[MfA]

Metro is only the default environment Windows 8 boots into ... you have to be completely paranoid to think that having good integration into it is important for a software developer.

[Blazkowicz]

interesting theory about the thumb, this may be part of why I like ctrl-ins and shit-ins for copy/paste, my right thumb sits on the modifier keys. though I guess you will have trouble to find the ins key on a mac.

[Dominik D]

Also ins is in different places depending on the keyboard. I hat this s*it. Look at the placement of Ins/Ctrl. Del is no better.

[Blazkowicz]

what strikes me is we have so few discussion about windows 8 .

my prediction is, that no one will care. some people will say, oh right, here's an interface that looks like a media center or whatever, mixed with a grid of shortcuts.
other people won't think anything of it, they'll get to the browser or the music player and that's it.

a minority will spend dozens hours bitching on every forum about it ; another minority will remember how you used to tweak XP. they know that they can get it fixed in no time by downloading a free .exe, after the initial bitching.

on linux, you often need to edit config files (and actually hunt them), or fork a huge desktop environment, set up a team of 10 people and work for 1.5 year hacking, testing and maintaining it if you want your pet feature or UI aspect. (then maintain it for 3 more years)
on windows, you can't do anything by yourself. getting the source code and hacking on it can even end you in jail. BUT countless freewares can bring you every kind of pet feature, such as minimizing windows into tray when middle clicking the "_" button, and other ridiculous things. INCLUDING a start menu in windows 8.

that's for people who care ; hopefully someone who has strong enough feelings about the UI will download that damn 150KB program that a few million people will use and that will turn windows 8 into windows 7.
most other people won't care. especially because it's the second windows OS in a row that doesn't run slower and isn't less stable than its predecessor. (the actual version number, 6.2, illustrates it's a refined Vista, with the benefits of mature drivers too). even dumb users can feel when a system is slow and crashy ; here it will be blazing fast and rock solid, most times.

[Dominik D]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

the actual version number, 6.2, illustrates it's a refined Vista

This is not correct. The reason why 6.0 wasn't bumped to 7.0 was backwards compatibility. Many applications and a lot of installers (often even ones for MS products) were checking whether OS they're running on is 5.x or (today) 6.x and wouldn't proceed with 7.0. This was the major if not the only reason why we're at 6.x. Vista took a hit because of changes that broke back compat (driver model, security model, version revision) and MS won't make the same mistake again. Instead of >= check people had == check in their code and this was a huge problem. You don't want to go there again.

Besides it's just a number. It's like this whole conspiracy theory with gov backdoor in Windows because one of the variables has "NSA" in it. T_T

As for the "refined" - depends on the definition. 2k3 was a refined 2k. Vista was a refined 2k3. Win7 was a refined Vista. Win8 is a refined Win7. But only because you never-ever* start from scratch with an existing boxed product; you build on top of something you have already running and proven.

* Except for the cases where people did and survived ;> Vista initially did just that - huge portions were written from scratch to be abandoned later during Vista Reset because they were unusable.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

what strikes me is we have so few discussion about windows 8 .

my prediction is, that no one will care. some people will say, oh right, here's an interface that looks like a media center or whatever, mixed with a grid of shortcuts.
other people won't think anything of it, they'll get to the browser or the music player and that's it.

a minority will spend dozens hours bitching on every forum about it ; another minority will remember how you used to tweak XP. they know that they can get it fixed in no time by downloading a free .exe, after the initial bitching.

on linux, you often need to edit config files (and actually hunt them), or fork a huge desktop environment, set up a team of 10 people and work for 1.5 year hacking, testing and maintaining it if you want your pet feature or UI aspect. (then maintain it for 3 more years)
on windows, you can't do anything by yourself. getting the source code and hacking on it can even end you in jail. BUT countless freewares can bring you every kind of pet feature, such as minimizing windows into tray when middle clicking the "_" button, and other ridiculous things. INCLUDING a start menu in windows 8.

that's for people who care ; hopefully someone who has strong enough feelings about the UI will download that damn 150KB program that a few million people will use and that will turn windows 8 into windows 7.
most other people won't care. especially because it's the second windows OS in a row that doesn't run slower and isn't less stable than its predecessor. (the actual version number, 6.2, illustrates it's a refined Vista, with the benefits of mature drivers too). even dumb users can feel when a system is slow and crashy ; here it will be blazing fast and rock solid, most times.

Windows 8 is much faster than vista or even 7. So many people on older hardware will notice postive changes. Its actually helped my gaming out . I have a hp dm3z with 4 gigs of ram and a amd neo dual core 1.6ghz with a hd 3200 igp and a hd 4330. My game performance has actually gone up in most games .

