WinUI – The modern native UI platform of Windows - <AUTHOR> https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/ <comment><USER3> Flat UI has been the downfall of the Windows UI. Firstly, it is ugly. Secondly, it is not intuitive. Thirdly, it is hard to differentiate from Web apps.

From a developer point of view that last point is very important. If your native app is not going to look or feel any different than an app built using Web technologies why limit your customer base to Windows users?

Sure, native apps are better at reducing resource consumption but if your app offers significant functionality users won't mind if it uses some extra memory. This is the reason Microsoft's own Teams and VS Code products were built using Web technology.

Another issue from a technical pov is that XAML, MVVM and 2-way data binding are outdated. MVVM introduced 2-way data binding to the world. Since then every JavaScript framework copied 2-way data binding including EmberJS and Angular. Today we know 2-way data binding is gimmicky and makes programs hard to debug. This is the reason React uses unidirectional data flow.

<comment><USER4> >Today we know 2-way data binding is gimmicky and makes programs hard to debug. This is the reason React uses unidirectional data flow.

Uh no we don't. I've spoken to a lot of engineers who curse redux and the entire ecosystem around it. The reality is, 99% of apps don't need that kind of craziness. "time travel debugging" is a meme. I'm tired of it being highlighted as some insane victory. Over what exactly?

<comment><USER5> This is super confusing to me, because you're talking about your dislike of redux, when it wasn't brought up or mentioned?

<comment><USER4> Are you really super confused, or just pretending?

<comment><USER5> I was confused. The reply wasn't really responding to the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to know what group or person at Microsoft decides what looks "good". I want to know why they decided to go the direction that they have, and why exactly they cant get everybody on board to go the same direction.

My guess is there was probably one design committee that decided that things needed to look different, because the "future is now", we can't remind people of older versions of windows because visually that isn't progress, and we can't be reminiscent of the "bad old days" when things crashed often.

Then after that committee makes it's decree, everybody who has control over their own little gui fiefdom each decides "nah.. that looks terrible and we aren't going to be cohesive, so lets do our own thing over here."

And so, everything looks and acts a little different. Since not everybody got on board with the change, the original committee digs in their heels and says, "Well it obviously doesn't work because not everybody is on board with OUR design."

<comment><USER7> I think Steve Jobs puts it best;

 _The problem with Microsoft is that they "simply have no taste."_

Windows has always had their Windowish / Microsoftish smell to its design. Much like Linux, You could spot a linux desktop from 100 miles away. And everyone thought these were simple you could just copy it. Turns out there are trillions of small details that make it all coherent and beautiful.

<comment><USER8> I think I put it best: "Apple likes to make people think they have taste and that they're good at design, but they're actually really, really bad at design and their tastes are quite obviously very shallow."

Windows and all the Linux desktop environments that copied Windows have so much more functionality than the brain-dead macOS that can't even get basic features like window management right.

Imagine thinking an OS that won't let you easily maximize or snap application windows is any good?

<comment><USER9> You can do those last few things pretty easily, by the way, but the desktop philosophy of macOS is just very different. It functions a lot like a real desk. Things are sized however they are meant to be sized, and you kind of pile them up. I don't line up things on my desk edge to edge maximizing space, its not necessary as some overlap and slop is fine. Apple has a lot of tools with sorta redundant functionality that make it easy to sift through the pile and see everything at once. Three fingers swiped up on the trackpad spreads everything out on your desktop, just like spreading out papers on your desk.

It might seem like an issue if you are coming from a tiling window management environment, but over time it becomes quite familiar and intuitive to use because of all the parallels with the physical world and how we interact with physical objects. I have tried the tiling window manager route, and it's more clumsy than anything imo.

<comment><USER10> Parallels to the real-world certainly make technology easier to learn, but not necessarily easier to use, and I'd argue it goes against the main benefit of computing - simplifying physical processes through abstraction.

You could design a VR environment that lets you walk around your virtual house, open your virtual front door, walk down your virtual driveway to your virtual mailbox, pull out virtual envelopes and open your virtual mail, but you'd just be replicating all the old real world cruft that doesn't matter to achieve your goal. What you really want is just to read some text in an email.

I had an older professor in college who still read and replied to all of his email via terminal, and he was multiples faster than those of use that used Gmail, but I remember thinking I'd never devote the time to learn to do things this way when the way I'm used to works just fine.

Apple has done a tremendous amount to make technology more approachable, and in doing so has brought millions into the digital age, but I do think the pendulum has swung a bit too far - a monitor isn't a desk, it's a monitor. Too much value is placed on "intuitiveness" these days, and while those real-world parallels might feel nice to interact with, there's a time to disavow ourselves of them to take full-advantage of what the technology can be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A word of advice: I'm well in my 30s but I often feel like an old ranting fart.

Every time I read of some new amazing framework like WinUI or SwiftWUI or whateverUI, I always stop and wonder: will applications written with this thing today ever run unaltered in 10+ years from now?

Microsoft has been doing an amazing job in these past 30+ years in keeping things working: stuff written on Windows 95 can still run without any particular issue on Windows 10. Sure, there's a bit of "cheating" here and there to keep the compatibility working but the bottom line is: there's retrocompatibility.

As an example: if a developer wants to use Win32 to write something on Windows, it's still possible and it _IS_ still supported, with APIs that basically didn't change for like... ever?

Apple seems to be on the far side of the spectrum: they have amazing technologies but - as a developer - I always feel I have an immense work to do just to keep up and allow my code to keep working as it used to.

So, the question for the community here is: how can we balance the "sugary" to make things as accessible and sustainable as possible with the "stability"?

<comment><USER12> Sadly, most OS X developers notice way too late that the constant pressure to support what feels like 100 different OS versions makes their app financially not viable.

At least that's been my experience: Plenty of OS X apps abandoned after each major update.

<comment><USER13> Can you name at least two apps that has been abandoned? That hasn't been my experience at all with macOS.

I don't have a single app that was abandoned. BBEdit, 1Password, Little Snitch, MailMate, Tweetbot, Typinator, Rocket, and many more are all still updated when need be. Key note is "need", stable apps do not need constant yearly updates.

In addition, you can say the same thing about Windows. Metro, UWP and previous attempts didn't go anywhere either, their MS Store is pretty much a flop. (Granted, MAS as well).

Linux...it's not bad but there are issues with various UI frameworks, stores, etc. GTK/QT, Flatpak, snap, etc.

<comment><USER12> Most painfully [https://www.dragthing.com/](https://www.dragthing.com/)

Also, the original Overdrive Mac app. I believe they still don't have a replacement Mac app.

The official ReadItLater app, the service is now called Pocket btw.

That Caffeine app to prevent the laptop from sleeping.

iTunes

Adobe Fuse

Google Picasa

<comment><USER14> You can replace Caffeine with Amphetamine.

Some minor aspects of Dragthing can be replaced with Siracusa's app Switchglass.

As for Overdrive, does Libby work on the Mac?

<comment><USER12> I don't know. My library has since switched to the Tolino app.

And since most of my pro audio apps also stopped working on OS X and the USB dongle works the same with Windows and Mac, I myself also abandoned OS X for productive work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Clicking through to the repo behind I see this in the README:

      Data/Telemetry

      This project collects usage data and sends
      it to Microsoft to help improve our products
      and services. See the privacy statement for
      more details.

      For more information on telemetry implementation
      see the developer guide.

This has been probably my biggest peeve with C#/.NET so far. I actually like the language(s) and the ecosystem but why does everything from Microsoft need to contain telemetry? Like, Visual Studio okay, it's a fairly large application and architecting it might need some intel on how people use it (even though I believe you can do without but I'm not an expert). But the dotnet SDK? That's just a punch in the gut, especially to developers who oughta be more enlightened on tracking/privacy concerns than average users.

And I know you can opt out but I've done that and still seen dotnet make network requests on runs. Maybe it's essential for the functionality but I'm having a hard time trusting a company that puts telemetry in their SDK.

Which opens the question: Who else is doing this? I know JetBrains has some telemetry in their IDEs (although like I said IDEs are more justified I think and I haven't tested their opt-out). choosenim also recently asked me if I wanted to report anonymous usage data. What about npm? The Rust stuff? How much hidden telemetry is there inside developer tooling and what can we do against it?

It would be neat if there was some sort of database for this. Kinda like what Exodus Privacy[1] is doing for Android apps.

[1] [https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/](https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/)

<comment><USER16> Honestly, I'm really getting tired of this peeve that everyone seems to have. Every site is practically tracking everything. Emails are not private. Every damn mobile app is trying to access all it can. COVID-19 isn't doing any favors either.

And when someone creates an open source product with this clause in the README right up front along with the option to opt-out, people get peeved about it?

I can understand if the norm is to NOT collect data. But since the world doesn't seem to work that way, despite what some techies would want (since all this tracking has been created by techies anyway), I think it's time to grow up and face the real world for what it is - avoid where we can, adapt in our own ways where we cannot. And try and not get peeved.

