5 ms·

I don't see a counterargument here. "Microsoft did that". Yes, and they still lead the global market share for desktops and laptops. I would like to wager that

by _gabe_ 4y ago

I don't see a counterargument here. "Microsoft did that". Yes, and they still lead the global market share for desktops and laptops. I would like to wager that most breaking API changes don't actually need to happen. If you look at the Win32 API they have some of the best forward thinking APIs that I've seen. That means you have a lot of weird stuff like having to pass the size of a the struct you're using to use a function, but it means that they can safely upgrade those functions without making a breaking change. In an ideal world, you would think developers had learned how to make a stable API for an OS over the past 25 years. If that were true then we could nail down a stable API and have a well defined input and output, and then simply change the internals to make a non breaking change. I think backwards compatibility should be something developers prioritize, because it forces you to think about how to structure a program in a forward thinking manner and focus on clear requirements (easier said than done). Anyways, I highly doubt windows would be the preferred gaming platform today if they didn't value this backwards compatibility. God knows that the OS sucks in so many areas. Most people would love to switch to something better, but the fact that windows makes it so easy to develop something and have it just work for 25 years clearly has a large impact on how many developers it attracts. Put another way, who wants to develop for somebody that says "anything you make on my platform will be obsolete in 2-3 years?". And I can guarantee you, that mentality does not appeal to a lot of people.

throwanem 4y ago
> Yes, and they still lead the global market share for desktops and laptops. Which means little, because no one is competing with them. > who wants to develop for somebody that says "anything you make on my platform will be obsolete in 2-3 years"? Anyone who wants access to Apple's base of high-value mobile users. Note too that "obsolete" is inaccurate here. Those who've bought an app can continue to download and use it as long as it still runs on their devices, as I do with several apps that have aged out of purchasability. What's accurate is that devs need to update their app at least once every couple of years or so to keep it available to new customers. If I were running a business that depended significantly on app installs for revenue, I think that would be a reasonable bar to clear - at any rate, it's posed no problem for those businesses I've worked with that do.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > Anyone who wants access to Apple's base of high-value mobile users. This high-value user is getting increasingly tired of Apple's shit and is actively looking for an alternative. Their stewardship of the App Store is increasingly abysmal. Their promotion of subscription pricing over other business models is anti-consumer. And "it just works" is increasingly a punchline (try using Time Machine in 2022). Apple still has two advantages though: excellent hardware and a focus on privacy. The former was at-risk in the 2016-2020 keyboard era, but they have course-corrected somewhat. The latter seems increasingly at risk with moves like the recent CSAM kerfuffle. Apple's once small but excellent stable of third party software has grown increasingly unpalatable. There are many more apps, sure, but when it seems like 9/10 are either outright scams or subscription services for things as simple as calculators and notes apps it's hard for me to look at their marketplace with anything other than disgust.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    Well, I'm not about to try to argue you out of conclusions you've derived from analysis of your own experience; aside from the insult so implied, it would be a waste of both our time.
  - csande17 4y ago
    > Their promotion of subscription pricing over other business models is anti-consumer. It's funny you should mention this, because Apple's compatibility treadmill is one of the biggest things driving developers towards the subscription model! If you have to put in work every year just to keep your app working on newer iOS versions, you have to collect revenue from your users every year to pay for that work.
vachina 4y ago
Nobody wants to do the groundwork of a stable API. It’s a very difficult and thankless job because what people see are the brilliant apps built on top of it.
minimaul 4y ago
> Anyways, I highly doubt windows would be the preferred gaming platform today if they didn't value this backwards compatibility. God knows that the OS sucks in so many areas. Most people would love to switch to something better, but the fact that windows makes it so easy to develop something and have it just work for 25 years clearly has a large impact on how many developers it attracts. This is interesting as a comment, because trying to run older games on Windows 10 is actually very difficult and is not tremendously successful without third party/fan patches & compatibility layers. eg: take an at the time very popular game like The Sims 2, and try to run that on Windows 10. If you have a disc copy, SafeDisc/SecuROM probably no longer function and you can't start it at all (this affects lots of older titles). Get past that and you'll get it to run, but it won't recognise your hardware and will lock itself to super low settings, and modern GPUs & modern GPU drivers have a tendency to make it just crash or render incorrectly. Fixing those requires fan patches or the use of DXVK. Running it on CPUs with multiple cores can make it just crash. This is just one game, but the story is pretty similar for a lot of games from 10+ years ago - there's an amount of backwards compatibility, but it's not nearly as rosy a story as it first appears, and older games seem to be a particularly bad case for it. There's a whole wiki about getting games to work right - https://www.pcgamingwiki.com https://www.pcgamingwiki.com We can always find technical reasons and deficiencies in the original apps that explain why these games break, but "someone didn't write it right 15 years ago but it kinda worked then by accident" doesn't help the end user. edit: oh, and from my personal experience, it's worse on Windows 11 than Win10!

