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Other Discussion Boards => Technology & Information => Topic started by: juner on November 25, 2014, 10:43:13 PM

Title: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: juner on November 25, 2014, 10:43:13 PM
I installed it to a VM. After about 30 minutes hands on, I am underwhelmed. It is significantly better than 8, which isn't saying much. It is marginally better than 8.1. For home users it will be fine, but I don't see businesses rushing to adopt it. I read that Microsoft is looking to have a more frequent release schedule. I don't think that will work well for them. People will be using Windows 7 for a long time. Hell, they can't kill off XP which isn't even supported anymore.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Rushy on November 25, 2014, 10:46:45 PM
I'll end up jumping to 10 because I guarantee DirectX 12 will "require" Windows 10. Unless Mantle becomes extremely popular (doubtful) DirectX 12 will be a required upgrade for a gaming computer.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: markjo on November 25, 2014, 11:31:24 PM
That is, of course, assuming that DirectX 12 will be enough of an improvement to compel game developers to require it exclusively for their games.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Rushy on November 25, 2014, 11:56:57 PM
That is, of course, assuming that DirectX 12 will be enough of an improvement to compel game developers to require it exclusively for their games.

You know markjo you obviously have internet access. Could you please look these sorts of things up that way your comments actually add something to the discussion.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Thork on November 26, 2014, 12:02:26 AM
I installed it to a VM. After about 30 minutes hands on, I am underwhelmed. It is significantly better than 8, which isn't saying much. It is marginally better than 8.1. For home users it will be fine, but I don't see businesses rushing to adopt it. I read that Microsoft is looking to have a more frequent release schedule. I don't think that will work well for them. People will be using Windows 7 for a long time. Hell, they can't kill off XP which isn't even supported anymore.

They need to copy Apple. Even Apple recognise a desktop OS and a phone OS are not the same thing. They split the two to OSX and iOS. Windows should never have made their OS all things to all men. It doesn't work. Windows is a brilliant phone Os now. It really is. But the metro and the desktop where stuff is hidden and in stupid places .... C'mon Microsoft, you can do better.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: markjo on November 26, 2014, 12:36:16 AM
That is, of course, assuming that DirectX 12 will be enough of an improvement to compel game developers to require it exclusively for their games.

You know markjo you obviously have internet access. Could you please look these sorts of things up that way your comments actually add something to the discussion.

That assumes that I give a shit about DirectX or Windows gaming.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Vindictus on November 27, 2014, 09:40:06 PM
Windows' brilliance must be inversely proportional to its mobile market share
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Thork on November 27, 2014, 09:44:52 PM
Windows' brilliance must be inversely proportional to its mobile market share
Its directly proportional to how shit its app store is. But the OS itself is the best on the market.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Vindictus on November 27, 2014, 09:47:36 PM
A bold claim, Thork. Unfortunately both iOS and Android exist.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Thork on November 27, 2014, 09:49:18 PM
A bold claim, Thork. Unfortunately both iOS and Android exist.
And neither is as good. I'm someone who has owned all three for large periods of time. Just try a windows phone. You'll see what I mean.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Vindictus on November 27, 2014, 09:53:55 PM
A bold claim, Thork. Unfortunately both iOS and Android exist.
And neither is as good. I'm someone who has owned all three for large periods of time. Just try a windows phone. You'll see what I mean.
I used one once and it gave me cancer.

But seriously, talk about a pain in the ass. I consider myself fairly good at dealing with tech, but even as a windows user, the mobile OS was substantially more annoying to use than Android and a bit more annoying than iOS. And yeah, bugger all apps. Both Microsoft and Apple seem to be fans of simplicity at any cost, which only makes it harder to change things.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Blanko on November 28, 2014, 12:00:17 PM
Not that I've used Windows phone or anything, but it's not like it's hard to outdo Android and iOS
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: xasop on November 28, 2014, 12:06:50 PM
Not that I've used Windows phone or anything, but it's not like it's hard to outdo Android and iOS

Yeah, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. Faced with a decision between being better than the competition, and thinking up some creative way to lock users out of the competition's products, they'll always pick option B.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Lord Dave on November 28, 2014, 01:26:19 PM
Not that I've used Windows phone or anything, but it's not like it's hard to outdo Android and iOS

Yeah, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. Faced with a decision between being better than the competition, and thinking up some creative way to lock users out of the competition's products, they'll always pick option B.
Not sure I follow you.

