot? Very few developers are in the position of starving if they refuse to implement terrible ideas. If they are in that position, fine, but at least feel an appropriate amount of shame for the garbage you're making. > Perhaps car designers would be a better fit here, but again, other car designers would be quick to point out the problems with your complaints, but thats by the by I think the car designer version supports what I'm saying: Tesla wants to replace the steering wheel with a yoke and people are rightly criticizing them for it.
    - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
      I’m a contractor working for a consultancy who is working for a tobacco company, I was told it would be a retail client and I feel bad, not bad enough to quit immediately as i do genuinely need the money right now but I’ll leave when I can. (I tried passive aggressively quitting by insisting they put my day rate up expecting them to say no but they did)
  - throwaway675309 5y ago
    All things aside, I really doubt that engineers working on critical infrastructure of one of the most popular OS for Microsoft couldn't INSTANTLY get another dev job literally almost anywhere else.
- nhinck 5y ago
  > gluing ads onto the body Surprisingly I have heard of this being done. Mechanics placing stickers on windows without permission.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    I see this in Europe a lot. Brand new cars often have the dealership name and logo on a sticker on the back window, or the license plate frame, or even the body of the car. Jesus Christ, is the dealership playing me to advertise their business on the item I just paid them money for?! If not, then take that branding shit off!
    - jagger27 5y ago
      This happens in North America too. I explicitly asked the dealer where I bought my car not to slap their unpaid adverts all over it, and they still put a sticker on the trunk lid, a license plate frame on the rear, and an inventory tracking sticker on the windshield.
    - BugWatch 5y ago
      I also prefer all my cloths unbranded.
dylan604 5y ago
I see you've never been in a video editing bay. An editor is where all of the results from the other crafts of trade all land in one pile. Plus, it's actually the editor's job to get rid of the crap and pull out the gems. The vitriol I've heard (and given) from an edit bay would make for a great niche series that would only be understood by other editors (meaning it would not be succesful).
- bodge5000 5y ago
  That sounds more like banter (or something like that) to me to be honest, I haven't been to a video editing bay so yeh I have no idea, but to be honest in my experience the vitriol given is inversely proportional to how serious it is. As I said, could be wrong though, maybe developers arent alone in not liking each other
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >As I said, could be wrong though, maybe developers arent alone in not liking each other of course there are other groups of people that don't like other people. have you seen the world today?
    - bodge5000 5y ago
      I assume your joking, but there has been a problem of people taking things far too literally in this thread, so in case not, I meant developers being often unfairly harsh to other developers.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        >maybe developers arent alone in not liking each other Of course I'm not dead serious, but there is some seriousness implied. You called out devs specifically not being alone in not liking one another. I made a reference to another profession that doesn't like their direct related counterparts. What in the world did you think that meant? There are not chefs that don't like other chefs or that there are not chefs that don't like devs?
veltas 5y ago
I told my current mechanic about my last mechanic's quote for a job and they laughed and said it was a rip-off and otherwise derided them. And my current mechanic works fast and doesn't waste my money.
- ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
  Have your wheels fallen off yet :)
shawnz 5y ago
Anecdotally I think it's pretty common for mechanics to claim that their competitors don't know what they're doing.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Maybe that was a terrible example, although I could be wrong. It kind of makes sense actually, of course I hear of more developers being hostile to other developers compared to say mechanics, but that could be because I hear from more developers full stop. There's probably a term for it and everything. That being said, I'm sure I've come across a lot more camaraderie amongst other professions than developers. Anecdotally, I know theres been a few times I've complained about or seen people complain about a certain profession and seen a wave of posts come in from other workers defending them. Then again, its possible those just stick out in my mind more than the many times that presumably hasn't happened.
  - ralgozino 5y ago
    I think that you have this impression because you are comparing the inside of a professional environment with the outside of others. I'm pretty sure that in inner circles of other professions they speak trash of others, but you don't see it from the outside, just like a random Joe won't never read HN whrrry devs speak trash of other devs
Rd6n6 5y ago
Other professions have professional organizations that have strict rules about maintaining the public trust in the profession. Challenging each other’s competence publicly is really discouraged. By contrast, many trades people can criticize each other and do so endlessly… even though those trades have a higher bar for being allowed to practice than software does. It’s harder to make a spaghetti mess that somebody else has to build on because of standards and physical constraints too
- bodge5000 5y ago
  I think that might be it, mechanics wasn't really the example I was going for, but I couldn't think of the actual profession (something like an architect I guess). I guess it might just be a trades thing, which as you say makes sense

