
Now all Windows developers have been thrown under the bus - peterkelly
http://www.zdnet.com/now-all-windows-developers-have-been-thrown-under-the-bus-7000019912/
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xentronium
I don't follow. RC version has been available for some time. Do they put a lot
of changes into golden master?

~~~
Locke1689
I would say we try our best not to (except for bug fixes, of course).

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robododo
That pretty much sums it up. The 8.1 changes, so far as I can tell, are
bugfix/stability changes.

The article feels like click-bait to me. The little blurb on zdnet about the
author helped me better understand where he's coming from: Matt Baxter-
Reynolds is a mobile software development consultant and technology
sociologist based in the UK. His next book, "Death of the PC" is out in
September.

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mikhailt
To those who keeps saying "VS2013 preview and Windows 8.1 preview" are enough,
so what? How is that any excuse not to release the finished code to the
developers early so that they don't have to trust MS on this? How about we do
our own testing and feel confident that our apps are ready on first day.

There is absolutely NO reason to hold it back until Oct to release the same
code that they can release now to people who paid for the perks of getting RTM
early to make sure they feel confident.

Why take any risks when there's like a whole month for the developers to test
and validate against the final RTM/GM build?

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ayi
This guy has no idea what he is talking about. We have got VS2013 preview and
windows 8.1 preview since june and developing apps for it.

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Osiris
The question is how much different is the preview than the release? They
haven't said. I'm running 8.1 preview right now and it seems pretty solid.

It's still a departure from previous behavior and warrants at least an
explanation about why or how developers should approach the 8.1 release.

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klausa
Am I misremembering something, or similar thing is going on with Google? As
far as I remember, few last Android versions were introduced in a 'oh and by
the way, it's shipping today' fashion. I guess you could argue only negligible
percent of user have access to day 1 Android upgrades, but still - that
doesn't count as early access in my book.

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hawleyal
Not really.

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ociredon
yeah, i'm using VS 2013 preview at work, and i have windows 8.1 preview at
home free just because i owned a copy of windows 8

what the hell is this guy talking about?

~~~
cmelbye
"Preview" is not the same thing as the finished version.

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RodericDay
_" By now it's clear that Microsoft execs _love_ buses. Why else would they be
so keen to throw everyone they work with under one?"_

...what?

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hga
Way too many "partners" and others who thought they were collaborating with
Microsoft over the years.

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leaffig
The author is implying that if one loves throwing people under buses, they
must necessarily love buses.

Which doesn't make any sense, like the rest of the article. Couldn't even
finish reading it.

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marshray
TBH we do have really nice buses here at the Redmond campus.

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300bps
As a Microsoft developer with access to Windows 8.1 Preview, I remain
unaffected by any alleged bus collision.

Beyond that, Windows 8.1 was RTM'd on August 23rd. The typical timeframe would
be a few weeks later it would be released to MSDN and TechNet subscribers
which would place us around September 15th.

Now, there have been rumors galore around whether MSDN/TechNet subscribers
would get access to Windows 8.1 on the typical timeframe and conflicting
messages from Microsoft spokespeople. I was curious so I just spent 10 minutes
reading everything I could find on this topic on a "within past 24 hours"
Google search. I can't find a source. The only source anyone I could find
mentions (if they mention a source at all) is The Verge:

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/27/4663074/microsoft-
announce...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/27/4663074/microsoft-announces-
windows-8-1-rtm)

The Verge gives its source as "Microsoft":

 _Many had hoped MSDN or TechNet customers would get access to Windows 8.1
shortly after RTM, but Microsoft says this is not the case._

Is there a link to a site where they got this information? If it was a phone
conversation, who did they speak to? Many of the rumors that were formerly
going around were sourced from a small Microsoft office in Europe from an
employee speaking off the cuff. Are they using that same source or do they
have a new source?

It could be very true that Microsoft is not releasing early to MSDN/Technet
but I haven't seen a reliable source cited yet. I'm curious if anyone else
knows precisely where this information is coming from.

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mariusmg
"Journalism" at its worst. Better write a friggin pie recipe if you don't have
a real subject.

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mason240
The comments on the blog are pretty brutal to the author.

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keithwarren
I have been an MSDN subscriber for more than a decade and you can count me as
someone who is more than a bit annoyed.

