Gregory's Server@eniko Microsoft has done so much awful and dumb shit but at least they tend to understand the value of "hey just let people make shit for your platform, because then there'll be shit for your platform"
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16 comments
 @JoshJers apple is like "pay me a yearly fee so you can make software for our OS" microsoft is like "oh you wanna make software for our OS? here, have the professional suite of development tools for free" @eniko Also, as someone who has had to work on both, Microsoft's developer documentation is a fucking GODSEND compared to the cobweb-infested wasteland that is Mac's docs OSX/iOS technically have documentation of everything, but a lot of the time it's a page with the type name on it and no additional information  @antijingoist @eniko whomst among us hasn't dumped just a little toxic waste into residential neighborhoods from time to time  @JoshJers @antijingoist @eniko Neighbourhoods can have a little toxic waste, as a treat. It was honestly funnier when it was a shitty movie plot "LOL bad guys do bad stuff for a few dollars." In this case, it could be comical as a story, but Apple has met their decreasing landfill targets by using the neighborhoods they are in. 😐 And with other US air quality shit going on, and forced covid exposures, in the middle of an intentionally untrackable surge, It's all very exhausting.  @JoshJers @eniko Also "Hey, if people only have to make stuff once for your platform and then have it work from then on out, it's basically free marketing for your platform. Any amount of work that we can do to make sure that the stuff - even if we think it's bad - still works on our platforms, we should do.". @AT1ST @eniko oh god, also that Microsoft does absolute fucking BACKBENDS to make sure that some obscure-ass thing from 1998 still works (like the things I wrote in DirectDraw around that time, which still run) Apple is like "that thing you developed last month? it doesn't work any more. Also you have to buy a new $3000 development kit because we switched the entire processor architecture again" @JoshJers @eniko Yeah - I'm reminded of the story that allegedly SimCity and it's sequels use the same exe name because Microsoft saw that it has memory management leakage, and instead of just letting it BSOD after a while, made their OS detect when it was running, and gave it a *custom* memory manager that properly did the freeing and allocation instead of expecting it tobbe done correctly. And then SimCity devs essentially said "Well, it works, and it doesn't cost us to reuse our code..."... @JoshJers @eniko ...and while I'm sure Microsoft is ripping their hair out over maintaining that throughout the OS versions, it's an amazing testament to their commitment to be willing to eat the technical debt of other developers. That, and the whole "This Windows version is 3.99, because some developers had a bad check that their software was being installed on Windows 3.1 or higher." thing. @JoshJers @eniko To some extent, it's making me realize that Texas Instruments doesn't get that kind of rep, and it feels like maybe they should've tried for it. Like, "Yes, we have a new version of our TI-Nspire models, but they will still run that program of Doom from your father's TI-83 if you upload it to this new calculator model, no changes to the code necessary.". I have a feeling they didn't do that. |
@eniko Sorry, what I meant to say was "DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS"