[fidrelity]

Your ecosystem has gone so complex that you can't test it anymore. So instead of handling errors properly you suggest to implement a convoluted user flow that offers always failing actions (install a printer when there's none available).

If that's really the suggestion of product and engineering leadership at MSFT no wonder all their products...err...work as designed.

[nearbuy]

Not at all what he is saying. Microsoft has no problem testing their printer function across all platforms in their apps and removing the print button on platforms where it's not supported. Ideally, everyone would do this.

This is for other developers who are writing 3rd party apps for Microsoft's platforms and who don't always test perfectly. They may have written their app primarily for Windows and didn't consider what happens when someone installs it on their Xbox and clicks "print". In that case, the API should "just work", instead of crashing with an error message.

[gruez]

>Your ecosystem has gone so complex that you can't test it anymore.

An operating system with billion+ install base, and millions of developers tends to be complex. I'm not sure what you're proposing here, have your platform/software be more niche? Somehow get all of them to fall in line?

>So instead of handling errors properly you suggest to implement a convoluted user flow that offers always failing actions (install a printer when there's none available).

How are you going to "handle errors properly" if the publisher of the software in question went out of business?

[Arainach]

What is "your ecosystem" here? Part of running a platform is that the code running on it is written by other people, not you, and that your customers will be relying on that code.

When the software your customers are relying on breaks because of a change you made, it doesn't matter whose "fault" it is. It's broken, it broke because of something you did, and you have burned customer trust - not the trust of whoever wrote the software you believe is "wrong" or "to blame", trust of your platform and company.

[xp84]

It is so obvious from reading these comments here who is not, and would never ever want to be, a platform engineer. It’s hard for some people to grasp that you need to not only interact with, but thoroughly accommodate, software written by others whom you don’t control (often due to the one-way direction of time flow).

[anonms748473]

From my experience in other MS orgs, this was the prevailing approach. There are masses of bandaids on top of systems that have organically evolved over decades. Leadership is generally promoted from within so have a blind spot to how organisation incentives lead to these technical outcomes.