Right before the end of 2006, Paul Thurrott completed his 8-part review of Windows Vista. His final conclusion: "Vista is a better operating system than the competition, for reasons that are both technical and practical. But for the hundreds of millions of people who will move to Vista in the coming years, all that will really matter is that it's a major improvement over XP. And it most certainly is that as well."
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-18
I do serious development with Eclipse (J2EE, GWT, AWT/Swing, SWT, Java RMI, Eclipse RCP, etc and etc..) and Visual Studio .NET 2005 (ASP.NET, C# Windows.Forms applications, Mobile applications, etc..) and trust me, apart from the debugging facilities an the excellent GUI Windows.Forms designer VS.NET 2005 provides, Eclipse outperforms Visual Studio.NET in every other possible way.
To support my claim here's some examples
- Better refactoring tools
- Loads quicker and requires less RAM
- Has an excellent Quickfix (Ctrl + 1) with more options than VS's one
- Integrated CVS (SVN available via free plugin. VS only comes with control version capabilities on the TeamShare version)
- Provides Eclipse RCP, an excellent framework for building your applications that provides a lot of interesting functionalities
- Integrated unit testing tools
- Free functional tests, code coverture, etc..
- Free/Open Source Software so it's easily modifiable to fit your needs and it can be used for developing commercial tools, contrary to VS.NET 2005 Express Edition
- Multiplataform: it works on Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, insert-your-favorite-so-here
- It has tools for every possible language other than Java
- It costs 0€ (insert your currency here)
So, unless you factually prove me otherwise, you haven't used Eclipse at all and you've just thrown a Paul-Thurrott-like sentence.
Member since:2005-10-31
I find it funny that the linux trolls can only resort to petty arguments like "the UI controls spacing sucks" or "the windows look so bland" knowing that every major linux desktop environment are fully tweakable. To make matters worse, it sounds even more pathetic knowing what those linux trolls are claiming is the best UI out there: XP's FisherPrice brainfart with that hideous startup menu and Vista's famous problematic, non-coherent, idiotic UI.
To make matters even worse, XP and Vista can't even be compared to KDE in terms of usability. With KDE I can customize how a particular window behaves, their skin, if it stays always on top, in which desktop it is rendered, etc... I can even assign global shortcuts to perform individual tasks on individual applications. How do you do that on windows? In windows you can't even scroll a window without it having the focus.
And another thing that is particularly pathetic is trying to attack Linux by complaining about software like OpenOffice. For your information, OpenOffice is also a Windows application. So if you try to use it as a tool to attack the operating system it runs on then your complaints are also targeted towards windows. Moreover, windows makes the user experience worse due to the fact that it's UI is so bland and a feature desert, unlike any relevant DE that runs on Linux.
Member since:2005-07-07
well said. the basic desktop experience in linux is way better than in XP or Vista, or even Mac OS X. it can be rough sometimes, but windows can't even do the basics (like the scrolling you mention). and i don't mention the tedious software management (or absence thereof) in windows.
Sure, linux lacks some apps, or some functionality in them. but it's seriously not the basics... i use wine for MS Office (tough for personal use Koffice is good enough - you just sometimes can't do certain stuff, and MS Office isn't bad). and i could imagine someone would want to use eg photoshop or stuff like that. but that's doable, wine can help you.
i think the point here is NOT how mature the desktop is, and not even how mature the applications are. it's just that linux is different. esp as a poweruser, having to relearn a lot about linux is a serious reason not to use it. you often think 'this is worse, windows did this better'. but you fail to realise the linux way might be better in many ways, and what bothers you is that it's different! this goes for the filesystem layout, and the way of installing and managing software, for example.
really, it's harder to have to use windows when you're used to a comfortable desktop like KDE, than the opposite. i know, after using linux for years, i was forced (job...) to use windows. man, now i can feel how a windows user feels in KDE... you miss so much things which you're used to. it takes serious time to get accustomed to a new desktop, more than a few hours of playing with a livecd.
Member since:2006-06-21
This is kind of ironic on an article that describes Vista needing 2GB of memory. I can use Linux+X+XFCE+Openoffice in a quarter of that.
You can do that in less than a quarter, in 256 MB. I did and still do, and so do others, on certain computers at work. And I can also add Opera, Skype, Gaim and several open file managers and it will still work well. And I really mean well, not the kind of "well" Microsoft means when they claim 800 MHz and 512 RAM for Vista.