One of the perks of being a sub is the fact we get bits within days of RTM,
the purpose being lead time for code updates and new releases, but the
majority of subscribers are geeks who just want the new thing now.

The irony of the Ballmer retirement happening recently brought back youtube
clips of the 'Developers, Developers, Devlopers' chant. It is easy to forget
that working with developers in a first class way, was one of the many ways
that Microsoft won such incredible share over time.

I used to explain it to friends and colleagues this way, when they would see
the enormous binder of MSDN DVDs at my office. I would tell them that
Microsoft would rather give me copies of everything for free than sell 100
copies at Staples. Not because I am special, but because they know if they win
my allegiance then I will build software that requires windows. The cycle
continues and by simply being nice to developers, they generate huge numbers
of corporate IT customers.

For the longest time I felt this was true...but then it changed.

I cannot put my finger on an exact date, but it was after .NET came out. There
were quite a few VB people upset by .NET but by and large it was broadly
accepted as good and the community grew. It was probably around the
WPF/Silverlight days that things started going sideways. The market was
starting to fracture as mobile was gaining traction, ASP.NET was stagnating
and something was not right.

Over the next several years there were so many platform misfires and
misadventures it was hard to know where to spend your time. The dev evangelism
team did not make the macro transition to a more web centric community as well
as they should (people used the web 13 years ago but so much dev learning
still happened in user groups and at small conferences) and when there was
competition for mindshare from Apple and Google in the mobile space –
Microsoft was on the sideline. Two huge companies waving promissory notes of
riches if we would just come build apps with them and Redmond still could not
figure out if we should be using Silverlight or HTML5.

Which brings us back to today, there are still so many mixed signals. Windows
Phone has some great hardware but their iteration pace is lacking and while I
love my Lumia 1020, my love is really for the camera, not the OS which still
seems to be missing too many things (and no, I am not talking about apps).
Windows Azure has vastly improved but they still don’t compete with Amazon on
price, SQL Server has gotten better and better over time and no one doubts it
to be VLDB capable but while they focused on BI and esoteric elements of the
engine – the NoSQL world sprouted up with the only response from Redmond being
effectively– ‘those document databases are not all that great.’

So is not giving us access to the Win 8.1 RTM really that big of a deal? No,
but taker in the greater context it is just one more in a series of insults to
what was once, your most valuable customers.

You don’t win the enterprise and then force your will upon developers, you win
developers and let them force their will on the enterprise.

They forgot that.

~~~
marshray
I spent many years as a Windows developer and your story resonates with me
too.

Now I work in Azure. Basically "in the elevator" I bumped into this high-level
developer evangelist. I gave him an earful of my own and and made him promise
to have lunch with me.

If there was one or two succinct points that I could convey to him, what
should it be?

~~~
keithwarren
There should be an intense, almost religious push internally to make Scott
Guthrie the new CEO. Not likely I know, but platforms that developers depend
on such as Windows, Windows Phone, .NET, Azure etc - should be something he
runs. The Microsoft dev community has deep respect for and a strong
relationship with very few people and he is far and above the most central of
those figures.

The communal touch points that DE folks used to be so good at are gone now, I
have about 5 or 6 close friends in my region all of whom are all like myself,
independent consultants using MS stack, none of us have heard from our DE in
years. User group support has vanished, local meetups where the DE will come
show us and teach us stuff used to happen at least every quarter and even more
often - have not seen one in years. What I do see are sales people who are
only interested in talking to me if I can push Sharepoint Enterprise into a
large company. Nevermind that it does not make sense, nevermind that
developers by and large despise Sharepoint, that is what matters right now to
them. It should be the other way around.

Also, if they are going to dangle money out there as an incentive to
developers to build Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps, it should be incentive,
not token. You want me to stop working and build something great - give me a
way to propose it and a budget and if Redmond thinks the idea is good, fund
it. Not some 5K in advanced revenue shit. There are tens of thousands of
highly talented developers who love the Microsoft stack who would build
amazing new experiences for Windows and Windows Phone if someone could help
them do so and the current incentives are just laughable. iOS and Android are
lotteries that could let me win big, if I am going to gamble my future I am
going to do it there. But if Microsoft created an incubator system that let me
propose an idea, get it funded and guide me through the process and ultimately
help to promote the app - they would have developers fighting to get in.

~~~
marshray
I'll try to convey as much of this as I can.