aspaceman 5y ago

It's gross incompetence. If you have Microsoft's resources, you should be able to compete with a good UI. They can't. To me, that's a sign of complete incompetence. Excuse it however you like, but those guys are getting paid and failing at the job. I don't understand the need to apoligize for shit software. It's shit. I don't care that some idiot spent their whole life taking that shit. It still smells, looks, and tastes like shit. I'm not going to enjoy it as a delicacy because they "care".

api 5y ago

Really really good developers are in high demand, and they're hard to find. At the top there's a ton of salary competition with the FAANG companies and other large companies, or with startups that offer equity and more interesting work. MS is neither of these.

hulitu 5y ago

Taking into account the mess win 10 UI is together with Teams and Office 365 i would say that, yes, they don't have any competent developer in those teams.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> Oh please. Do you really think that MS has nobody with any level of competency on any single team in their entire org? I dunno, let's see: > Microsoft doesn't have any competent developers working on the Windows user interfaces Looks like I am specifically calling out one subset here in particular. So I would say that no, no I don't believe what you're implying I believe. > Could it possibly be that sometimes... things have bugs? Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. Things happen. Bugs happen to everyone, but the people working on the Windows interfaces have poor architectural choices, nonsensical user-hostile decisions, and a history of reinventing the wheel with slower (and buggier!), less featureful, interfaces. > Painting an entire group of people you've never met with such a large brush is gross. It's just software and these are just people. This is the image they project into the world, if they want to be thought of differently then they should actually do something to project that image instead.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I suspect the nonsensical user-hostile decisions are not being made by the devs themselves. And if I was in their position (of implementing nonsensical user-hostile decisions) I would probably not give two shits whether it was done well or not.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  And I don't think anyone would blame you as a person for making that choice, but I also wouldn't call you a highly competent developer.
jerhewet 5y ago
It's very refreshing for me to find someone that can succinctly describe how fucking incompetent almost all of the UI / UX designers and developers at Microsoft are without being hammered down as "a troll" in the comments. There are a LOT of us out here that remember how well things were designed and implemented 20, 30, and 40 years ago, and how disgustingly broken everything is now, and how everyone nowadays ACCEPTS THIS AS NORMAL. Microsoft Teams is a steaming pile of shit. Windows Desktop Explorer is a steaming pile of shit. The XAML bullshit they're using for the Start Menu button in Windows 10 (and I'm guessing Windows 11, since I am not going to be installing it) is a steaming pile of shit. Microsoft's invasive advertising and telemetry IN A DESKTOP OPERATING SYSTEM is a steaming pile of shit. People need to stop pretending this shit isn't broken. People need to stop calling people who point out how fucking broken this shit is "trolls".

tapoxi 5y ago

It's part of the HN Cycle™ * Blog complains about Windows being a mess * Comments about how the Mac workflow is better * Blog complains about how the Mac is too restricted * Comments about how Linux is finally good now® * Blog complains about Linux desktop * Comments about how WSL2 saved them from the nightmare that is GNOME/KDE/etc repeat ad nauseum

ASalazarMX 5y ago
Except it's not a cycle, those are different people commenting different topics.
- hapidjus 5y ago
  Its a cycle on HN.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    Yes, if someone from one group states a position, someone from another group will rebut it. It's not a quirky pattern, it's just how discussion works.
AQuantized 5y ago
I do think it's finally become true (for me at least) that desktop linux is Actually Good © Previously on more user friendly distros like Ubuntu I didn't feel that the advantages over Windows were significant enough to warrant certain software suites being unavailable (adobe, autocad, etc.). And lightweight distros like Arch caused too much headache even with the wiki and knowing "what you were doing." Arch now feels both relatively easy to use day to day, while still being incredibly customizable with almost no bloatware. The only real problem is certain almost non-negotiable utilities like PulseAudio not necessarily being as high quality as most of the user utilities.
- 5y ago

cortexio 5y ago

watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99dKzubvpKE&t=70s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99dKzubvpKE&t=70s

