5 ms·

It was the battle for "the web" and the sun+netscape partnership was an actual menace to microsoft's activex and vbscript things. There is an espisode the Lex F

by EMRZ 5y ago

It was the battle for "the web" and the sun+netscape partnership was an actual menace to microsoft's activex and vbscript things. There is an espisode the Lex Fridman podcast with Brendan Eich where he talks a little about that specific time.[1] The "panic" was right imo (only in that specific area) i mean, there is almost 0 microsoft on the web today. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krB0enBeSiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krB0enBeSiE

whimsicalism 5y ago
> 0 microsoft on the web today Wdym? TS?
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  TS is just fancy JS. If it didn't exist, Flow, Haxe or Dart would just be in the same place (static types languages with JS-ish syntax that compile to JS).
  - epolanski 5y ago
    And if Java didn't exist we would have other tools as well. And yet Microsoft has by far the largest share of language adoption on the web, which likely applies to the tooling too.
    - Mikeb85 5y ago
      By far? You really think the majority of websites are using TS-generated JS? The majority of the web is Wordpress and PHP frameworks. TS has only become 'popular' rather recently, and there's still a TON of websites that are full-stack SSR with only modest amounts of JS. As for tooling, maybe. VS has always had a decent amount of mind-share. Even then though, I can see Jetbrains + Eclipse + Sublime + Emacs + Vim + others capturing at least 50% combined...
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      Which languages and tooling are you talking about?
  - phillipcarter 5y ago
    > TS is just fancy JS. If it didn't exist, Flow, Haxe or Dart would just be in the same place "TS is just fancy JS" is like saying "Java is just fancy machine code" or something like that. It's a major software project with a much larger scope than simply slapping a few types on top of common JS constructs. More importantly, it's been an innovating force at the language and editor tooling levels for web developers worldwide. I think it's likely to be the most successful language that Microsoft has ever produced in the long run.
    - Mikeb85 5y ago
      > "TS is just fancy JS" is like saying "Java is just fancy machine code" Terrible analogy. TS doesn't compile to WASM or anything, it compiles to human-readable JS. Java doesn't compile to C++ or C. The JVM is an entire platform. > More importantly, it's been an innovating force at the language and editor tooling levels for web developers worldwide. MS has always been decent when it comes to tooling but there's nothing particularly innovative about TS.
      - phillipcarter 5y ago
        We'll agree to disagree on everything you've said then :)
epolanski 5y ago
C#, TypeScript, Azure, Visual Studio, VSCode, GitHub, the npm package ecosystem, Microsoft Edge, having the de facto monopoly of several markets with office and its web integrations, Microsoft Teams suite for enterprise and I think I'm missing a lot more stuff. Claiming there's no Microsoft on the web seems far fetched when Microsoft de facto controls extremely large parts of producing modern web applications, deploying them and serving the tools necessary for businesses to coordinate. It may have lost share to competing applications or it missed the train exactly, but I cannot think of any other single company you can lock in your organization from management, production to deployment and even consumption on Microsoft own devices from Surfaces to Xbox.
- oaiey 5y ago
  It is also key to understand that they are far more diverse than ever. Azure earns money independently, so does Office and Windows, XBox, etc. They do not rely on each other anymore. The only big part which is different is the former developer division. I do not think they earn the money themselves but are more a cost center to everyone else. But considering that everyone else is a giant company with a diverse set of developer needs, maybe that is just okay. Which again is interesting because the rest of the industry is also relying on this part of Microsoft.
  - runevault 5y ago
    Even if .NET is technically a cost center, the reduced cost they get from optimizing it making things like Bing faster probably still makes it indirectly a profit center by saving them so much money.
- pornel 5y ago
  This is the "post-apocalyptic" Microsoft. These things are open-source and supporting Linux, which was unthinkable for Bill's Microsoft. MS used to call Linux cancer, and now they're running Linux servers for people. MS used to spread FUD that it's irresponsible and amateurish to expose source code of programs, and later they had to acquire GitHub and npm to stay relevant. Microsoft had to adapt, because the old Microsoft has lost. Remember MS was selling very expensive per-CPU licenses for servers to run IIS, ASP.Net, and SqlServer. Admin tasks that we use webapps for were supposed to be a combination of Office, Access, VBA, native Windows applications, and a dash of ActiveX.
dagw 5y ago
there is almost 0 microsoft on the web today. I've worked (as a consultant) on a number of 'boring' B2B web applications targeting 'boring' industries and one thing they all had in common was that they where all in on the Microsoft stack.

by EMRZ 5y ago

whimsicalism 5y ago

> 0 microsoft on the web today Wdym? TS?

