Specifically, do you worry that Microsoft is going to eventually do the Microsoft thing and horribly fuck it up for everyone? I’ve really grown to appreciate the language itself, but I’m wary of it getting too ingrained at work only to have the rug pulled out from under us when it’s become hard to back out.
Edit: not really “pulling the rug”, but, you know, doing the Microsoft classic.
Maybe Im reading the vibe wrong but to me, it seems like when it comes to the programmer/sysadmin/poweruser side of Microsoft, they seem pretty good in terms of not being total shit. Their “normie” facing side though seems hella shady though. Things like ads in windows, the speculated subscription model for windows, office 365, one drive spam.
For example, things like vscode, WSL, winget, power tools, the new console app, powershell, typescript, opening up .net to native cross platform. All these things are pretty sweet and seem like something they wouldn’t be interested in doing.
It almost feels like there are two Microsofts right now and they are at odds with each other. So yeah, I guess enjoy it while it lasts, but always be ready to drop them like a sack of potatoes.
Like I said in my other comment, I think people tend to lump all of MSFT’s activities into the same bucket. DevDiv has always seemed pretty decent, and I am usually reminded of this comic when people talk about MSFT’s “shady” activities.
Historically speaking they’ve been shitty on all possible sides. Some people take that as “fool me twice, shame on me”.
Excuse me but I have it from a very reputable source that the saying goes "fool me once…
Shame on… Shame on you.
Fool me-- can’t get fooled again"
Bill Gates was and still is a shady piece of shit. Microsoft is a lot better without him - but that’s a low bar.
Personally what bothers me is that they’re starting to treat developers as users, the same as they treat Grandpa’s operating system, or Beth in accounting’s office suite: make everything “easy” and “intuitive” and “helpful”. I became a developer because I got tired of my computers getting in my way, so now I make them do what I want. I don’t want or need an intuitive, helpful interface. If you’re going to make a tool for me to use, just make the tool do that thing and that’s it.
I’ve mostly moved on from GitHub, only using it for little pushes because the green dots look good for prospective employers.
Edit: for those if you unfamiliar with how he’s been a piece of shit specifically recently: he is the primary reason why covid vaccines weren’t open-sourced. Poor countries were forced to live or die based on the generosity of wealthy nations (and the infrastructure around that generosity), rather than enabling them to buy it from less expensive sources, or even make it themselves.
Not only is that just shitty on its face, let’s not forget that a pandemic somewhere is a pandemic everywhere; the fact that he prolonged covid in poor countries (resulting in the death of thousands if not hundreds of thousands), he kept it from fading in wealthy countries, too (resulting in the death of thousands if not hundreds of thousands).
Gates’s battle to protect “intellectual property rights” (read: take but don’t give) has been a life-long thing for him, literally since childhood. His viciously selfish tactics have produced great success for him, but it’s a despicable kind of success… And having “retired” and amassed more money than he could possibly spend, you’d think he could just sit back and let the rest of us get on with it, but no - that’s not how his level of selfishness works - it’s insatiable.
Github has been kinda getting weird lately. They added a “for you” feed, ads for copilot, and the front page is super middle-managery.
Idk, I actually kind of like the “for you” feed. I’ve discovered some interesting projects on there that I wouldn’t have otherwise
I dont think it has any place on a developer tool/workplace platform. Algorithmic feeds are the first step towards enshittification. If they had a “trending repos” page, it’d be fine, but they’re hijacking people’s work flows to show (potential) ads.
do you worry that Microsoft is going to eventually do the Microsoft thing and horribly fuck it up for everyone?
I’m not really sure what you have against Microsoft, or what “Microsoft classic” you’d be referring to…
In the last 10 years or so they pretty much moved everything C# related to Core, cross platform and open source. Even the decision making for the language is “Open source” - Microsoft is not really behaving the same as the Microsoft from 2000…
Soo, I don’t really know how they could possibly fuck it up. They might add more and more features you might not like, but you could just choose to stick to an older version of the language
It’s open source. Anything is better than JS.
Chromium, Firefox, NodeJS, Deno, and Bun are all open source. I mean, sure the official name is ECMAScript not JavaScript, but unless you’re talking about a technicality I’m not sure what your point is.
I think the point is that since it’s open source, there’s not as much worry of Microsoft ruining a good thing.
Everything is temporary. If we were talking about a niche language, I might worry a little bit that it could just lose momentum and die. But TS is a juggernaut. The only way typescript “dies” is if JS integrates enough of its features to make it redundant.
Besides that, if Oracle managed to allow Java to continue to grow and flourish, I have confidence that MS can do at least that well. I also think lumping all of MS’s products into the same boat is a mistake. They have been pretty good stewards of their languages for decades.
Everything is temporary except for people’s opinion on Microsoft.
The company is spending a ton on supporting developers, tools, and open source projects but every time they get mentioned people just hark tired lines of past ill deeds.
I think people should in general put as little trust as possible in corporations. Ensuring your tools, language and platform are as free as possible is a good idea.
Just look at the problematic situation for VS Code extensions by Microsoft, which are non-free.
I can agree with the goal but sadly the corporations have already got their claws deep in the tech stack.
Facebook control React. Google has its hands around Chromium, Android, Go, Angular and I’m sure dozens of others. Then of course Microsoft now own npm, GitHub etc. You’re making your life very difficult if you entirely avoid corporate entities.
If we don’t give corporations credit when they do run projects well then there’s no incentive for them to not go full on capitalist greed and destroy them.
The rug pull is google’s forte
Yes, MS’s standard operation is to evolve the thing until it’s completely hostile to your intentions, but not explicitly enough to justify a tool change for management.
They are currently in the “devs wanted” mode, it will probably be at least a few years before they change into “fuck you, pay me” mode again.
