Or: Steve Ballmer oversaw the decline of Mircosoft's flagship product, but left before he could be blamed for it.
A lot of Windows' current problems can be traced back to the Ballmer era, including the framework schizophrenia, as Microsoft shifted between Win32, UWP, WPF, and god knows what else. This has lead to the current chaotic and disjointed UI experience, and served to confuse and drive away developers. Repeatedly sacrificing reliable and consistent UX while chasing shiny and new technologies is no way to run an OS.
I think MS's biggest mistake was to not properly maintain and develop the Foundation Classes, basically a thin C++ wrapper library on top of the C API that retained most of the benefits of the Win32 API while eliminating a lot of the boilerplate code. Instead they went after Java with the .NET managed stuff, bloated and slow compared to the native API.
Qt is now the best "old school" UI framework by far.
>including the framework schizophrenia, as Microsoft shifted between Win32, UWP, WPF
Ah yes, and the solution being presented is Linux, with Xlib, Motif, Qt, GTK, and your choice of 167 different desktop environments. Don't forget the whole Wayland schism.
Mac is no better, shifting SDKs every few years, except Apple goes one step further by breaking all legacy applications so you are forced to upgrade. Can't be schizo when you salt the earth and light a match to everything that came before the Current Thing.
July 2014: Microsoft lays off 14k people, a large portion of which are SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test)/QA/test people.
The idea was that regular developers themselves would be writing and owning tests rather than relying on separate testers.
I'm sure there were multiple instances of insane empire building and lots of unproductivity, but it's also hard to not think this was where the downfall began.
Ultimately it still comes down to someone in the chain giving a damn. There are obvious, surface level bugs across most technologies. Yet, developers, PMs, VPs all sign off and say, "Close enough".
hackyhacky|1 month ago
A lot of Windows' current problems can be traced back to the Ballmer era, including the framework schizophrenia, as Microsoft shifted between Win32, UWP, WPF, and god knows what else. This has lead to the current chaotic and disjointed UI experience, and served to confuse and drive away developers. Repeatedly sacrificing reliable and consistent UX while chasing shiny and new technologies is no way to run an OS.
drnick1|1 month ago
Qt is now the best "old school" UI framework by far.
franktankbank|1 month ago
schmuckonwheels|1 month ago
Ah yes, and the solution being presented is Linux, with Xlib, Motif, Qt, GTK, and your choice of 167 different desktop environments. Don't forget the whole Wayland schism.
Mac is no better, shifting SDKs every few years, except Apple goes one step further by breaking all legacy applications so you are forced to upgrade. Can't be schizo when you salt the earth and light a match to everything that came before the Current Thing.
lysace|1 month ago
July 2014: Microsoft lays off 14k people, a large portion of which are SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test)/QA/test people.
The idea was that regular developers themselves would be writing and owning tests rather than relying on separate testers.
I'm sure there were multiple instances of insane empire building and lots of unproductivity, but it's also hard to not think this was where the downfall began.
3eb7988a1663|1 month ago
conradfr|1 month ago
phillipcarter|1 month ago
Calavar|1 month ago