They’re in their 60’s, finally convinced them.
They say things like “This is the same…”
and I’m like
“Ya because that’s Firefox, the only program you use…”
“What was Windows even doing for us?”
Windows is just the micro kernel running the actual operating system: Firefox.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Windows, is in fact, Firefox/Windows, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Firefox plus Windows. Windows is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning Firefox system made useful by the Firefox browser, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS.
Many computer users run a modified version of the Firefox system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Firefox which is widely used today is often called Windows, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Firefox system, developed by Mozilla.
There really is a Windows, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Windows is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Windows is normally used in combination with the Firefox operating system: the whole system is basically Firefox with Windows added, or Firefox/Windows. All the so-called Windows distributions are really distributions of Firefox/Windows!
When I was at Qualcomm we had an experimental, internally developed mobile OS that embraced the ubiquity of the browser and the power of apps written for the browser. The code name was b2f, which stood for “boot to Firefox”
Sorry, mixed up the videos. It’s actually this one, from 2014:
https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript
Edited link above
linux has 2 really good target audiences people using it as a near chrome book like experience, and ultra advanced users who want fine control of the system.
its everyone else in the middle that needs to play how much do i have to tweak in order to do what I want.
Moving from Windows as an intermediate user was the worst. I hated Linux for like a year. I knew just enough quirks about Windows to get 95% of what I wanted, 95% of the time, and on Linux I had to start from scratch.
Now of course I love I made the switch, as my Linux proficiency let me customize the heck out of everything, but damn, that first year…
I wish instead of complaining to people that they didn’t read the docs or whatever that linux devs would scour the internet for these criticisms (like when specifics are provided) and then develop solutions for them.
Yeah, people are shitting on your product because it’s not obvious. Make it more obvious!
(Thankfully this is starting to happen…)
I don’t have a “top 5”, but the main thing was outdated software. I went to Debian because I wanted “stability” and heard that it was good, but it ended up meaning the “15-minute bugs” I encountered weren’t fixed for basically the whole year I used it, all the apps looked like they were made in 2007, and if it weren’t for Linux forums I would never have known that there were more “modern” Linux apps, and I would have been left believing Linux development basically died
Speaking of a chromebook experience, installing ChromeOS Flex on my wife’s slow, outdated Surface Pro made it sleek and fast again. Can you suggest a Linux distro that would be similar on old laptops?
For that chrome book like experience, the genuinely think Chrome OS flex is probably a better option for most people (privacy concerns not withstanding).
“What was Windows even doing for us?”
Providing minimal malware protection while being actual malware?
As a retired software dev, for me Windows is simply a longtime habit enforced by past work environments. I did use Linux for over a year on my main PC but went back to Windows so I could keep using my old copy of Visual Studio. My deeply conditioned shortcut keystrokes didn’t work in VSCode - in fact, why did they change so much of the UI? But now that I’m used to VSCode, which I only use for hobby coding anyway, there’s no excuse and I intend to go back to Linux by year end.
VS Code is an electron app, mostly likely coded by some flavour of Javascript developers, so I doubt it was ever planned to go in the same direction as Visual Studio. VS Code follows a design very close to what Sublime made popular.
So is Visual Studio basically dead at this point? Are any new programmers choosing to use it?
no, it’s still a smoother experience ootb for things like c# desktop apps. in vscode you don’t get a wysiwig wpf designer and such, and xaml completion is worse to non existent.
It does seem to be a newer dev thing though, myself and my jr devs use vscode as much as we can and jump back to VS only when necessary, the older devs on my team are all 100% visual studio and will be forever
whatismypurpose
yourunfirefox
