Disagree thoroughly. The reason why people push shit through the security-updates channel is because of money and structural pressure from management to ensure adoption of the company's new $THING.
It's a big problem in tech, trying to get people to update. We might like to think of ourselves as progressive, but a lot of people in our world tend to be very conservative and resistant to change. Microsoft knows that as well as anyone else. The only way to ensure people are using the latest version is to stop giving them a choice. You can't always rely on people making the best choice for themselves.
That sounds super authoritarian, sure, but the nice thing about technology? Microsoft isn't the only game in town. They can do whatever they want with their platform and you're free to leave. You don't need a passport, or any more money, or really even any additional knowledge at this point. You're only locked in if you choose to be locked in.
*with "everyone" being the typical Internet strawman that only actually exists in a random selection of HN comments.
Agree with the first part, the second needs a very twisted definition of best or themselves.
Offer something people want and they will upgrade. This alone tells very much about the win10 situation. Microsoft game is lock-in, if the cost of leaving their garden is trivial they are doing something wrong!
I have a friend who buys $500 laptops. They last him a year, and then he has to buy another laptop. He laughs when I buy $1000 laptops, but those $1000 laptops last me three years. Over that three year period, he's spent $1500 on laptops and I spent $1000.
I have a friend who uses Windows XP. Windows XP is better, it's faster, it's leaner, Aero is garbage, Metro is garbage. DirectX 12 is just a scam to get you to upgrade, there's no reason Windows XP isn't the best. But once a month he's calling me about some kind of virus he's gotten even though he runs Symantec every day.
Relying on an outdated piece of software is never the best decision. If Microsoft's updates bother you that much, stop using Microsoft software. Microsoft can't lock you in to anything, and there's very little that Windows offers that OSX, or to a lesser extent Linux, doesn't offer. The arguments against switching come down to "I hate Apple/Linux", in which case you've locked yourself into one vendor for irrational reasons, or "Apple is too expensive", in which case you have to wonder if that's actually true considering you're spending hours complaining about Microsoft updates, or the worst one, "I'm a Windows developer", which... why? If you hate Microsoft enough to want to switch but Visual Studio is the only thing holding you back, I don't feel bad for you. The only slightly legitimate complaint is the lack of games, but there are a ton of games for Mac these days and consoles do exist.
It's not really lock-in if you choose to be locked in.
The arguments against switching come down to "I hate Apple/Linux"
Not at all. Many people are forced to use MS software, they don't have a choice. Not just running Windows, but using various MS Office apps, formats, Skype etc.
Also, there are others (mainly elderly) who are only familiar with Windows, learning another platform is not a freebie for everyone.
Most apps people need have alternatives on other platforms, but there are many - besides games, that target Windows only. Well, VS being the bloatware it is, not one of them of course.
You've identified a source of inefficiency in his workflow. If he really hates everything after XP though, maybe it's better (more efficient) to handle a big problem once a month than a dozen little problems (disliking aspects of the tool he's using) every day.
> "I'm a Windows developer", which... why?
That seems like an easy answer, though. Because someone's paying me to work on the technology that they want to use, which may be very different from the technology that I decide to use on my own time. Things can be personally suboptimal, but professionally useful. You don't hate it, but you don't love it as much as the things you use on your home machines.
> Relying on an outdated piece of software is never the best decision. If Microsoft's updates bother you that much, stop using Microsoft software. Microsoft can't lock you in to anything, and there's very little that Windows offers that OSX, or to a lesser extent Linux, doesn't offer.
Using software that actively works against your best interests, even while acting in your best interests in other ways, without a way to separate the two...is never the best decision. Microsoft can't lock you in, but platform choices of other developers can.
On a separate point about OSX: One thing it won't ever offer is the ability to run it on my hardware of choice. I happily pay Apple-like prices for hardware configured in ways that Apple doesn't offer.
> The only slightly legitimate complaint is the lack of games, but there are a ton of games for Mac these days and consoles do exist.
Games aren't fungible. Mac and Linux support lots of games, including what I was playing last night. Sometimes, what I want to play is limited to a single platform, and that platform is one that I wouldn't choose for general-use. C'est la vie.
> It's not really lock-in if you choose to be locked in.
That sounds like one of the arguments I've heard to justify things like TSA searches, or the various statements from politicians saying that internet access isn't a necessity and shouldn't be considered a right. "You don't have to fly! You can drive! No driver's license? You can bike!" Well...right. You don't "have" to use Windows, because you don't "have" to make software that works with Windows. It's your own choice to target customers using the most-used PC OS in existence.
disagree completely, it's not the 20-somethings that come to you and say "the budget we have is limited, and we have to prioritize, feature X might get us more exposure, so work on that and it doesn't matter if it breaks backwards compatibility, users will adapt"
If upper mgmt goes after "oh shiny" there's not you can do at the individual contributor level, and if you know you are in a "oh shiny" management situation there is also no incentive whatsoever in spending time making sure you think about the future when developing, since you're going to have to throw everything away anyways in a few months or a year at the most.
It's all about "being nimble" and "velocity" and "being innovative", where all of them are more or less shorthands for "churn things quickly until something sticks". Stable, reliable, dependable software is unsexy, if the company you work for is large enough you might be able to find a team that works along those lines and be happy, otherwise it's fighting fires all the time.
But maintaining code (especially shitty code) gets you much fewer rewards and recognition than writing new code from scratch (including shitty code) -so that may be a better explanation of why most people don't like being "maintainers".
People avoid doing firmware updates on various devices for the same reason, as there is no indication what will change or go missing (never mind that it likely will reset the device, and thus require a full reconfigure before being useful again).
The basic problem of our world is that it is ruled by 20-sometings that loath working on "old" tech. The epitome of this is the FOSS world that goes through a wrenching rewrite churn every 5 years or so as new heads take over "old" projects.
For all their antics, one reason MS is still top dog is that they support APIs and ABIs first introduced with Windows 95 (or even older, if you manage to do a 32-bit install).
Never mind that MS did offer XP updates, for a price. One reason the NHS got hit hard was that some penny pinching bureaucrat decided they could not afford to pay said price.