<comment><USER17> The norm isn't to collect data when it comes to development tools. In fact, Microsoft is very unique here. As I said in another comment, they're the only SDK in widespread use that has telemetry that deeply ingrained.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure it is, Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle, SAP, Eclipse, JetBrains and plenty of others do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it me, or does this landing page for a UI platform contain very few examples of what that UI looks like and how you might use it?

<comment><USER19> You wouldn't use it, you would fill in a form to get access to the "Alpha Insiders Program" ([https://www.research.net/r/WinUI3AlphaInsiders](https://www.research.net/r/WinUI3AlphaInsiders)), and (possibly) hope they let you in.

As another answer said: (for now) this is targeted at the enterprise.

<comment><USER20> Is it strange that they're using SurveyMonkey and not Microsoft Forms?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know about anyone else but when I get a new program and it turns out to be using a "modern" looking API I just assume it's going to be awful. Not just the UI but everything about it. I've rarely been wrong.

<comment><USER22> Interestingly, I think this is the opposite in the Mac ecosystem. If an app uses the latest APIs and design trends, I expect it to be well crafted and cared for and am also rarely wrong.

<comment><USER23> I agree. I feel like the developers in the Mac ecosystem actually love developing apps for it and it shows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's something strange about the new flat UI that Windows uses that doesn't convey that my actions are doing anything.

For instance, making changes in Settings feels... flat... I can't tell if something is loading or if my system is hanging or if nothing happened! I really don't like it.

<comment><USER25> Personally I've always disliked settings panels that apply the moment you click a control. I like being able to hit OK, or better yet, click Apply and see the button then get greyed out as a little visual confirmation that the settings have applied.

<comment><USER26> I can tell you that that behaviour is learnt. People unfamiliar with classic desktop paradigms find annoying and confusing to have to confirm a choice they've already made.

The most intuitive setup, imho, is to apply the change immediately, but also materialize some sort of UNDO button to revert back.

<comment><USER9> Sometimes you are doing multiple changes at once, at which point it's better to have an apply. Take a game. Change the resolution, delay. Change the textures, delay, Change the shadows, delay. Change vsync, restart. I could wait the 30 seconds between every click twiddling my thumbs, or I could just click it all at once and restart the game.

<comment><USER27> This makes sense when applying changes is expensive. If applying the changes is cheep (or invisible while the settings dialog is open) then you don't need the confirm step and you can do it immediately or when the dialog is closed.

(just have a good undo option)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> MFC, UWP, WPF, WinForms etc. I wonder how long before this is superceded in turn?

My 3 applications are written in Qt/C++. Hopefully it is going to shield me from this, as it has from the previous changes.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, MS has been very inconsistent of late. They went from Chen-style decades-long support for foundational tech, to a whirlwind of different things, promoted then chucked aside like they were a Google product.

<comment><USER29> > then chucked aside like they were a Google product.

They're still supported though, right? (WinForms, WPF, UWP.)

<comment><USER26> Yeah but at one point the future was WPF, then it was Silverlight, then it was Javascript...

<comment><USER29> Sure, they keep inventing new GUI toolkits for little reason, but unlike Google, the old ones can still be relied on.

<comment><USER30> Not really, a bunch of apps from the WinRT era are very broken under Windows 10. It's disappointing given how much from the early 90s still works, but code from 2013 is now totally broken.

<comment><USER31> Silverlight is where things have started to go downwards wrt long-term stability. But Win32, MFC, and WinForms are still very much alive and well. I mean, WinForms even got .NET Core treatment and high/dynamic DPI support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is there some WinUI 3 application code I could compare with a AppKit/Qt/whatever? I look all over, and surely must have missed something obvious before getting lost in XAML Islands, WinRT, WinUI2 and other random shit.

<comment><USER13> There aren't any as far as I know (if you're asking for actual real life code), WinUI 3 is still very alpha stage. The first actual release is going to be later this year with .NET 5.0 release.

You can look at their community toolkit preview here if you just want to see some code: [https://github.com/microsoft/Xaml-Controls- Gallery/tree/winu...](https://github.com/microsoft/Xaml-Controls- Gallery/tree/winui3alpha)

Even then, we won't know for a while as most devs aren't likely to switch on day one since it will have to be justified from current working stable codebase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't even see any screenshots of WinUI there. Is there an obvious link anywhere with tons of screenshots of how it actually looks like?

<comment><USER34> Apparently there's an app you can install (if you are running Windows) through the Microsoft store that demos each component. Why wouldn't they just throw up some screen shots? Beats me.

<comment><USER35> XAML Controls Gallery on Windows Store: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/p/xaml-controls-gallery/9msv...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xaml- controls-gallery/9msvh128x2zt). Source on Github:[https://github.com/Microsoft/Xaml-Controls- Gallery/](https://github.com/Microsoft/Xaml-Controls-Gallery/) (see winui3alpha branch).

<comment><USER36> Honestly, this looks terrible. Even though Windows hardware has gotten much better over the years, and Windows 10 is a much nicer OS, you can tell that the developers in their UI frameworks don't sweat the small details.

All of the screenshots are lowish resolution. In the second screenshot, the spacing on the icons is funny (more bottom margin than top). Blue on dark gray is hard to read, even for someone with young eyes like me (I cannot imagine my parents enjoying looking at that). In the first screenshot, the code isn't syntax highlighted (I also think the font is not monospace, which is just appalling).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'd like Microsoft to succeed with a new vision for the Windows desktop but IMO the current style isn't it.

As for the framework itself, it seems needlessly complicated to get started. The XAML based frameworks use a whole different paradigm from web development or classical RAD tools.

And it's hard to take Microsoft UI frameworks seriously when they hardly use them outside of the core Windows apps. VS Code, Teams, even the VS installer are all Electron apps.

<comment><USER38> "And it's hard to take Microsoft UI frameworks seriously when they hardly use them outside of the core Windows apps. VS Code, Teams, even the VS installer are all Electron apps. "

that's the problem. How can you have faith in their frameworks if they don't use them themselves?

<comment><USER39> It isn't just having faith, by not using these frameworks themselves they are not "dogfooding" them to find issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I really tried to get into WPF a while back, I learned PRISM and MVVM and tried to go all in. What I found is that _most_ of the time when I build a tool or a windows app its usually a tool for automation or data manipulation. What using MVVM did was make the UI take 3x longer to build, usually (and this is my admitting Im not a designer) would not be as easy to use or read as standard winforms, and honestly was complexity for complexities sake. I still use plain old winforms and c# and can make really usable, skinnable UIs with my DevExpress controls. Maybe if I were building an app that had requirements for chat, multimedia or some other use case that I dont need the Xaml ui paradigm works. I dont like Flat UI, and I personally think that the UI in Teams and One Note are a step backwards in usability. I had a PC that for a specific reason needed to have hardware acceleration disabled for the video. What that meant was that OneNote was broken. The UI would not display correctly- the note pages were blank unless you grabbed the UI with your mouse and moved them slightly. Winforms just works on every windows box...

<comment><USER31> You don't need to use MVVM for WPF - it's a design pattern, not a framework requirement. If you prefer the typical WinForms approach of just handling events directly and manually managing the data flow and actions in those handlers, it can totally do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Okay, so if I was making a video to demonstrate "Unmatched Native Performance", I'd probably try to avoid making it rather jerky, but that's just me.

<comment><USER42> Well, it's GIF (slightly unexpected in 2020)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's such a shame this isn't a cross-platform UI toolkit. I'm not implying that I think this is the best toolkit or anything, but we can definitely use a bit of competition in that space (although kudos to Qt, they're doing an excellent job).

<comment><USER44> Isn't it? Or is the bullet point implying they have a windows only DLL you can use in cross platform languages?

<comment><USER43> I don't think this will run on MacOS or Linux? I'd be happy to be corrected on this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gjsman-1000 WinUI 3 is VERY DIFFERENT than WinUI 2. It's a full UI layer that you can run on UWP and Win32. [https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui- xaml/about.html](https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/about.html)

<comment><USER45> Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It could go either way with approximately equal probability.

<comment><USER30> It's very bad because if you're a C# developer you now have to worry about which COM apartment your Window is in and you get silverlight era error messages when something breaks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Linux, amazingly, has some of my favourite UIs right now. It used to be different. I used to hate the Linux UIs, and preferred Windows 7 or OS X. Now that Win 10 is dominant, and I can't justify a new MBP (though I still love my 2015 MBP), I've jumped to Linux Mint. The UI is clean, easy to use, uncluttered, has obvious affordances. It isn't quite as polished as Win 7 was, but it's better than this new crap.

<comment><USER39> The main issue with UI on Linux is that toolkits have a higher churn than in Windows - this is because there isn't really "Gtk", "Qt" or whatever, but "Gtk2", "Gtk3", "Gtk4", "Qt4", "Qt5", etc (and i'm sure that if i mentioned "Qt3" i'm sure someone would point out that nobody uses that anymore :-P).

Writing something in Win32 will ensure it will run in 10 years from now and chances are it'll also run 20 years from now. As a user you have a very high chance of finding applications that work regardless of when they were made. As a developer you can focus on your tasks without wasting time to "upgrade" to the latest fad (Microsoft does release new toolkits, but the old stuff keep working and Win32 is the stablest of them all). And your knowledge will still be perfectly valid, no need to waste time learning how to do the exact same stuff in a different way.

