4 ms·

In my opinion, web browsers have become too popular and widespread. They're an important application on nearly every phone, laptop and desktop computer sold. Th

In my opinion, web browsers have become too popular and widespread. They're an important application on nearly every phone, laptop and desktop computer sold. The pressure to implement pervasive tracking is immense. I don't see a future where companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple all decide to drop this level of tracking and switch to an open-source product. If another browser engine is good enough they might _fork_ it in order to add these kind of predatory features. Kind of like they already did with WebKit, now that I think about it. :-P

robocat 2y ago
Before browsers was Windows. Microsoft had dominance, and they lost it. I think browser based Apps took over in business because (1) Windows had shit security and shit App deployment, (2) Microsoft somehow forgot about developers developers developers.
- rectang 2y ago
  Microsoft never forgot about locking developers in. As someone with trying to fulfill an organizational imperative to deliver cross-platform compatibility, they made my life as miserable as they possibly could.
  - robocat 2y ago
    > [Microsoft] made my life as miserable as they possibly could. Exactly what I was saying. They had the goodwill of developers and then they burned it. Any developer through the 00's got burned multiple times - like the terrible Kiddie Server 2008. They are still burning us with Telemetry and unprofessional choices like advertising within the OS. Before that they delivered mediocre but functional software. It worked. Now it doesn't work so well and is a masterclass in ugly graphic design and usability flaws.
- ForTheKidz 2y ago
  It's also worth remembering that developing cross-platform between windows and literally anything else (excepting maybe the xbox? never owned one) is a nightmare. At best managed code will handle some of it, but Windows has many primitives that operate fundamentally differently than other desktop platforms. That alone will ensure I'll never touch that market except potentially as a secondary effort if a product takes off. (I also haven't had to use windows for anything since like 2009, which helps.)
  - wtallis 2y ago
    My favorite example of this is to look at all the hoops Wine has to jump through to get decent performance for locks. Apparently many developers writing for Windows default to using a locking primitive that can wait for a list of locks (specified by handles), and those locks can be shared between processes. That primitive frequently gets used even for waiting on a single lock confined within a single process, but Wine usually still has to go through the incredibly expensive emulation to handle the general case.
    - tomnipotent 2y ago
      The NTSYNC driver lands this month with Linux 6.14. I've been following the Wine MR the last few weeks eagerly waiting for it. Especially for Nvidia users this should help close some of the performance gap between Windows/Linux while the GPU drivers catch up. https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/merge_requests/7226 https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/merge_requests/7226
    - robocat 2y ago
      > and those locks can be shared between processes. That primitive frequently gets used even for waiting on a single lock confined within a single process And why not use a cheap primitive and if a lock is detected to be shared between multiple processes then upgrade it to the "expensive emulation"?

robocat 2y ago

Before browsers was Windows. Microsoft had dominance, and they lost it. I think browser based Apps took over in business because (1) Windows had shit security and shit App deployment, (2) Microsoft somehow forgot about developers developers developers.

rectang 2y ago
Microsoft never forgot about locking developers in. As someone with trying to fulfill an organizational imperative to deliver cross-platform compatibility, they made my life as miserable as they possibly could.
- robocat 2y ago
  > [Microsoft] made my life as miserable as they possibly could. Exactly what I was saying. They had the goodwill of developers and then they burned it. Any developer through the 00's got burned multiple times - like the terrible Kiddie Server 2008. They are still burning us with Telemetry and unprofessional choices like advertising within the OS. Before that they delivered mediocre but functional software. It worked. Now it doesn't work so well and is a masterclass in ugly graphic design and usability flaws.
ForTheKidz 2y ago
It's also worth remembering that developing cross-platform between windows and literally anything else (excepting maybe the xbox? never owned one) is a nightmare. At best managed code will handle some of it, but Windows has many primitives that operate fundamentally differently than other desktop platforms. That alone will ensure I'll never touch that market except potentially as a secondary effort if a product takes off. (I also haven't had to use windows for anything since like 2009, which helps.)
- wtallis 2y ago
  My favorite example of this is to look at all the hoops Wine has to jump through to get decent performance for locks. Apparently many developers writing for Windows default to using a locking primitive that can wait for a list of locks (specified by handles), and those locks can be shared between processes. That primitive frequently gets used even for waiting on a single lock confined within a single process, but Wine usually still has to go through the incredibly expensive emulation to handle the general case.
  - tomnipotent 2y ago
    The NTSYNC driver lands this month with Linux 6.14. I've been following the Wine MR the last few weeks eagerly waiting for it. Especially for Nvidia users this should help close some of the performance gap between Windows/Linux while the GPU drivers catch up. https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/merge_requests/7226 https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/merge_requests/7226
  - robocat 2y ago
    > and those locks can be shared between processes. That primitive frequently gets used even for waiting on a single lock confined within a single process And why not use a cheap primitive and if a lock is detected to be shared between multiple processes then upgrade it to the "expensive emulation"?