Member since:2006-11-20
And I can also add Opera, Skype, Gaim and several open file managers and it will still work well. And I really mean well, not the kind of "well" Microsoft means when they claim 800 MHz and 512 RAM for Vista.
I run Vista on 1.4GHz Celeron M with 512MB. I have IE, Skype, Live Messenger, and they all run well. It seems to me that Microsoft is on point to say you can do it with just 512MB. And no, it's not painful.
Member since:
2006-03-12
I don't even want to reply seriously I don't, but a comment that gets five and is inaccurate.
"Do you really believe that user experience in Linux or BSD is better than Windows? "
I use linux, and windows. I know a little how linux works so yes *MY* experience is better. I suspect strongly that for a novice user the experiences will be pretty similar. The *only* user that will suffer is the more experienced(sic) Microsoft user, who will have to learn things differently which will take time and effort, in the short term to be at least as competent.
"Ok i agree on OSX, it has a quite polished and aesthetic UI and it's UI is very well designed except few things like application menu not attached to it etc" - Then Buy an Apple...you would have had a nicer looking desktop years ago. Although I suspect your just conceding a point because you would have a hard time making it.
"But GNOME and KDE, i don't think the UI is that nice." Pick one...I'm pretty certain that they are both different, and I'm sure that its not strictly true about either. I actually use XFCE so I will stick to that.
"1. Fonts sucks, that is my biggest complaint. Even after copying MS fonts, it still doesn't bod well. " - Simply not true...even on a flat screen. X has been plagued with font problems for years, but thats just not true anymore.
"2. Spacing of various UI controls like spacing of menu items in KDE is quite bad." I don't remember this. I suspect that KDE has an option for this. XFCE definately does not do this...but I can comment that X.Orgs Desktop Naming Specification is an improvement on anything Apple or Microsoft has.
"3. Windows are too bland, look how OS X windows have a small shadow and have a clean crisp look." What do you mean, clearly you should try beryl if you need the glamour, and even without that windows are anything but bland.
"4. Consistency is not so good in various applications. For example in windows almost all applications have F5 to refresh the contents. Not so in Linux UIs." I agree that consistency is not 100% in Linux quite the reverse, but I would only say that there is consistency on Microsoft's OS with Microsoft's Apps...and then I'm not so sure. Obscure example BTW.
"Ofcourse above all this, the lack of application is a deal killer for me. In linux you get substandard replacements for well known applications like:". I thought you would focus on games or CAD or photoshop, or DVD authoring, of which you could argue that WINE is only a partial solution. but no you chose.
"1. Evolution is a bad clone of outlook express and outlook. Try reading newsgroups in it and see how miserably it fails." I'll do three points evolution is one of many solutions. Outlook express should be burnt. Outlook is £300...but the odd thing is you mention *newsgroups* all of these products suck at newsgroups. There are some wonderful dedicated newsgroup readers available on the Microsoft platform, and Microsoft make none of them.
"2. gaim is a replacemnet for more powerful messenger clients like yahoo messenger and MSN messenger. Yes it is one for all but it is substandard to either one of those. " regardless that gaim is only one of *many* messenger programs, or that it handle multiple chat protocols. What do you mean?
"3. open office is a memory hog and is kind of a bad copy of MS office. The UI is bulky too." This is kind of ironic on an article that describes Vista needing 2GB of memory. I can use Linux+X+XFCE+Openoffice in a quarter of that.
"4. Not even one kick ass IDE like visual studio. I know you will say kdevelop is better but again kdevelop copied visual studio but couldn't do such a good job. "
http://www.eclipse.org/
"5. I feel the graphical debugger on widnows like windbg and visual studio debugger are little bit better than gdb. Though i can use ddd but it is quite slow then. Also setting up kernel debugging in windows is a piece of cake, not so much on Linux. " You fix bugs in the windows kernel. errrm no you don't.
"6. There is no replacement for softice (the best debugger IMHO) on Linux." Linux has debuggers.
"7. No standandard development kits like DDK on Windows and no proper documentation like MSDN. " It not only has standard development kits but lots like SDL etc etc, which has has lots of books published etc etc and is one of many...and is cross platform.
"So all in all from power user and developer point of view. i think Windows and OSX are far ahead of Linux. And again it is my opinion so feel free to disagree." I suspect you are neither.