Writing something in Gtk3 (the current stable one) will ensure... well, once Gtk4 is stable, Gtk3 will be deprecated and the one to avoid. Qt can't even remain stable in the long term if they wanted (though they do not seem to want to - after all Qt is middleware targeted to application developers, not a platform component regardless if KDE pretends that it is) because of C++. As a user you are limited in the applications you can find and have to keep around all sorts of different toolkits - which wouldn't be that great of an issue (hard disk space is cheap) if those toolkits were still supported and compiled. Except the only distribution i'm aware that provides -say- Gtk1 is Slackware and Qt4 is already on its way out by most distributions. Gtk2 will soon follow (and perhaps some distributions will already have it dropped). As a developer you have to chase after the brokenness that Gtk and Qt developers introduce (though TBF Qt seems a bit better here, probably because they are getting paid by selling Qt licenses and they cant annoy the developers using Qt too much) and waste time "keeping up" just so that your _existing_ application will keep working.

Above X there aren't any stable UI APIs (unless you count Athena but that hasn't received any updates since the 80s - even the updates 3rd parties made during the 90s to improve its look a bit never became part of the "official" distribution). And people want to get rid of X's stability too with Wayland.

<comment><USER47> > Writing something in Win32 will ensure it will run in 10 years from now and > chances are it'll also run 20 years from now.

This, so much.

And they will likely work on Linux and macOS through Wine, too!

<comment><USER39> Yeah, it is kinda amusing that one of the stablest ABIs for GUI applications on Linux is the Windows one :-P.

Sadly the Wine GUI controls, while they work, always felt off to me and have multiple minor issues. But at least they work. I think a big reason is that despite libwine being usable as a general purpose toolkit for (ELF) Linux application, it never saw much use as that so these issues were never paid much attention.

<comment><USER47> Indeed, the Wine controls could use some help.

It would be great if someone could provide a new renderer based on Vulkan, for instance.

<comment><USER39> Vulkan would make things more complicated and wont really fix anything (if anything it'll make things worse because that added complication will make it harder to fix things and most likely will break compatibility with anything not supporting Vulkan - e.g. older and/or weaker devices and other OSes like macOS) since it isn't really rendering that is the issue but behavior (there are also some drawing issues but those are at the GDI level and you do not want to break GDI).

<comment><USER47> Ah! I was referring to the graphical issues. Behavior is more important, of course.

By the way, Vulkan is "supported" on macOS thorough MoltenVK which is provided by Khronos under a permissive license (although they don't develop it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The webpage thinks it's wonderful but in use it's ugly, slow, distracting and horribly optimised for desktop use - everything is too big and bold and it creates cramped UIs where controls are needlessly hidden in menus.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is nice until you click into some settings menu and a UI from 1995 shows up

<comment><USER24> This is something that really annoys me about the current state of Windows. They're clearly going for a gradual changeover to the new UI.

Yet I would much rather use the "old" style Control Panel than the new Settings page.

<comment><USER38> "They're clearly going for a gradual changeover to the new UI"

this has been going on for about 8 years with no end in sight. I wouldn't call that gradual.

<comment><USER50> If it started 8 years ago and hasn't ended, I would call that gradual, in the sense that it is a slow process.

<comment><USER38> "Half assed and unfocused without clear direction" is probably a better term :-)

<comment><USER50> I guess gradual implies that there are grades, degrees, phases, perhaps a solid plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Spongebob was right - everything in the future will be a chromium-based web app:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p6tvs- qjpA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p6tvs-qjpA)

<comment><USER52> I hope everything will corrode into Rust soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I felt liked the Metro design which felt hip, new, and modern when first coming across while developing an app for a windows phone back around 2013. But they lost the phone os battle to iOS and Android.

<comment><USER54> I still think it was a huge misstep to push Windows down the tablet route. If they wanted that sort of device they should have extended the phone operating system to it. It really does feel like the worst of both worlds.

<comment><USER55> Windows CE had a really nice developer experience IMO. Visual Basic worked on it! Knocking together basic data entry mobile apps was within the range of anyone who can do advanced Excel.

This might be of questionable value to "real" developers but the business value of this type of power is immense and gets things done that would be unaffordable to do today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Remember Metro?

The lesson is to not jump onto the new fancy thing, as Microsoft might just drop it in a year or two, and it will all have been wasted effort.

Just use good old and tested. Or portable (e.g. wx).

<comment><USER57> Just that Metro / UWP / WinUI are the same linage and therefore has some age. Whether it is relevant ... different story.

<comment><USER58> It's only relevant because it explains why this WinUI3 is still using XAML, even though XAML is extremely painful to work with (it's verbose; it mixes content, presentation/style and behaviour in the same XAML document (they learned nothing from HTML+CSS... which makes sense because WPF was designed around 2003 when IE6 was at the peak of its dominance), the built-in layout controls are anemic and have now fallen way-behind CSS's layout functionality, and so on and so forth.

What Microsoft should do is snapshot a recent revision of CSS and make that the basis for the style and layout of XML or JSON-based structured documents, and then extend it where appropriate. Like it or not, eventually all layout systems are all going to become alike in the end (be it a desktop GUI system, web-page HTML+CSS, WPF/Jupiter/XAML, Qt, Apple's constraint-based layout system, etc) - it feels like a waste of resources to build yet another layout system (or in this case: trying to squeeze more life out of XAML and whatever WPF's latest descendant is called). Remember that using CSS does not mean having to use a web-browser engine, or using JavaScript, or even HTML - <USER2> was designed from the start to be agnostic to the types of documents and environments it's used in.

<comment><USER59> You can definitely move templates and styles to other files and reference them from there. You can do that to pretty much any XAML element. XAML is actually a compilable-to-ILR markup unlike HTML/CSS/JSON that need to be interpreted.

I don't see how HTML/CSS does anything any better, XAML is verbose, but the tooling takes care of most of it.

<comment><USER58> CSS isn't "interpreted" (CSS is declarative), and JavaScript can be compiled to [.NET CIL]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JScript_.NET](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JScript_.NET)).

>I don't see how HTML/CSS does anything any better, XAML is verbose, but the tooling takes care of most of it.

CSS's modules for layout are far more advanced than WPF/XAML/WinUI. Never-mind the more brain-dead aspects of WPF/XAML/UWP like `<border>`, WinUI only has <Canvas> (absolutely positioned elements), <StackPanel> (similar to CSS's flex-box, or normal block layout), and <Grid> (which is much closer to HTML <table> than CSS `display: grid;` in terms of capabilities) - all other layout systems have to be done by hand - which requires a deep understanding of WPF/XAML's layout system internals - and who wants to invest the time in that when there's still uncertainty about the supported lifespan of WinUI?

I've noticed that Microsoft only commits to supporting a UI framework when at least one of their major products relies on it (which explains why WinJS became irrelevant, _fast_, while MFC and WPF are clearly here to stay (I note that Microsoft has only one major product relying on WPF: Visual Studio - literally everything else uses some non-public UI platform like DirectUI (Office) or MFC.

<comment><USER60> Windows isn't a major product?

<comment><USER58> Only a small number of programs and utilities that ship as part of Windows uses WPF. Windows has more WinForms-based GUIs in it than WPF-based GUIs.

It's a far cry from the Longhorn demos of 2003 that showed the entire Windows UI been made with WPF, and Explorer itself hosting third-party applications' WPF components.

<comment><USER60> Yeah, I meant WinUI/UWP XAML. Starting with 8.1 it's been the standard for any new or overhauled Windows shell UI, along with the built-in apps. As you mentioned, this was the original intention for WPF, and the failure of this plan (which the Windows team largely attributed to the dependency on .NET) was the main reason WinUI/UWP and WinRT came about in the first place (as basically a do-over of the Longhorn plans, but ditching the .NET dependency to build on COM instead). So it succeeded at getting Windows to adopt it (at least for a while - apparently in 10X they are starting to use web tech for shell pieces like the new Start menu, although I think the actual window manager itself is still XAML based), while WPF failed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> This is a subjective take. I don't know whether any of you share this concern but I feel like almost all new UIs are unattractive. (Maybe except Apple, and I'm an Android/Windows user). The new windows UIs are flat, colouring is off somehow (I don't have the lexicon to express what is missing), wastes lot of space, and appears like applications made for kids.

Take the calculator application included with Windows 10. It takes time to load. Earlier it was instantaneous. It takes up way more screen real estate too. Maybe the new design helped them to make this app easier to use on touch devices, but from my perspective, in all other respects it is going backwards.

<comment><USER62> microsoft didnt start these trends, and it's sad that they are following. win7 was a gold standard of usability and speed. Humans have fast 3d contour perception for a reason, it helps us find buttons and fruits.

i dare you to find your sound device's control panel in win10

<comment><USER63> It's fascinating to watch how even babies pick up on what's a pressable button (and what's not) in the real world via contour perception. Before they even have an understanding of cause and effect, they love to find buttons on physical items and press them.

I wonder why UI designers stopped trying to leverage this principle.

