Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 3rd Feb 2008 23:09 UTC, submitted by Moochman
KDE This article details the story of a KDE-loving software engineer who was forced to use Windows for his job. "His only hope was that he knew Qt was cross compatible with Windows Linux and Mac, and there was talk that someday, KDE was to be ported to Windows. So he waited. Well, KDE4 was announced and there was much joy. Betas were released and there was much bitching. KDE4.0.0 was released and there again was much joy (and still a little bitching). More importantly an actual honest to goodness Windows port is released. Here follows that engineer's report."
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djame
Member since:
2005-07-08

Come on.... It's shipped on 90 if not 95% computer sold each year.
Anyway, except from the famous joel spolky's "how microsoft lost the api war", I have yet to see any good arguments about microsoft fall

FishB8 Member since:
2006-01-16

Granted, I don't know what the author meant by this, but I personally see windows as a dying platform. Not because of it's user base (which is obviously very dominate) but because there is not much interesting happening as far as development of new and cutting edge ideas are concerned. Quite honestly it has become boring and lethargic. Cutting edge has become too risky and they cater more towards maintaining backwards compatibility than towards the cutting edge.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 11

Chicken Blood Member since:
2005-12-21

Granted, I don't know what the author meant by this, but I personally see windows as a dying platform. Not because of it's user base (which is obviously very dominate) but because there is not much interesting happening as far as development of new and cutting edge ideas are concerned. Quite honestly it has become boring and lethargic. Cutting edge has become too risky and they cater more towards maintaining backwards compatibility than towards the cutting edge.


To contrast, can you tell me about the "cutting edge" ideas that are developing on other platforms?

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 5

google_ninja Member since:
2006-02-05

imo .net 3.5 is by far the most modern and interesting platform to develop on. it isnt even comparable to obj-c on apple, or even worse, c/c++ on linux.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 9

djame Member since:
2005-07-08

>Cutting edge has become too risky and they cater more towards >maintaining backwards compatibility than towards the cutting edge.

This is maybe the biggest strenght of windows, come on !
Just try to run any games (except q3 and ut) made by Loki on any recent distribution. Or any commercial apps from Wordperfect to applixware which used to run just fine on any distro. What would you say to those who bought these programs and can't use them anymore or whithout incredible pains (such as installing another dynamic linker)...


As long as linux won't respect people investment, windows won't be a dying platform..



Djamé

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 6

vimh Member since:
2006-02-04

I'd argue more that the desktop is a dying 'platform.' No seriously. You suggest that MS has done nothing to bring anything new to the desktop. I won't disagree. But I suggest that neither has the Macintosh world or Linux.

We have been sitting in the same place for years. Choose your poison.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2

trenchsol Member since:
2006-12-07

Some people have serious perception problems, or keep living in imaginary world they made for themselves, which is, by definition, unhealthy mental condition. Microsoft Windows have been installed on more than 90% PC's in the world during last ten years. That is the fact, hard, unavoidable fact. And, in those 10 years I have seen dozens of articles describing the end of Microsoft. None of them offered any sound argument for that except authors own wishful thinking.

Windows will go away someday, there is no doubt of it, but some substantial change is going to take them away. Such change has not happened yet, so please, keep your daydreaming for yourselves until then.

In the 90's Windows offered a compromise of user friendly and affordable system at expense of quality, stability and usability. Since then the way of using PC is the Windows way. And no platform is better in being Windows than Windows itself. It has nothing to do with quality, usability, security or anything else. It is a market leader position.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 3

elsewhere Member since:
2005-07-13

Come on.... It's shipped on 90 if not 95% computer sold each year.


If you're not growing, you're dying. ;)

It's tongue-in-cheek, anyways.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 4

MrCopilot Member since:
2008-02-04

Come on.... It's shipped on 90 if not 95% computer sold each year.
Anyway, except from the famous joel spolky's "how microsoft lost the api war", I have yet to see any good arguments about microsoft fall

Response:
http://mrcopilot.blogspot.com/2008/02/windows-platform-death-revisi...

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2

google_ninja Member since:
2006-02-05

I don't get it. Windows is dying because some guys daughter like KDE?

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 3

StephenBeDoper Member since:
2005-07-06

To summarize the response:

"When I wrote that Windows is 'dying,' I actually meant something completely different than either the literal or commonly-accepted meaning of the word 'dying.'"

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2