HumblyTossed 5y ago

> Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. It broke because it could not hit an unessential cloud service. This is absolutely something someone should have expected.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>This is absolutely something someone should have expected It's ok, we rushed the implementation to meet this sprint's goals, the fix is part of the next sprint. /s
- ziml77 5y ago
  I had the misfortune of working with a vendor that did work in sprints. I couldn't see it as anything other than an awful way to work that caused things to take longer than they needed to because priorities couldn't be shifted on the fly and anything other than break fixes couldn't be released mid-sprint. That fixed release cycle might make certain things easier, but it also causes a forced lag on all changes and encourages shipping code that isn't actually complete so you don't have to tell people to wait another 2 weeks for the change.
  - ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
    This pretty much sums up sprints, extra meetings at start and end, less flexibility (we don’t want to change the scope of the sprint) and generally worse for everyone. I wish some of Kanban was more widely accepted, especially things like making sure you have enough worked planned in the backlog to just keep taking tasks and working on them till completion.
    - robocat 5y ago
      https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213 - “An epic treatise on scheduling, bug tracking, and triage” includes comments on software Kanban and has same well written hate on sprints.
- 5y ago

seph-reed 5y ago

As a competent developer of user interfaces, I'd consider working for Microsoft career suicide. It would look bad on my resume. And given how much of a mess it is, it sounds like a terribly stressful job. I think any dev who doesn't see those red flags (or care about them) is very, very likely incompetent. Honestly, even they weren't it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. It's fairly incompetent to take a job that people believe is for incompetent people. Unless you totally turn shit around, which obviously nobody has.

sk5t 5y ago
Might it be that not everyone would view taking on a big challenge with a potential ton of impact "career suicide"--or, would you shun an industry peer who tried to make Windows better?

RHSeeger 5y ago

> Shit breaks in ways you don't expect. Well, to be fair, the cause and effect in this case shouldn't even be connected in a way that allows for this. It's like a bad CD in your car stereo causing your engine to fail. A smart car manufacturer makes it so that the data bus cannot send information from the public areas to the engine area. A bad car manufacturer does not put up those blocks.

HPsquared 5y ago
Cars aren't always the greatest either - never mind the CD player, the radio receiver can be an entry point: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33622298 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33622298
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Automotive EE here. Worth noting that almost every infotainment system is android or Linux-based right now. They crash all the time. They’re absolutely awful quality. they are made almost exclusively with cheap foreign engineering. It’s really the wild west when it comes to things. The vehicle interfaces are usually subsystem modules in the radio. Your Linux side talks to your “vehicle side” over usb, uart, SPI, etc. There is still a good module there most of the time, but it has 100% trust of its main processor. Since 2018, US vehicles since almost all come with a firewall to separate the radio/telemetric/infotainment busses from the vehicle busses. Their solution wasn’t to harden the fancy systems, it was just to separate them from the important ones. So the vulnerabilities are still there, just moved a little. I despise these big stupid complicated displays that encourage accidents.
habeebtc 5y ago
It is unlikely. But that can actually happen. A catastrophic failure of the head unit can impact the electrical system which can do weird things with the spark plugs or other systems.

flohofwoe 5y ago

If it would be the exception to the norm that would be fair. But the bugs and regressions in the Windows desktop UI are so numerous these days that there must be a reason why the quality is so much below the average. Poor management driving the good developers out could be one of them (or it's just because they fired their QA, who knows).

bbarnett 5y ago

Oh please. Do you really think that MS has nobody with any level of competency on any single team in their entire org? He said no such thing.

Arainach 5y ago
" Microsoft doesn't have any competent developers working on the Windows user interfaces" Verbatim quote. The commenter being responded to said exactly that.
- bbarnett 5y ago
  And?
  - lghh 5y ago
    > And? It seems the did in fact say such a thing that you said they didn't say. I imagine you're misinterpreting what I said. That's reasonable, I can see how I was not clear. I was saying that there's no way there's a single team at MS that does not have a competent person on it, not that there's no way ALL teams have 0 competent people on it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

burnished 5y ago

Its a little hyperbolic of them, but the root issue is still that a buggy advertisement in the operating system, as part of a non-vital cloud service, caused the operating system to break. This doesn't feel like an "it happens", right?

908B64B197 5y ago

I think someone is angry he failed his interview in Redmond...

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

As others have pointed out, the very reason they're facing this much criticism is because this bug was very foreseeable and avoidable.