<comment><USER64> Yeah, discoverability in modern computer UIs is terrible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Will be cool to update our MFC app to look better. Wonder if it will still work on wine then, it does now with VS2019 and the old win 98 look. But the app is almost 20 years old... Still maintained and worked on today. And until ms stops support MFC, no change needed. Change just costs money for no significant profit or advantage to us or our customers.

<comment><USER66> The new API is only supported on the latest versions of Windows 10. If your app has users on older Windows versions, the suggestion of using this API will almost certainly be shelved for at least a few years. That's how it works on Android - google shows off a new API and we make plans to use it 5 years later when users actually have it on their devices.

<comment><USER67> WinUI 3 is decoupled from the platform and is one of its major improvements, apps built with it will run on Windows 10 builds as far back as 1803 (that's two years old and is EOL even for enterprise customers).

<comment><USER66> That's pretty great, and kudos to Microsoft.

However the person I was replying to has a 20 year old app. I'm going to guess they still have users on Windows 8, 7, maybe even Vista and XP. Using the WinUI API, even a bit of it, will leave those users in the lurch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Unmatched Native Performance

Can anyone offer any insight on this? If memory serves, WPF is backed by DirectX. How can they hope to beat that performance? Performance improvements over its MVVM? Modern UI toolkits tend to add high-level abstractions and degrade performance (e.g. by relying on web technologies), rather than enhance it.

<comment><USER68> The framework layer of WPF is implemented in C#. WinUI is all C++, including the framework and the compositor that makes the DirectX calls.

In the framework layer, typical UI updates are faster because the WinUI data binding system uses code-generation rather than the reflection-like runtime binding system that WPF has.

WinUI also includes the rather incredible Windows.UI.Composition API's, with things like ExpressionAnimation that enable lots of cool animations (like parallax, sticky header, or cursor-relative) at a stable 60 FPS.

Disclosure: I work at Microsoft on the Windows team.

<comment><USER29> Great answer, thanks.

> code-generation rather than the reflection-like runtime binding system that > WPF has

That's a good move. If a convenient abstraction can be implemented in a way that 'compiles out', it ideally _should_ be implemented that way. Does this enable more compile-time checks?

<comment><USER68> Yes, in WinUI you get build breaks if you have a typo in your property name :)

It also adds the ability to bind to functions, which can eliminate a lot of ViewModel boilerplate for computed properties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Desktop development is a complete mess at the moment on Windows. Core 3.1 definitely has many good improvements and is good for class libraries but adding a GUI currently has few desirable options 1)Winforms designer doesn't work with complex or 3rd party controls 2) WinUI doesn't work on Win32 3) WPF works but lengthens development and will soon be out of sorts with this WinUI 4) Really everyone wants cross-platform GUI but not much forthcoming except Uno or Avalonia but these are risky for large projects 5) Blazor could be interesting but only works as Desktop standalone using Electron.NET which seems a horrible dependence. 6) Old Winforms on defunct .NET framework works but looks horrible 7) Old 3rd party Winforms on defunct .NET framework is expensive

<comment><USER70> I don't get it either. Developing on windows used to be trivial. Winforms designer was drag and drop, click into code, write an extra module, done.

I was told, oh, you are an idiot, you need to be using XAML / WPF etc etc. I tried - the stuff looks works, much more complicated to develop and does LESS!

Even Visual Basic (remember that?) made GUI development trivial I thought compared to these new improved approaches.

<comment><USER69> I have a project due in about 2 weeks and genuinely have no viable options to build anything on core 3.1.

Just found these links, 2nd one especially looks interesting.

[https://blog.stevensanderson.com/2019/11/01/exploring- lighte...](https://blog.stevensanderson.com/2019/11/01/exploring-lighter- alternatives-to-electron-for-hosting-a-blazor-desktop-app/)

[https://blog.stevensanderson.com/2019/11/18/2019-11-18-webwi...](https://blog.stevensanderson.com/2019/11/18/2019-11-18-webwindow- a-cross-platform-webview-for-dotnet-core/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> The only thing I didn't like was Microsoft adding an annoying banner asking me to install some Points extension :(

Not cool putting adverts on your Github pages like that

</comment><comment><USER72> Looks cool. I'll wait six more months to try whatever will replace it.

</comment><comment><USER73> Flat UIs in many cases are _objectively_ bad.

The reason is because humans have two eyes, which give us the ability to distinguish depth easily (meaning low cognitive load - our brains are optimized to process this).

In a UI, whenever there are more that two dimensions, depth should be shown (simulated, technically) because with our two eyes we cannot discern depth easily on a flat surface.

Obviously you can go overboard. For instance, in HN, flat makes sense. But in a windowing system, shadows(1) are essential to show depth. Otherwise it increases the cognitive load required to distinguish between the foreground and background.

(1) - you could use blurring (or other techniques) as well, I'm just using shadow as a simple example.

</comment><comment><USER74> I wonder if it is the same person who has worked on the implementation of e.g. Win32 "BUTTON", MFC's CButton, Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Button, System.Windows.Forms.Button, System.Windows.Controls.Button... :)

</comment><comment><USER75> So many red flags in such a quick succession. The setup page ([https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get- started/get...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/get- set-up)) says you have to download Visual Studio, enable your device for development and register as an app developer. The latter two indicate just how much control MS has of your machines, you have to pretty please ask MS if it's ok to make your own programs, the former shows that they still can't make a decent API and need an IDE to do all the work, conveniently locking you into their tool suite.

A little bit later this is confirmed when the show you hello world ([https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get- started/cre...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get- started/create-a-hello-world-app-xaml-universal)) which instantly creates a mess of json, xml and c# for you so you don't realize how ridiculously complicated it all is.

For reference, here's hello world with GTK ([https://developer.gnome.org/gtk- tutorial/stable/c39.html](https://developer.gnome.org/gtk- tutorial/stable/c39.html)), a single c file and single line instruction to compile it. Here's one for Qt ([https://doc.qt.io/archives/3.3/tutorial1-01.html](https://doc.qt.io/archives/3.3/tutorial1-01.html)). Show me a WinUI equivalent of those 2 pages and I'll be more impressed than I am by a slick marketing page.

</comment><comment><USER76> Another one? Why not fix the six that are already out there?

<comment><USER77> This basically fixes all of them by building a common umbrella that all existing UI toolkits (UWP, WPF, WinForms, Win32) can use.

This picture summarizes it well - [https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui- xaml/raw/master/do...](https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui- xaml/raw/master/docs/roadmap_winui3.png)

<comment><USER78> It's the other way around, isn't it? They're not going to reimplement the Win32 API on top of WinUI, but WinUI uses Win32 in part for its implementation on some platforms (that platform being classic desktop Windows).

<comment><USER79> What I meant was you can use WinUI 3 in your Win32 app, so it is a UI toolkit that can be used in any other existing UI toolkit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> It used to be possible to click on a list of items and hit a alphabetical key and it'd go to the result starting with that key. Also typing more would go to that particular matching item. This isn't possible in WinUI as far as I could test in native windows apps. You can't ctrl+f in settings - it won't highlight the search

And there're tons of more missing features like that. Did anyone try that UI with just a keyboard?

</comment><comment><USER81> This supports "WebView2(Chromium-based engine)" natively, which may add one reason to why Microsoft chose chrome and not firefox as a browser engine:

\- they share one tech for their browser and UI

\- they rip the benefit of their work (and the community work) on electron

\- it opens the door to sharing one instance (or at least main libs) between different apps using this engine, solving the 'electron spawn one engine per app' problem

</comment><comment><USER82> I wish their showcase app resized better. Layout doesn't seem to flow well, as seen below.

[https://imgur.com/zr4mSLr](https://imgur.com/zr4mSLr)

Also, I find the UWP monochrome UI style extremely confusing and difficult to use. I don't know why it is to different from the Office 2019 UI, which I find usable.

</comment><comment><USER83> No one wants to use touch on Windows devices, because Windows devices are for doing actual work, and touch is a shitty, shitty input method.

I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and keep trudging along with Win32, because it will never die. Trying to kill it would be the monumentally dumb, and I don't think Microsoft is that brain-dead.

</comment><comment><USER84> Just make a plain C API like Win32, or...

<comment><USER85> _Just make a plain C API like Win32, or..._

I can't tell if you're joking or not, but this seems very sensible to me, because it could offer great performance, and it's easy to create bindings from almost any language to C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> It's a reasonably well written and informative page. But there's an annoying oversight.

> WinUI 3 is the next version of the WinUI framework, shipping later this > year.

There's no publication date on the page. That makes it very difficult to know the year that's being referred to. Is it this year, or some past year?

</comment><comment><USER87> Microsoft products's documentation is always bad. What i expect the first is sample of code and screenshot to know what's actually like if i want to try it.

It's like Microsoft documentation team doesn't have developer mindset in mind.

</comment><comment><USER88> Does anyone know if WinUI will be supported on .Net Core or since it is C++, just a linux library.

The article listed several languages but omitted F#. So I also wonder about the F# story for WinUI.