Aside from locking users out from installing their own OS on a Microsoft device, what else have they done?
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Rushy on November 28, 2014, 01:31:41 PM
Not sure I follow you.

Aside from locking users out from installing their own OS on a Microsoft device, what else have they done?

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Microsoft-DirectX-Logo-wordmark.svg/250px-Microsoft-DirectX-Logo-wordmark.svg.png)
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Lord Dave on November 28, 2014, 01:39:17 PM
Not sure I follow you.

Aside from locking users out from installing their own OS on a Microsoft device, what else have they done?

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Microsoft-DirectX-Logo-wordmark.svg/250px-Microsoft-DirectX-Logo-wordmark.svg.png)
And?  It's not like they said "Oh yeah, you totally have to use this or you'll be banned from Microsoft."  OpenGL, as far as I know, has always worked in Windows.  If developers chose what they felt was the better platform, we can only complain with our wallets.  Which we don't do.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Rushy on November 28, 2014, 02:25:45 PM
And?  It's not like they said "Oh yeah, you totally have to use this or you'll be banned from Microsoft."  OpenGL, as far as I know, has always worked in Windows.  If developers chose what they felt was the better platform, we can only complain with our wallets.  Which we don't do.

Except that they pay devs to optimize only for DirectX, Parsifal was pointing out that Microsoft isn't trying to make themselves better, they lock out the competition using other means. If you use OpenGL exclusively, you are effectively "banned from Microsoft." Good luck playing any mainstream game.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Lord Dave on November 28, 2014, 02:29:48 PM
And?  It's not like they said "Oh yeah, you totally have to use this or you'll be banned from Microsoft."  OpenGL, as far as I know, has always worked in Windows.  If developers chose what they felt was the better platform, we can only complain with our wallets.  Which we don't do.

Except that they pay devs to optimize only for DirectX, Parsifal was pointing out that Microsoft isn't trying to make themselves better, they lock out the competition using other means. If you use OpenGL exclusively, you are effectively "banned from Microsoft." Good luck playing any mainstream game.
They do?  I just thought that Microsoft optimized DirectX for windows and that developers chose it to reach the largest market rather than trying to do two graphics platforms and increasing their development time significantly.  And as developers started using DirectX exclusively, graphics card venders did similar by not putting in as much effort into OpenGL drivers.  As seen by the Valve "Get those OpenGL drivers awesome or else" push they had last year.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Rushy on November 28, 2014, 02:46:00 PM
They do?  I just thought that Microsoft optimized DirectX for windows and that developers chose it to reach the largest market rather than trying to do two graphics platforms and increasing their development time significantly.  And as developers started using DirectX exclusively, graphics card venders did similar by not putting in as much effort into OpenGL drivers.  As seen by the Valve "Get those OpenGL drivers awesome or else" push they had last year.

OpenGL exists on literally the entire market, therefore if you want to reach the entire market you'd use OpenGL. Devs get paid to use DirectX.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Lord Dave on November 28, 2014, 03:23:33 PM
They do?  I just thought that Microsoft optimized DirectX for windows and that developers chose it to reach the largest market rather than trying to do two graphics platforms and increasing their development time significantly.  And as developers started using DirectX exclusively, graphics card venders did similar by not putting in as much effort into OpenGL drivers.  As seen by the Valve "Get those OpenGL drivers awesome or else" push they had last year.

OpenGL exists on literally the entire market, therefore if you want to reach the entire market you'd use OpenGL. Devs get paid to use DirectX.

