Linked by David Adams on Thu 16th Jun 2011 17:46 UTC
Microsoft has released a beta SDK for Windows, allowing Windows developers to officially make use of the XBox Kinect hardware. From their own press release: "The Kinect for Windows SDK, which works with Windows 7, includes drivers, rich APIs for Raw Sensor Streams, natural user interfaces, installer documents and resource materials. The SDK provides Kinect capabilities to developers building applications with C++, C# or Visual Basic using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010."
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RE[3]: Comment by Kroc
by lucas_maximus on Fri 17th Jun 2011 13:40
in reply to "RE[2]: Comment by Kroc"
Member since:2009-08-18
There are lazy people who do half arsed things in all walks of life ... really how does lazy devs have anything to do with this?
I have seen bad code in a multitude of languages ... there will always be rubbish code as long as software engineering processes are misunderstood and there is lazy developers involved who only care about their paycheck.
How exactly is Microsoft release an official SDK for their own product got anything to do with locking new devs Microsoft platforms in or code quality?
As I said, I learnt how to OOP using Java and Eclipse or a good text editor ... and Web Dev with a LAMP stack ... now I use ASP.NET.
When it comes to learning ... understanding principles is what is important ... what you happen to learn them with is largely irrelevant.
Edited 2011-06-17 13:44 UTC
Member since:2007-03-26
I think you've missed the point of my post by quite a margin.
There are lazy people who do half arsed things in all walks of life ... really how does lazy devs have anything to do with this?
...because this topic is about software development...
I have seen bad code in a multitude of languages ... there will always be rubbish code as long as software engineering processes are misunderstood and there is lazy developers involved who only care about their paycheck.
Well yes. But we're talking specifically about developers so i didn't see the point in discussing other industries.
How exactly is Microsoft release an official SDK for their own product got anything to do with locking new devs Microsoft platforms in or code quality?
Because if you are lazy and you've learned how to use this SDK, then why would you bother learning how to use another SDK. This is particularly true for hobbyists.
As I said, I learnt how to OOP using Java and Eclipse or a good text editor ... and Web Dev with a LAMP stack ... now I use ASP.NET.
Well clearly you're not lazy so your anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.
When it comes to learning ... understanding principles is what is important ... what you happen to learn them with is largely irrelevant.
I agree, *if* you're a good programmer. However we're discussing the other end of the spectrum.
Not everybody falls into the category you're describing. There's a massive number of developers and hobbyists that will just make do with whatever tools and languages they're already familiar with. In fact, most developers (even the good ones) will favor a project in a language they're already experienced in than want to learn a new language just for the sake of learning a new language. So while this move by MS isn't a "lock in" in the traditional technical sense of the term, it does give users more reason to stick with VS / .NET rather than learn open source tools.
To put an analogy on this: it's like how Linux users moan about who many students are taught how to use MS Office, not generic office tools. Thus users are naturally more drawn toward MS Office as it's what they're familiar with despite the fact that general office computing skills are easily transferable between all the big office software suites.
Edited 2011-06-17 16:16 UTC
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Member since:
2007-03-26
It's not really that "stupid" of comment to make if you look at the development community in it's entirety rather than just the elite few.
Most developers are lazy and a disappointing few developer are good developers.
I've lost count of the number of times I've seen nasty kludges and even wrong languages chosen because developers couldn't be bothered to or didn't know how to do things properly.