</comment><comment><USER89> Love how one of the stock photos features a MacBookPro :)

</comment><comment><USER90> I'm not sure how I feel about this... I think I would still rather go with MFC and the good ol' battle tested Win32 APIs

</comment><comment><USER91> Isn't it ironic that the WinUI logo is pixelated?! I mean they could use a higher quality image for that.

<comment><USER92> The lack of HiDPI graphics is extremely ironic

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Is any of this accessible from Python?

<comment><USER60> Not at present, at least not reasonably. There are Python WinRT bindings under development ([https://github.com/Microsoft/xlang/tree/master/src/package/p...](https://github.com/Microsoft/xlang/tree/master/src/package/pywinrt/projection)) but they don't (yet?) support the "composable types" type system feature (basically a form of implementation inheritance) that the WinUI and Composition types require. So you'd basically have to write your own support for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Will Rust bindings be available, despite their decision to write this in C++?

<comment><USER95> They've announced Rust/WinRT recently (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033451)), so I rather expect there will be, eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Anybody going to compile this and get it running on Linux and OSX?

</comment><comment><USER34> Is there a way to see a preview of each UI component?

<comment><USER35> XAML Controls Gallery on Windows Store: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/p/xaml-controls-gallery/9msv...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xaml- controls-gallery/9msvh128x2zt). Source on Github:[https://github.com/Microsoft/Xaml-Controls- Gallery/](https://github.com/Microsoft/Xaml-Controls-Gallery/) (see winui3alpha branch).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> ... this week.

</comment><comment><USER97> Only work starting windows 10 ?

</comment><comment><USER98> Do we really need WinUI in 2020?

<comment><USER99> No. It has already lost. No one cares anymore about developing exclusively for Windows.

<comment><USER77> You should step out from your bubble. Majority of the world still runs Windows on their desktop.

<comment><USER92> And on their copy of Windows, they're running Chrome and 10 copies of Electron.

In 1995, Marc Andreesen said "Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers", but I guess that turned out to be Google instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you are speaking about Desktop Linux.

<comment><USER100> Did Linus Torvalds kick your dog or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, we even share common opinions.

"Fragmentation is Why Linux Hasn't Succeeded on Desktop: Linus Torvalds"

[https://itsfoss.com/desktop-linux-torvalds/](https://itsfoss.com/desktop- linux-torvalds/)

<comment><USER99> LOL, succeeded means something very different in this context than what you are implying. Linux did succeed on the desktop and in fact it has made many great strides that makes performance and desktop management better than Windows in almost every way. Just because it doesn't have majority marketshare, in part due to Microsoft making backroom deals to ship computers from the slave labor factories that Microsoft supports in order to sell $200 pieces of junk adware laptops at Walmart, doesn't mean that it hasn't been successful.

<comment><AUTHOR> That looks like the same kind of argumentation where every new car is the car of the year, one just needs to tune the right parameters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> No CMake, no party.

</comment><comment><USER102> WSL hooks coming in 9..8..7..

Developers flocking to WSL in 6..5..4..

Linux dead in 3..2..1..

<comment><USER103> > WSL hooks coming in 9..8..7.. Sure.

> Developers flocking to WSL in 6..5..4.. Maybe some, sure.

> Linux dead in 3..2..1.. What? Linux on the server won't see any change. > Linux on the desktop, maybe, but I doubt most people using Linux on the > desktop are going to even consider switching because Windows has a new UI > framework.

The only big advantage that I see is _one_ UI framework for Windows and multiple different ones for Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> The fact that this page doesn't render correctly on mobile makes me very skeptical about the quality of this UI library.

<comment><USER105> Renders fine for me. Besides, the folks who write the website would be totally different from the folks on the platform side of things.

<comment><USER54> It does feel like there is a general lack of taste in Microsoft. There are a few pockets of good work but overall it doesn't seem to be a priority for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> Use Qt or Electron and move on with it. With PWAs being supported in the app store and now with Chromium Edge, might as well just build something that will work on all platforms and mobile too. While I admit that there are too few options for lightweight fast Linux UIs, especially with Vulkan acceleration, Qt performs incredibly well and Chromium and Node are only going to get faster.

<comment><USER106> > Electron

Oh God please no. I don't need or want every application wrapped in a browser engine.

<comment><USER107> Sorry, but it already is. No-one write layout engines or canvas rasterizers any more. They just use chromium. Spotify, Teams, Slack... I expect even Word + Excel to eventually transition.

<comment><USER79> Sadly, this video is on the point [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW- SOdj4Kkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> The C++ API uses those gross Windows "^" pointers. Literally stopped reading there.

<comment><USER67> You're thinking of the old C++/CX projection, and, yes, it was awful. C++/WinRT fits right in with modern c++ and got rid of ref new and hats.

<comment><AUTHOR> Although C++/WinRT tooling is still lacking versus C++/CX, no syntax highlighting or intelisense for IDL files.

Also I don`t get the hate against C++/CLI and C++/CX.

Apparently everyone else is allowed to have language extensions on their C and C++ compilers, only Microsoft not.

<comment><USER67> C++/CLI is a necessary evil for operating on the CLR where are object lifetimes may be managed by the CLR and others follow standard C++ memory management. Ultimately it's raison d'etre is to bridge native code to the CLR where P/Invoke or COM isn't sufficient (lot of reasons that could be the case), so we deal with it.

C++/CX on the other hand only exists because Windows Runtime Components, while based on COM, is still a superset with new features that couldn't be supported with C++98 and MSVC lacked the necessary C++11/17 features to implement it without needing compiler extensions.

Syntax highlighting and Intellisense being absent for MIDL 3 does indeed cause annoyance, however.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess those explanations were for the wider audience, I am perfectly fine with Microsoft's C++ dialects.

Actually my only complaint is the downgrade in tooling experience in name of some ISO purity that I don't care about, and other compiler vendors also do anyway.

For the time being I don't plan to adopt C++/WinRT until the tooling experience catches up with C++/CX.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Microsoft needs to fix in Windows Phone 8 - <AUTHOR> http://gabrielrodriguez.net/what-microsoft-needs-to-fix-in-windows-phone-8/

<comment><USER2> I also have the Lumina 920 and I agree with some of your points for sure. Good list of suggestions. One thing I think is weird is how the phone and Windows 8 desktop UX is a little different. Would be nice to be a little more consistent in things like how text selection is done, settings, live tiles, etc. The little things.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks spo81rty. I agree with what you say and hope they focus on unifying the experience similar to what iOS-OSX have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft needs to fork the Android free source code, and extend it to work with their proprietary and legacy software.

I cannot see Microsoft ever getting above 3% market share in the mobile market. Time for MS to join android, Mr. Ballmer.</comment>


Suffragetto: An early 1900s board game between suffragettes and police - <AUTHOR> http://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/article/view/46 <comment><USER2> Neat! I like the story but now I want to make a board and actually play.

<comment><USER3> Board Game Geek has the rules, and some good pictures of the initial board set-up. Looks like you could build a board out of grid paper in a matter of minutes, and scrounge some usable pieces from other games or from stuff around the house.

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127685/suffragetto/image...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127685/suffragetto/images)

<comment><USER4> You can get board game components(meeples etc) on amazon for those that are into developing your own games.

A few years ago at Games Expo (uk) I remember playing an alpha version of a game in development - it was inspired by the Building of Milton Keynes as I recall.</comment></comment></comment>


Techstars virtual founder dating right now - <AUTHOR> https://techstarschat.campfirenow.com/room/274403

<comment><USER2> How does one sign in?</comment>


Valve brings non-game software to Steam - <AUTHOR> http://www.neowin.net/news/steam-to-challenge-windows-store-by-offering-non-gaming-software <comment><USER2> I hate Steam's DRM. People keep trying to convince people that it does not actually require an Internet connection and all that. Try using it for 6 months with a 0.2 Mbps connection that gets randomly cut every 5-10 seconds. It can literally take 10 minutes "Preparing to launch" a game. I really hope it doesn't expand to other software.

The funniest part is: "Could not connect to Steam network. Start in Offline Mode?". You answer yes. "Error: could not connect to Steam network. This operation cannot be completed in Offline Mode". Maximum trollgaben.

<comment><USER3> .2Mbps...maybe that's your real problem? DRM is here to stay, and internet drm is increasingly popular. Maybe time to upgrade your connection?

<comment><USER4> "Maybe time to upgrade your connection?"

While I've no idea of the other guys situation, "suggestions" like this really boil my blood. A huge portion of people serving in the milatary, people in crappy college dorms, people working in hotels, people in rural areas, people in countries that are still building infrastructure, all these people can't just _decide_ to get faster internet. It's elitest, rude, and completely ignores a real issue many people don't have a choice but to put up with.

<comment><USER3> Sure, sometimes you don't have a choice. But saying progress cant be made because it cant accommodate the edge cases is absurd. Dont like Steams DRM? Dont use it. But dont bitch about it because you _cant use it properly_.

<comment><USER5> When I bought the games I did on Steam, I was under the impression that it had a functional offline mode. After all, when I'd used it before, it was reliable. But since, the few times when I've tried it, it's failed. It's made me partly regret the purchases I've made, because I thought they would be available offline but now are not.