Mikeb85 5y ago
TS is just fancy JS. If it didn't exist, Flow, Haxe or Dart would just be in the same place (static types languages with JS-ish syntax that compile to JS).
- epolanski 5y ago
  And if Java didn't exist we would have other tools as well. And yet Microsoft has by far the largest share of language adoption on the web, which likely applies to the tooling too.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    By far? You really think the majority of websites are using TS-generated JS? The majority of the web is Wordpress and PHP frameworks. TS has only become 'popular' rather recently, and there's still a TON of websites that are full-stack SSR with only modest amounts of JS. As for tooling, maybe. VS has always had a decent amount of mind-share. Even then though, I can see Jetbrains + Eclipse + Sublime + Emacs + Vim + others capturing at least 50% combined...
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Which languages and tooling are you talking about?
- phillipcarter 5y ago
  > TS is just fancy JS. If it didn't exist, Flow, Haxe or Dart would just be in the same place "TS is just fancy JS" is like saying "Java is just fancy machine code" or something like that. It's a major software project with a much larger scope than simply slapping a few types on top of common JS constructs. More importantly, it's been an innovating force at the language and editor tooling levels for web developers worldwide. I think it's likely to be the most successful language that Microsoft has ever produced in the long run.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    > "TS is just fancy JS" is like saying "Java is just fancy machine code" Terrible analogy. TS doesn't compile to WASM or anything, it compiles to human-readable JS. Java doesn't compile to C++ or C. The JVM is an entire platform. > More importantly, it's been an innovating force at the language and editor tooling levels for web developers worldwide. MS has always been decent when it comes to tooling but there's nothing particularly innovative about TS.
    - phillipcarter 5y ago
      We'll agree to disagree on everything you've said then :)

epolanski 5y ago

C#, TypeScript, Azure, Visual Studio, VSCode, GitHub, the npm package ecosystem, Microsoft Edge, having the de facto monopoly of several markets with office and its web integrations, Microsoft Teams suite for enterprise and I think I'm missing a lot more stuff. Claiming there's no Microsoft on the web seems far fetched when Microsoft de facto controls extremely large parts of producing modern web applications, deploying them and serving the tools necessary for businesses to coordinate. It may have lost share to competing applications or it missed the train exactly, but I cannot think of any other single company you can lock in your organization from management, production to deployment and even consumption on Microsoft own devices from Surfaces to Xbox.

oaiey 5y ago
It is also key to understand that they are far more diverse than ever. Azure earns money independently, so does Office and Windows, XBox, etc. They do not rely on each other anymore. The only big part which is different is the former developer division. I do not think they earn the money themselves but are more a cost center to everyone else. But considering that everyone else is a giant company with a diverse set of developer needs, maybe that is just okay. Which again is interesting because the rest of the industry is also relying on this part of Microsoft.
- runevault 5y ago
  Even if .NET is technically a cost center, the reduced cost they get from optimizing it making things like Bing faster probably still makes it indirectly a profit center by saving them so much money.
pornel 5y ago
This is the "post-apocalyptic" Microsoft. These things are open-source and supporting Linux, which was unthinkable for Bill's Microsoft. MS used to call Linux cancer, and now they're running Linux servers for people. MS used to spread FUD that it's irresponsible and amateurish to expose source code of programs, and later they had to acquire GitHub and npm to stay relevant. Microsoft had to adapt, because the old Microsoft has lost. Remember MS was selling very expensive per-CPU licenses for servers to run IIS, ASP.Net, and SqlServer. Admin tasks that we use webapps for were supposed to be a combination of Office, Access, VBA, native Windows applications, and a dash of ActiveX.

dagw 5y ago

there is almost 0 microsoft on the web today. I've worked (as a consultant) on a number of 'boring' B2B web applications targeting 'boring' industries and one thing they all had in common was that they where all in on the Microsoft stack.