4 ms·

I think I'm out of the loop: what exactly is so valuable about this telemetry? I don't believe my coding habits can be used for advertising.

api 4y ago
* Profiling what languages you code in * Profiling your work hours * Tracking the physical locations of software professionals * Profiling the nature of the projects you are working on * Perhaps: training GitHub Copilot?
- Bootvis 4y ago
  I get these are huge privacy infringements and I don't like that but except for improving Copilot I don't see how they would make money from that. On the other hand, sites such as StackOverflow and Google (possibly even Bing) can get a good guess of the others as well.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    MS sale team would probably love to get a grep of all "#include <foo.h>" of a company to see of they can do some sales pitch to eat some vendors lunch.
savanaly 4y ago
FTA: "Visual Studio Code collects telemetry data, which is used to help understand how to improve the product. For example, this usage data helps to debug issues, such as slow start-up times, and to prioritize new features." I don't work at Microsoft but I work somewhere similar on a product that collects similar types of telemetry and those words are not empty, they are very, very true. We absolutely add, remove, and change things about the UI based on what our telemetry says people do. And it's not just about moving things around (which I know HN hates), it's about making the page load faster (which I know HN loves!). We are going through a concerted effort to lower page TTVC at the moment and a big part is going to have to be turning off some features that show by default that take too long to load and guess how we'll be making the call about which features to turn off?
- ttctciyf 4y ago
  > We absolutely add, remove, and change things about the UI Please consider stopping with that UI changing thing :)
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I agree but I think this is a niche case where we are talking specifically about a development tool. I assume VSCode developers are dogfooding VSCode. They know what users want because as developers they themselves are VSCode users. Telemetry, other than crash information, seems unnecessary.
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    VSCode supports a wide range of languages and workflows. The workflow of the VSCode developers doesn't necessarily align with the workflows of other VSCode users.
falcolas 4y ago
IMO: Whether they make money off of it or not doesn't matter. They're collecting and storing gobs of data that they don't need. It's arguably not their data (i.e. the branch and repo from my .git directory), so they shouldn't be collecting or storing it.

api 4y ago

* Profiling what languages you code in * Profiling your work hours * Tracking the physical locations of software professionals * Profiling the nature of the projects you are working on * Perhaps: training GitHub Copilot?

Bootvis 4y ago
I get these are huge privacy infringements and I don't like that but except for improving Copilot I don't see how they would make money from that. On the other hand, sites such as StackOverflow and Google (possibly even Bing) can get a good guess of the others as well.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  MS sale team would probably love to get a grep of all "#include <foo.h>" of a company to see of they can do some sales pitch to eat some vendors lunch.

savanaly 4y ago

FTA: "Visual Studio Code collects telemetry data, which is used to help understand how to improve the product. For example, this usage data helps to debug issues, such as slow start-up times, and to prioritize new features." I don't work at Microsoft but I work somewhere similar on a product that collects similar types of telemetry and those words are not empty, they are very, very true. We absolutely add, remove, and change things about the UI based on what our telemetry says people do. And it's not just about moving things around (which I know HN hates), it's about making the page load faster (which I know HN loves!). We are going through a concerted effort to lower page TTVC at the moment and a big part is going to have to be turning off some features that show by default that take too long to load and guess how we'll be making the call about which features to turn off?

ttctciyf 4y ago
> We absolutely add, remove, and change things about the UI Please consider stopping with that UI changing thing :)
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
I agree but I think this is a niche case where we are talking specifically about a development tool. I assume VSCode developers are dogfooding VSCode. They know what users want because as developers they themselves are VSCode users. Telemetry, other than crash information, seems unnecessary.
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  VSCode supports a wide range of languages and workflows. The workflow of the VSCode developers doesn't necessarily align with the workflows of other VSCode users.

falcolas 4y ago

IMO: Whether they make money off of it or not doesn't matter. They're collecting and storing gobs of data that they don't need. It's arguably not their data (i.e. the branch and repo from my .git directory), so they shouldn't be collecting or storing it.