Again, you don't know people's situation. It's arrogant to criticize (edit: without having better information). "Bitching" about a poorly implemented system is entirely valid. Pardon me for foolishly believing the "Play offline" button would allow me to play my games offline, but it is labelled exactly as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to see how this plays out. Valve + general purpose software distribution + linux ports + hardware speculation - Valve seems like the biggest proponent for general purpose, open computing these days (open in the sense of being able to do what you want with your computer). Could Valve be a valid mainstream competitor for the personal computer market? Not all computing can be done from a tablet or console.

<comment><USER7> > open

yeah ... if only there wasn't that problem with valve not accepting everybody on their platform :)

<comment><USER6> That's a good point. I just assumed that because Gabe decried the windows app store lockin for ARM he would play nice on his own platform. I'm not sure if this would be true or not.

<comment><USER8> Curated stores are fine and dandy as long as they're not mandatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This kind of got me thinking: What would it take for me to try my hand at developing a desktop app today?

I am a developer. For the most part I've been doing web applications (with a bit of mobile). This is mostly because I feel there isn't any money to be made in desktop apps. Piracy, distribution, etc. Lots of headaches.

Could this change things? Possibly. Just like Java which was download once, run everywhere (haha kidding) we could have apps that are "uniplatform" (yeah I just made up a new word). I buy the app and it is good for desktop, mobile, web. It might give slightly different experiences but my data is still all the same in the back.

One of the closest apps I can think of like this is Google Chat/Talk. I can start a conversation in a web browser window, reply using Pidgin, and finish off a conversation on my Android. It is relatively seamless.

<comment><USER10> Even better; a Steam application API: write code once and it's available on any Steam-able OS. Cloud storage and desktop power and a huge userbase would make this a tasty platform.

<comment><USER11> How would that be any different than Java?! Of course, except from the fact that Java lacked the distribution channel.

IMO, That's horrible - nightmare scenario. As a Mac user, I _hate_ nothing more than cross-platform apps. They're ugly and lack almost all the features that makes OS X a great _user_ operating system.

<comment><USER12> You mean like iTunes and Safari?

Because Windows users think the same of cross-platform Mac apps.

<comment><USER11> Exactly. But they weren't "cross-platform Mac apps". They were poorly-done "ports" (i.e. the UI code was not shared).

iTunes is garbage on all platforms, and its update is long overdue. But Safari (4.0+) is great on OS X. I use it as my main browser (and find it vastly superior to Chrome or Firefox 3.6+ for my needs). The windows port of Safari (which has been discontinued recently, incidentally) was always horrible, much below the standard of Windows apps, and far below the standard of OS X apps.

<comment><USER12> They were ports?

The fact iTunes needed "Apple Application Support", and ran on Carbon, made me think as a Windows user it wasn't changed much from the Mac versions.

EDIT: Huh, iTunes has since moved on from Carbon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm really hoping for a steam redesign. I find the UI to be slow and unresponsive. Hopefully something native (on Windows, Mac, AND now Linux) comes out in the near future.

<comment><USER14> It's also extremely buggy on the Mac, at least. I can't count the number of times dropdown menus have shown up behind everything else.

<comment><USER15> They've been improving lately.

Use to drive me nuts when I want a quick game of Bit Trip Runner, the loading time to start up and login then go to the library might take longer than one quick stage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is the comparison being made just between Steam and Microsoft's app store? MS hasn't yet launched their service and what it's uptake will be is yet to be known. Alternately, we have the Mac App Store. It's been around for a while, has a huge uptake, and many developers already have data on how successful (or not) they've been. While Macs are only ~20% of the desktop/laptop market, it's a very lucrative segment.

I would like to see a comparison with how Valve will compete or cooperate with an existing, proven desktop marketplace rather than speculation on something that hasn't launched yet.

</comment><comment><USER17> Steam isn't just distribution but also offers a lot of features that could translate to apps:

      1. Cloud based saves could become file/settings syncing
      2. Steam Workshop for users to publish plugins and addons
      3. Friends/groups/IM, invite to MP game could become invite to teleconference.
      4. Authentication (OpenID)

But if my app has file associations and user isn't logged on to steam. When they double click the associated filetype will they have to login to steam before my app can open it?

</comment><comment><USER18> What's interesting is a few weeks back Gabe said that Microsoft were doing bad things with Windows 8, I wonder if this is what got his goat? Steam (I assume) invested a lot in getting software companies on board but if Microsoft had their own app store all this work would be for nothing.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377>

<comment><USER19> On the other hand, it's been clear that Windows 8 would have an app store for about a year.

[http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/wind...](http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/windows-8-will- have-its-own-app-store-121250)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I lost respect for valve after they slam windows 8 as garbage without merit and then open a direct competitor to microsoft's app store.

<comment><USER21> Steam pre-dates Microsoft's app store, Apple's app store by a large margin. It's been around for quite a while. Since 2002 I believe.

You make it sound as if they just opened it.

<comment><USER22> Every other app store has games, too - with the reasonable assumption that Windows' app store would too, Microsoft established themselves as a competitor to Steam a year ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This will dilute the hell out of what I actually use Steam for -- video games.

The Steam front page, though it may seem a little sloppy or insane, is extremely successful at pointing me to games I am interested in, at a cheap price. It's going to get weird, and very nebulous, if a copy of Adobe Premiere is up there in the hot picks slider along with Assassin's Creed 3.

<comment><USER24> It would shock me if they didn't have separate sections to account for just that. They (hopefully) aren't going to alienate the over 40 million user base they have when currently everyone is expecting to see games there. Productivity related desktop applications will not make sense to a large chunk of those users.

<comment><USER23> It's brand diluting all the same, though. I guess they (probably correctly) see that they are doing a lot of things right with online purchases/downloads that other places aren't, but part of what I think they are doing right is having and keeping focus. Of course, people said the same thing when Amazon stopped just selling books, and that worked out alright for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Valve are going to compete head on with Microsoft then? That's pretty ballsy. Let's hope steam is not left a smouldering corpse.

<comment><USER26> It's hard to envision this being an extinction event for Steam. Microsoft has just never been able to get people onboard in the way that Valve has with PC game distribution platforms. GFWL was/is a disaster that ended up being more trouble than it was worth. I could see Steam having to back out of software distribution, but I can't imagine Steam dying in the foreseeable future. Not with tens of millions of users voluntarily and enthusiastically locked into the platform.

<comment><USER25> I think users can be fickle about these things, MS just has to make sure their store tactically undercuts Valve's on some popular products and they could steal a lot of users.

MS also has a trump card here in the form of the Xbox, they can make their Windows stuff integrate with it very well for example allowing you to buy a game once and make it playable on both your PC and your Xbox, or to transfer save games between each etc. Microsoft can also demand Windows Store exclusivity for games to also appear on the Xbox.

<comment><USER26> Users are fickle, but this play was tried by EA with Origin. You can get them onboard with the big titles like Battlefield 3, but they've been less successful at getting users to buy titles from smaller publishers. Steam offers a better deal to small publishers, and is actively engaged in the community in a way that I doubt Microsoft can replicate.

As for Xbox-PC game interoperability, that would be interesting. I know multiplayer between the two platforms has been ruled out, but transferring from one to another might be attractive. It also makes you wonder why they haven't done it. Games built for the XBLA are written in XNA and can be played with minimal adjustment on Windows. But practically every XBLA-PC success I can think of (Bastion, Orcs Must Die, Limbo, etc.) has been put onto Steam. Makes you wonder why Microsoft isn't already mandating XBLA games be ported into Games for Windows Live if they go to PC.

<comment><USER27> > I know multiplayer between the two platforms has been ruled out

Thanks for pointing that out. I had thought CS:GO was going to be cross- platform Xbox/PC, but it's not anymore.

[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-26-ps3-cs-go- suppo...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-26-ps3-cs-go-supports- keyboard-and-mouse)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I like the idea of a strong platform independent player. I like being in a position where I can switch between Mac and PC fairly painlessly - I like OSX, but sometimes I want the price/performance of a PC tower. The number of critical platform exclusive apps continues to dwindle for me, so a centralized market that minimizes lock-in sounds fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm still unclear how you submit an app to their store? If I have an app with a mac and pc build that I want to submit, what do I do?

<comment><USER30> I guess you could try reaching out to one of the many indie developers on Steam.

Anyhow, what I suspect though, is that Steam isn't going to become some "app store" like the current Android and Apple ones, rife with fart apps and other useless things. I suspect it would stay highly curated.

For example you don't see hundreds of amateur flash games on Steam, everything is cherry picked which makes for a great consumer experience. I know that any game I buy off Steam is going to be of high quality.

This has the added benefit of not having any of those "scammer" apps around. You know, those apps that get purchased by any and all hacked Apple accounts just to get pushed to the top of the app store.</comment></comment>


Tinder founders sue parent companies Match and IAC for at least $2B - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/14/tinder-match-lawsuit/ <comment><USER2> > _The suit alleges that IAC and Match Group manipulated financial data in > order to create 'a fake lowball valuation' (to quote the plaintiffs' press > release), then stripped Rad, Mateen, Badeen and others of their stock > options_

Wait, they didn't exercise their options into the sale? Did the founders hire a team of squirrels as their bankers? This is M&A 101 when switching to majority control.