I can't wait to see some sites doing side by side comparisons of 7 vs 8 in gaming senarios

[Rodéric]

Originally Posted by Dominik D

Also ins is in different places depending on the keyboard. I hat this s*it. Look at the placement of Ins/Ctrl. Del is no better.

There's only one correct layout:

[Arwin]

Yeah, if you never type with one hand. It sounds extremely nerdy, but I type as fast with one hand as many people type with two. I did like that keyboard when I used it though.

[green.pixel]

Originally Posted by BRiT

So driving the various API implementations under the DirectX umbrella or providing the easier to use development environments doesn't constitute support?

More like:
http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/20...end-of-an-era/

Originally Posted by Rodéric

There's only one correct layout:

http://www.guru-board.com/

:P

[Ethatron]

Guru-Board: Mies van der Rohe would be fond of such an elegant industrial design!

[Davros]

Originally Posted by zed

2 reasons why its betterif youre doing hundreds of ctrl-c ctrl-v after each other your hand is gonna be much more strained than 100s of alt-c alt-v

When i had to do hundreds of copy pastes I remapped a key to ctrl-c and a key to ctrl-v (quicksave and quickload keys so not to use up a more valuable key)

[Arwin]

For my hand size, CTRL-C and V are pretty much perfect (just using my left hand). Doing ALT-C is almost impossible for me, would have to relearn doing it with pink and middlefinger rather than pink and index finger.

[Sxotty]

I am actually very excited about win8 mainly b/c I want to put it in my car eventually

[I.S.T.]

John Carmack's joining the "Developers Who Hate And/Or Dislike Windows 8" club.

http://www.neowin.net/news/ids-john-...-8-didnt-exist

[BRiT]

That's not quite how that article recaps what Carmack said.

Carmack stated that while he has more respect for Microsoft than others do, he has some doubts that the new touch-based UI in Windows 8 (formerly known as Metro) will be successful. That said, he also admits that he is "kind of excited" at seeing a Surface tablet.

Overall, Carmack said that he is "pretty darn happy" with working on Windows 7 and he would be happy if Windows 8 didn't actually exist, saying that there is nothing in Windows 8 that he is looking forward to.

[I.S.T.]

I said and/or dislike for a reason. He didn't seem to be much of a fan overall, aside from the ideas the UI has.

[function]

How do you get from that to him joining the ""Developers Who Hate And/Or Dislike Windows 8" club"?

[Blazkowicz]

he seems to be in the "don't care" camp, i.e. not a big deal and an issue way overblown.
besides, when I used windows 7 I would install a 3rd party start menu already (I like a windows 95 styled one, and this is what I use under linux too)

windows 8 brings better looking file manager (IMO) and task manager, and an Ipad/Android toy interface - one more reason not to buy a tablet (I don't really like them)
my only problem would be blowing 100 euros on it, it's like one third the cost of a PC. (and a business or ultimate version is even more expensive, to get a few networking features back)

why can't we pay 30 euros for a crapware infested one and spend 10 minutes removing the crapware.

[tongue_of_colicab]

If i'd be that easy than why would MS sell a crapware version for 30euros if everyone is just going to get rid of all the crap in 10 minutes? Anyway I don't see why you'd complain about the price of an OS. People pay 60 euros for a game that won't even last them 20 hours but you are complaining about paying 100 euro's for a piece of software that you'll be using thousands of hours.

If any, windows is a dirt cheap piece of software when you think about it.

[Dominik D]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

my only problem would be blowing 100 euros on it

Last time I checked upgrade was $15:
https://windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-US/Home/ProgramInfo
http://www.pcworld.com/article/25666...consumers.html

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Dominik D

Last time I checked upgrade was $15:
https://windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-US/Home/ProgramInfo
http://www.pcworld.com/article/25666...consumers.html

Only if you buy a Windows 7 PC.

Upgrade without a new PC is listed at £50 in the UK, and supposedly $40 in the US (so Europe gets screwed over again).

I think I'll stick with 7 until I'm convinced there's a usable desktop GUI, not just a tablet/smartphone GUI.

[Dominik D]

Ah, makes sense. It's still not 100 Euro.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Dominik D

Ah, makes sense. It's still not 100 Euro.

Well that's the upgrade price. If you're building a new PC from scratch, it'll probably be nearer £100. Official pricing isn't out yet AFACT.

[Dominik D]

True, but historically upgrades were around the price of a new OEM license (in fact last time I checked upgrade between Windows 7 SKUs was more expensive than target SKU OEM license itself; I wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of weird pricing scheme for upgrades between distinct versions) and at least according to laws in my place of origin building your own machine from scratch makes you eligible to get an OEM license (it's then tied to your HW so changing components down the line may invalidate it).

[tongue_of_colicab]

Can't you usually get around that by calling MS and telling them something broke down etc? Atleast it was really easy in the XP days though they might have changed that.