Not evidence, per se, but a good story none the less:
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: xasop on November 28, 2014, 06:09:02 PM
Aside from locking users out from installing their own OS on a Microsoft device, what else have they done?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

This is an early example, but still one of the best, thanks to the internal memos revealed as a result of the ensuing antitrust case. Microsoft haven't changed their modus operandi since then; a more recent example is their push for standardisation on their unnecessarily complicated OOXML document format (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML), despite the existing (and much simpler) OpenDocument format which achieves the same goal. If any testament is needed to the complexity Microsoft are trying to force onto the rest of the world's developers, how about the fact that Microsoft's own office suite didn't support it fully (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/04/iso-ooxml-convener-microsofts-format-heading-for-failure/) until more than four years after it was adopted as a standard (http://blogs.office.com/2012/08/13/new-file-format-options-in-the-new-office/)?
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Lord Dave on November 28, 2014, 06:27:26 PM
Aside from locking users out from installing their own OS on a Microsoft device, what else have they done?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code)

This is an early example, but still one of the best, thanks to the internal memos revealed as a result of the ensuing antitrust case. Microsoft haven't changed their modus operandi since then; a more recent example is their push for standardisation on their unnecessarily complicated OOXML document format (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML), despite the existing (and much simpler) OpenDocument format which achieves the same goal. If any testament is needed to the complexity Microsoft are trying to force onto the rest of the world's developers, how about the fact that Microsoft's own office suite didn't support it fully (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/04/iso-ooxml-convener-microsofts-format-heading-for-failure/) until more than four years after it was adopted as a standard (http://blogs.office.com/2012/08/13/new-file-format-options-in-the-new-office/)?
Point taken.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Pete Svarrior on November 28, 2014, 08:26:55 PM
a more recent example is their push for standardisation on their unnecessarily complicated OOXML document format (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML), despite the existing (and much simpler) OpenDocument format which achieves the same goal. If any testament is needed to the complexity Microsoft are trying to force onto the rest of the world's developers, how about the fact that Microsoft's own office suite didn't support it fully (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/04/iso-ooxml-convener-microsofts-format-heading-for-failure/) until more than four years after it was adopted as a standard (http://blogs.office.com/2012/08/13/new-file-format-options-in-the-new-office/)?
Microsoft Office supported the format they wanted to standardise, in the state they wanted to see it standardised at. ISO forced a number of changes which led to Office 2007 being completely incompatible with the now-approved "Strict" format. Microsoft, for the sake of consistency, does not patch its software to make major changes in supported file formats. The idea is that a document saved in Office 2007 will work in Office 2007, and the nice elderly secretary at FluffyBiz Co. doesn't need to wonder if it's Office 2007 12.0.42.69 or Office 2007 12.1.666.0. This is an approach that you may disagree with, but to call it a failure to implement the format would be ridiculous.

At this point in time the development of Office 2010 is well underway, with the plans to release it in early 2009. Given how late in the cycle the changes were demanded, it's a show of good will that they even provided read support to the "Strict" format. The fact that they also continue to support ODF despite having a standard of their own further reinforces their commitment to interoperability and standards-compliance.

As for achieving the same goals: Sure, if by "same goals" you mean "the other standard also covers the basics, kinda". ODF offers no way to easily ensure that documents will look identical (or even remotely similar) across devices - it offers no font control other than name-matching. Meanwhile, OOXML gives us OpenType and PANOSE. ODF's Dublin Core metadata support can at best be described as "partial", while OOXML is ready for any data nerd to cream his pants. And ODF has no extensibility rules, so it's not like we can fix it easily. Surprisingly enough, the evil and anti-openness OOXML does have a clear NVDL schema for that express purpose.

So yeah, if you want a standard that lets you write a bunch of text and then print that text on paper, ODF is perfectly sufficient, and indeed simpler. If you want a format that actually considers the modern world and is prepared for future changes, OOXML is a no-brainer choice.
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: xasop on November 28, 2014, 08:30:02 PM
Microsoft Office supported the format they wanted to standardise, in the state they wanted to see it standardised at.

How very convenient for them. Wouldn't it be great if all software developers completely ignored real standards and instead supported the standards they would prefer to exist?
Title: Re: Windows 10 Technical Preview
Post by: Pete Svarrior on November 28, 2014, 08:37:22 PM
How very convenient for them. Wouldn't it be great if all software developers completely ignored real standards and instead supported the standards they would prefer to exist?
As far as I know, Microsoft did not contest the changes. In fact, they welcomed them and shifted their efforts to do their best to support the changes as quickly as they could without depriving themselves of profit (see: the delay in Office 2010's release to ensure they can at least do the Transitional spec right). It is, however, unreasonable to expect them to support the ISO standard before the ISO standard existed.