EDIT: Ah, Tinder was launched as an internal project at Match. Taking options in a majority-owned entity is...odd. There is no proper way to value a majority-owned entity without discounting for the majority ownership. Issuing options for the parent would have been a better offer and better ask.

<comment><USER3> Can you ELI5 for me, because I don't understand this at all.

<comment><USER4> Tinder was a match.com spinoff startup and they gave the founders some stock and money... tinder did well and then when they re-acquired the company they did so at a valuation that allegedly improperly compensated some of the shareholders.

<comment><USER5> Note: they weren't really founders. Tinder was created by Hatch Labs, which they worked for and was owned by IAC.

I thought it was important to point that out as that's at the core of this lawsuit. The team was given options, but it was majority owned and controlled by Hatch Labs / IAC. When IAC acquired it, they're arguing IAC should've paid more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In 2014, former Tinder VP Whitney Wolfe, who previously had a "cofounder" title (and would later go on to found Bumble), sued IAC and Match over sexual harassment from another Tinder "cofounder" Justin Mateen, who is one of the plaintiffs in _this_ lawsuit. (I put "cofounder" in quotation marks because it was an internal project at IAC and the history is a complicated.) Mateen was suspended and the lawsuit was settled for $1M.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2014/07/01...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2014/07/01/read-the-most-surprising-allegations-from-the-tinder- sexual-harassment-lawsuit/)

[https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/09/whitney-wolfe-vs- tinder/](https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/09/whitney-wolfe-vs-tinder/)

[http://valleywag.gawker.com/every-fucked-up-text-from-the- ti...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/every-fucked-up-text-from-the-tinder- sexual-harassment-1598642609)

Earlier this year Match and Bumble both sued each other in the midst of an attempt from Match to acquire Bumble. I am a little lost but I think Match / Tinder sued for $450M for patent infringement and Bumble countersued for $400M for using the lawsuit to make them look less attractive to potential (non- Match) acquirers?

<comment><USER7> Match might have to find a model besides "buy the latest popular matchmaking firm"?

<comment><USER8> IIRC, they own one of the few online dating sites that actually generates a profit: match.com. All of their other properties, particularly Tinder and OkCupid, are basically meant to get younger people hooked so that they will eventually convert to paying for Match.com.

<comment><USER9> OkCupid started as a free, alternative, non-traditional dating site based on a full-spectrum of interests compatibility. Unfortunately, post-acquisition, it's becoming yet another Tinder/Match pics-first shallow hookup site.

<comment><USER10> OkCupid began monetizing before being acquired and that's part of what made them attractive.

<comment><USER11> OkCupid sounds exactly like PlentyOfFish, also acquired by The Match Group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That is a brutal response from Match and IAC. Their statement also mentions that two separate banks were part of the valuation. I'd be curious what their proof is. A couple fun phrases from the statement:

> _his merry band of plaintiffs_

> _but sour grapes alone do not a lawsuit make_

<comment><USER13> Honestly, this makes me lose any respect I might have had for them - while the lawsuit seems odd, resorting to ad hominem attacks is extremely unprofessional, and especially so in a PR statement. Civility and basic courtesy is not copyrighted, use it in your public statements.

<comment><USER14> > Civility and basic courtesy is not copyrighted, use it in your public > statements.

POTUS would disagree. Civility and basic courtesy are no longer popular. Such is the world we now live in.

Edit: Anyone care to dispute this? I don't agree with it, but I'm also not willing to ignore it.

<comment><USER15> Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents and certainly not political ones.

<comment><USER16> Some of the best HN has to offer in terms of interesting and thought provoking discussion is on generic tangents, and so long as the discussion remains civil and contained to those threads concerning it I see no reason to discourage it for being discussed.

<comment><USER15> I know how unsatisfying this is going to sound, but: this is a point on which we just have to pull rank. It's our job to foster the kind of site where signal/noise ratio doesn't completely suck, and many years of experience have taught us that generic tangents lead to low-quality discussions that grow like weeds.

<comment><USER17> Do you think tedious or blatantly illiterate comments get as many flags as vaguely tangential or vaguely controversial comments?

(I really think there are lots of comments that are "blatantly illiterate", in that they respond to a meaning that is just obviously not in the parent. I guess that only kind of breaks the assume good faith guideline, as they are missing the meaning rather than mischaracterizing it.)

The point of the question is whether the userbase has been trained to respond aggressively to only a subset of low signal comments.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure about tedious—there's an awful lot of tediousness in internet forum comments—but we certainly see many flags on blatantly unsubstantive posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Random semi-tangential question: It seems that when companies/PR people/lawyers respond to lawsuits, they always use some version of this EXACT phrase:

"The allegations in the complaint are meritless, and ____ intends to vigorously defend against them."

Responses almost always use the word "meritless" (or "baseless") and almost always describe their forthcoming response to be "vigorous".

Is there a legal reason why these responses always use the same language? Or is this like an inside joke in legal circles?

<comment><USER19> Because when people hear a word they like, they like to try and use it every chance they get. They want to show off their large vocabulary. I remember thinking something similar when the election cycle rolls around and every pundit and news anchor is talking about how an issue "resonates" with voters. An otherwise rarely used word that becomes used to describe something specific becomes almost like a brand name.

<comment><USER20> Or because it's a carefully-chosen legalism that _appears_ to say "I am innocent" while _actually_ only saying "the case against me will fail."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those who don't know, Tinder was launched by Sean Rad and his team out of IAC's incubator Hatch Labs and IAC owns most of Tinder since launch.

More detailed link here: [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/barry- dillers-iac-sue...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/barry-dillers-iac- sued-by-tinder-founders-2-billion-1134767)

</comment><comment><USER22> Glad to see founders get the employee treatment ;-)

<comment><USER23> Except its more like employees getting the employee treatment.

<comment><USER22> I'm playing the smallest violin in the world for these guys, a la Reservoir Dogs :-). I hope they can find a new job :-( if they can't suss out this 2b :-(((

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> $3B valuation sounds quite reasonable for Tinder. Even with Tinder Gold "resetting the metrics" with per transaction monetization.

$IAC total revenues last quarter was approx $1B. At market valuation ~$16B. I could be very wrong, but valuing Tinder at $10B seems upper bound optimistic to me. Match probably enjoys 10x engagement.

<comment><USER11> Market valuation in tech is all about growth, not revenue. The rest of the companies in The Match Group (Match, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish) are nowhere near as attractive to the younger generation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I suspect that Tinder came from the Hot-or-Not Mashup Camp contest entry years ago .. Can anyone confirm that ?

<comment><USER26> No it was an internal startup made from Match.

<comment><USER27> Why did a dating site launch a dating app as a separate startup? What was the logic there?

<comment><USER28> It's actually a well researched business case study and in the case of Tinder carried out perfectly. It's too hard for existing company to disrupt itself because it takes too long for the new venture to make a significant difference to the bottom line, the value chain and company structure is too entrenched, the standard for excellence is too high for a nascent product or service. In business literature to avoid getting disrupted you're supposed to set up a independent office far away and incentivize the "founding" team with upside and full autonomy and credit for success.

<comment><USER27> Thanks, yeah that makes sense. They weren't spawned from Match which was the source of my confusion they were wholly incubated under IAC Hatch, which makes a lot more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Mr. Rad and his merry band of plaintiffs"

I sometimes really love legalese.

</comment><comment><USER30> Mom always said if you play with match.com, you're going to get burned.

</comment><comment><USER31> tl;dr

match.com: we would like to buy tinder.

tinder: for how much?

match.com: we will offer you our stock in exchange for yours at a fair valuation.

tinder: okay!

match: alrighty accountants, round down on everything and use the methodologies that provide tinder with the lowest valuation.

tinder: not fair!

</comment><comment><USER32> If you had this obviously brilliant app idea why would you launch it as an internal project? Something about the founding story here has never added up.

<comment><USER33> There might be clauses in those Tinder founders' employment contracts with Match.com that any intellectual property that they came up with during their employment belongs to Match.com.

There's a similar plot in the Silicon Valley TV show (Piped Piper v.s. Hooli).

<comment><USER34> Only if there was a Gavin Belson in this version

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> using their domain terminology, just for fun -

Match, Tinder and Bumble are in a weird relationship. Match tried to make an inappropriate pass atTinder, but she is not interested, so considers it as a sexual harassment. Same goes for Bumble.