by _gabe_ 4y ago

throwanem 4y ago

> Yes, and they still lead the global market share for desktops and laptops. Which means little, because no one is competing with them. > who wants to develop for somebody that says "anything you make on my platform will be obsolete in 2-3 years"? Anyone who wants access to Apple's base of high-value mobile users. Note too that "obsolete" is inaccurate here. Those who've bought an app can continue to download and use it as long as it still runs on their devices, as I do with several apps that have aged out of purchasability. What's accurate is that devs need to update their app at least once every couple of years or so to keep it available to new customers. If I were running a business that depended significantly on app installs for revenue, I think that would be a reasonable bar to clear - at any rate, it's posed no problem for those businesses I've worked with that do.

AlexandrB 4y ago
> Anyone who wants access to Apple's base of high-value mobile users. This high-value user is getting increasingly tired of Apple's shit and is actively looking for an alternative. Their stewardship of the App Store is increasingly abysmal. Their promotion of subscription pricing over other business models is anti-consumer. And "it just works" is increasingly a punchline (try using Time Machine in 2022). Apple still has two advantages though: excellent hardware and a focus on privacy. The former was at-risk in the 2016-2020 keyboard era, but they have course-corrected somewhat. The latter seems increasingly at risk with moves like the recent CSAM kerfuffle. Apple's once small but excellent stable of third party software has grown increasingly unpalatable. There are many more apps, sure, but when it seems like 9/10 are either outright scams or subscription services for things as simple as calculators and notes apps it's hard for me to look at their marketplace with anything other than disgust.
- throwanem 4y ago
  Well, I'm not about to try to argue you out of conclusions you've derived from analysis of your own experience; aside from the insult so implied, it would be a waste of both our time.
- csande17 4y ago
  > Their promotion of subscription pricing over other business models is anti-consumer. It's funny you should mention this, because Apple's compatibility treadmill is one of the biggest things driving developers towards the subscription model! If you have to put in work every year just to keep your app working on newer iOS versions, you have to collect revenue from your users every year to pay for that work.

vachina 4y ago

Nobody wants to do the groundwork of a stable API. It’s a very difficult and thankless job because what people see are the brilliant apps built on top of it.

minimaul 4y ago

> Anyways, I highly doubt windows would be the preferred gaming platform today if they didn't value this backwards compatibility. God knows that the OS sucks in so many areas. Most people would love to switch to something better, but the fact that windows makes it so easy to develop something and have it just work for 25 years clearly has a large impact on how many developers it attracts. This is interesting as a comment, because trying to run older games on Windows 10 is actually very difficult and is not tremendously successful without third party/fan patches & compatibility layers. eg: take an at the time very popular game like The Sims 2, and try to run that on Windows 10. If you have a disc copy, SafeDisc/SecuROM probably no longer function and you can't start it at all (this affects lots of older titles). Get past that and you'll get it to run, but it won't recognise your hardware and will lock itself to super low settings, and modern GPUs & modern GPU drivers have a tendency to make it just crash or render incorrectly. Fixing those requires fan patches or the use of DXVK. Running it on CPUs with multiple cores can make it just crash. This is just one game, but the story is pretty similar for a lot of games from 10+ years ago - there's an amount of backwards compatibility, but it's not nearly as rosy a story as it first appears, and older games seem to be a particularly bad case for it. There's a whole wiki about getting games to work right - https://www.pcgamingwiki.com https://www.pcgamingwiki.com We can always find technical reasons and deficiencies in the original apps that explain why these games break, but "someone didn't write it right 15 years ago but it kinda worked then by accident" doesn't help the end user. edit: oh, and from my personal experience, it's worse on Windows 11 than Win10!