This is a relationship 101. If they can't settle internally then they should leave this dating business :-)

<comment><USER36> Unsurprisingly, if you start treating a personal relationship like a legal agreement, you'll probably suffer the situation just as badly as if you treat a legal agreement like a personal relationship. They're entirely different creatures. There's no "relationship 101" that covers them both.</comment></comment>


Google to roll out verification badges on profiles. - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/103618543375127073102/posts/ZiXUSJQ3fGA#103618543375127073102/posts/ZiXUSJQ3fGA <comment><USER2> This is sort of an annoying practice for anyone who shares a name with someone more famous than themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> I verified my Google profile back in day via Google Knol, which carried over to my Google Plus profile. The process may not still be around, but here's basically what I did: <http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019860.html>

<comment><USER4> That doesn't seem to be possible anymore, the "Name Verification" tab has been removed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given that Google sees all my personal email and most of my web searches, the thought of them verifying my ID creeps me out.</comment>


Ask HN: What Happens to Mozilla after 2011? - <AUTHOR>

Mozilla has throughout the years proved skeptics wrong by being innovative in the browser market and preventing Microsoft from becoming a monopoly with regards to browsers. Through its search deal with Google, Mozilla has been able to employ and finance  the continued development of the Firefox browser. This deal is however set to end in November, 2011 and with  Google's continued development of the Chrome browser, I feel Google would not extend the deal. What are  your thoughts on this? <comment><USER2> Google will absolutely extend the deal. It generates hundreds of millions in direct revenue.

<comment><USER3> It all depends on how well Firefox performs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If Google doesn't extend the deal, someone else (or multiple groups divided by language or geography) will.

It's not a charity donation, it's a fee for getting your search engine in front of 300 million users.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is that what the Firefox search page is about? I always switched it to the real Google page. Was I doing Mozilla a disfavor by doing that?</comment>


CouchDB's Board Report (August 2013) - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.apache.org/couchdb/entry/board_report_august_2013

<comment><USER2> I am a long time user and fan of CouchDB. It is great to see such an active project. Those who were skeptical after Damien's leave were proofed wrong. I am especially interested in Fauxton and Cloudant's BigCouch merge.</comment>


The Most Timeless Songs of All Time, Based on Spotify Plays - <AUTHOR> http://poly-graph.co/timeless/index.html

<comment><USER2> I suspect this is heavily skewed by the age distribution of Spotify users</comment>


I'm Doing It Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://sam.mycube.co/2013/04/17/im-doing-it-wrong/

<comment><USER2> I wonder what these requests for help look like. I idle in a handful of IRC channels devoted to various frameworks and languages. There are a handful of people who get berated, but it's nearly always people who come in and demand answers and are unwilling to do any leg work to describe their problem.

If it's gotten to the point where every single time you ask for help you're being bullied or berated, the common denominator is you. How are you going about asking? What venues are you asking in? What do you do to properly describe your problem? When people ask you to try things do you do it or argue that whatever they're suggesting can't be related?

<comment><USER3> Some communities can be pretty hostile to newcomers. Not necessarily programming, but a lot of tech communities complain a lot about newbie questions, basically saying that they're not here to write config files for you, or things like that.

Some people revel in the 'secret clubhouse' mentality of being the only people to understand how some program works or something.

<comment><USER4> I think the number of people who enjoy being siloed experts is many orders of magnitude below what people think it is. I think in the tech community, most hacker types love helping others along. After all, somebody influenced us. I've met maybe one or two people my whole life who got sick enjoyment from watching people stumble, and even they eventually grew out of it. The problem is not that experts hate newbies, it's that they've already answered the exact same question fifty times. Were one to type that question into google, it would spit out hundreds of results saying the same things. The answer is already out there. As hackers, we follow the DRY rule, especially when giving help. If it's out there on the interweb, then please tell why we should explain it yet one more time.

In the end, it's a balance of efforts. While it would take the expert 15 minutes to craft a good explanatory reply, it would take the asker a few minutes to type it into Google and read the first few responses that pop up. For any good question, the burden of time should be on the asker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think a lot of people can relate to your experience (I spent a lot of time in front of a QBasic window and Flash).

When I read this though, I think I started getting what was happening:

>despite me having implemented best coding practice, and having my plugin include over 30 major original classes created by me.

It sounds like you might not really get what we mean by design patterns. I don't think number of classes is ever an interesting metric to people, but the fact that you mention it makes it sound like you might not 'get' what people are complaining about.

But I think another problem you might have is the people you're talking to the wrong crowd. Stack Overflow, for example, has a great community, and the people there show the utmost patience. It's truly one of the best communities on the internet(despite endless complaining here on HN about the proactive moderation)

The flip side is that you might actually be fighting back a bit too hard, and you might actually be the "annoying guy who doesn't want to understand". Always difficult with one-sided stories.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think of a large project by the number of classes it has, and I was actually hesitant to place this in the post, but I needed something people could to relate to for a size metric.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I learned by copy and pasting novels of code, and did not read a single > book, or take a single class

This is the problem. His story sounds familiar to mine at first, but a generation apart. I was taught to self-learn, read books, and first figure out the right question to ask. Then, and only then, ask the questions. Copy and pasting doesn't have to be terrible. Copy, paste, and then figure out what the heck it's doing, and then modify it to your own purposes. Iterate. Read books. Google stuff. I only mention the generational thing because the lack of opening a book seems to be just that. My generation did that, his does not. I can easily see how he probably gets shut down a lot without understanding why.

So, advice from someone who started by copying and pasting... Read the book. RTFM. Use google, and only ask questions when you're confident what the question is. If someone makes fun of your classes, don't whine, just go read about OO design and patterns and make them better. Above all, this is not acceptable:

> which has the code almost unchanged since then at gamebrave.com

You should always be improving. This is the statement that clued me in to wannabe syndrome. It's ok to want to be something. It's not ok to expect that something to get handed to you. Read the books, take the classes (these days with MOOCs there is no excuse). Put in the work, and soon you'll be the one ignoring the noobs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you found they two week points in my post, just to clarify, I did modify the code I found, and I did write my own code. I just put that as a way to show that I went out, and learned in a naïve way, searching Google for almost everything I needed to know to do something.

Also, gamebrave was changed many times, and I improved it as much as I could, the layout changed many times as I learned more effective ways to write code. I just stopped working on it at one point because I wasn't getting anything out of improving the website, I wanted to move on, and try a new project. It wasn't going to ever be a really business, it was just a way for me to learn how to write web code.

Also, this is my early story, and was fed mainly by curiosity, and not a formal education plan. Based on a lot of advice I have received, I will be reading books on programming topics that interest me.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely understand. I've been close to there. Definitely read books, and take advantage of the fact you can get a 100% free CS education from MIT in the comfort of your home. I hope I didn't come across too abrasive, I've just seen a lot of symptoms lately in your generation of people who want to show up to work and get paid for stealing time from the rest of the team instead of doing some self-learning. Your learning track mirrors mine too much to let you fall into this trap. Learn how to learn.

I will suggest the following advice; take it with whatever worth you might... work on improving Gamebrave. A LOT of developers I hire and work with love to constantly move to something new, something that will challenge them in a new way, allow them to use their new abilities, new technologies, etc. Resist this desire, and you will find success. Those developers come and go, and I certainly spent my own time doing this. But starting new is easy. It's not difficult to get through the hello world phase and get something started. What's truly difficult is pushing something past that plateau feeling into something even better or more effective.

And it's that skill (of resisting newness) that will get you hired full time, and indeed what I look for. If someone says they get passionate about debugging or refactoring, it's worth a thousand people who like starting from scratch. So go and open up your old code, improve it, maybe figure out how to turn that sucker into some passive income, figure out a way to get people there. Trust me, learning this Zen of development will be much better for your future career (assuming you want to do this full time). There's a reason that old OS/2 and mainframe people get jobs worth twice what their peers get for slinging javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you love programming there's no reason to let unhelpful online responses get you down. Keep looking for good people that can help you online, they do exist. And keep trying to improve the way you learn and the way you get information from others. Eric Raymond's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" might be helpful [1].

[1] <http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

<comment><USER6> That one (and similar guides) really helps. When I started out programming and went to IRC for help people frequently pointed me to those tutorials. When I started to follow the gist of them, I got friendly answers all the time.

This goes both ways: If you're and expert annoyed by this moron who can't even state his question properly, point him to this tutorial and leave it at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are you trying to say?</comment>


The Medieval University Monopoly - <AUTHOR> https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/medieval-university-monopoly <comment><USER2> Someone recently referred to an undergrad degree as "a middle class union card," which I thought was a rich metaphor for these same economics. Post internet, software, covid, and zoom, the disruption of the university system seems nigh.

<comment><USER3> Guys with union cards in the right union can make as much as an average software engineer

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not quite sure what the site name has to do with anything[1], but for the ancient ties between church and gown:

[https://americanliterature.com/author/alexandre- dumas/book/t...](https://americanliterature.com/author/alexandre- dumas/book/the-three-musketeers/26-aramis-and-his-thesis)

> "now, as you have heard, d'Artagnan, Monsieur the Principal is desirous that > my thesis should be dogmatic, while I, for my part, would rather it should > be ideal. This is the reason why Monsieur the Principal has proposed to me > the following subject, which has not yet been treated upon, and in which I > perceive there is matter for magnificent elaboration-' _Utraque manus in > benedicendo clericis inferioribus necessaria est._ '"

[1] Alexandre Dumas was borne in the Aisne. Maybe the american refers to his father, the general Dumas, who was born in what is now Haiti? (the Dumas count among themselves both writers and fencers, but I don't believe any have been as good at both simultaneously as Aramis.)

</comment><comment><USER5> That was interesting and hilarious at the same time :-)</comment>