Comments on: Vista's big problem: 92 percent of developers ignoring it

The OS certainly isn't helping Microsoft's popularity with developers. Can it repair the problem?

[amandachuck]

It's like saying that if a company doesn't design a program to run in OS X 10.5 Leopard only and not Tiger, Leopard is a failure. Just not the case. As someone who's run both XP and Vista, I see a very real split, where Vista runs great on new hardware, but previous XP users should not upgrade to VIsta if they can help it, but that doesn't mean that one is better than the other. On machines where Vista was pre-installed, it really runs well and problem free (other than some conflicts with one piece of automation software that nobody at the software vendor will take responsibility for). Vista will be the dominant consumer OS by summer 2009. As for corporations, that's a different story, but those environments are usually tightly controlled and less supportive of change.

[kelmon]

Given the sheer dominance of the desktop market that XP has, even given the posts that state that designing for a specific Windows OS is not required, you'd have to be nuts to target Vista. In this respect this is where the similarities with the Mac platform breaks down, since Mac users tend to upgrade to the latest OS relatively quickly, so its not unusual to see applications available on Day 1 of a release of the next OS that will only run on that version. Migration in Windows is much slower, for the obvious reason that most Windows PCs are owned by companies who need to justify any upgrade, so targeting software at the latest release really isn't a good idea unless you are prepared to sacrifice a very large part of the available market.

[shevaberg]

It just seems that developers are to lazy to relearn anything anymore... I learnt xp I am not learning vista...

Take a cue from apple.. that is utter bulshit also... they dont have legacy support for any of there products.... Oh a new ipod.. well last year was last year... new ver of os x comes out... forget compatibility with the prev ver.

[The_Decider]

I would like to see the number of cross platform projects. It is no longer viable to only target one platform and tools exist to make targeting multiple platforms just as easy as writing for one. Cross platform development is the future.

[sal-magnone]

This article is a complete miss. The development target is .NET.

[TimInVA]

If you are just targeting .net you are ignoring Vista. If you are on .net 2.0 and have not moved on, if you are on VS2005 and have not moved on, you are not developing for Vista. You are developing for XP and Vista is almost always able to run your apps as is.

[TheMadResearcher]

I agree with a lot of the comments already posted. Everyone knows how statistics can be manipulated to support just about any angle of an argument.

The article gives me the impression that the author is simply looking for a reason to write an article unfavorable to Vista, or simply lacks an understanding of market economics. For the record, I use XP because the cost/benefit of Vista isn't at the right ratio to make me want to make the switch.

As many others have already pointed out, many apps are written for the .NET framework, meaning they'll work on either platform, so the survey may have been flawed if it couched the questions improperly and asked if developers were designing apps specifically for Vista.

In my opinion, it would've been more accurate to say that not many applications are being designed to take advantage of Vista's advanced FEATURES over XP. However, that is a reflection of Vista's poor support from the public, not from developers. The article gives the impression that developers don't like developing for Vista, when in fact the basic fact of the matter is that they'll develop for WHATEVER platforms have the best market penetration. Some make look at it as the "chicken before the egg" argument but developers aren't going to invest in a new platform heavily until it has enough market penetration to make it worth its while financially.

My guess is that if developers aren't supporting Vista's advanced features, it's because it doesn't make financial sense for them given the installed base of XP machines vs. Vista. The opportunity costs are too high to focus on Vista's comparatively small market share when there are profits waiting to be made on pc's running XP. The more Vista machines hit the market, the more we'll start to see apps that take advantage of Vista's advanced features. This just wasn't a well thought out article. It took one possible interpretation and ran with it without any critical analysis. So in other words, it was pretty useless.

[Composer_1777]

If mac is so awesome why did APPLE have to give into using PC hardware, exactly. PC and macs aren't even different anymore MAC is not a MAC it's a PC under the guise of being anti-microsoft but in reality It's just a wannabe PC with tons of security vulnerabilities.

[Motyoj]

@Composer: Well, try and run OS X on a PC. It can be easily done on a Mac, as well as Linux and Unix. The only reason Mac users would even want to run Windows is because they'd have to for work. Once you go Mac...

[kenpofighta]

I've used Mac and didn't go back. I figured out very quickly why their market share sux so bad.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

Since this is the open source blog I can see where the blogger comes from, but as a developer I have to say this article is laughable. Developers develop according to a platform to some degree, but more generally speaking developers are coding in a way that most newer windows platforms (2000, XP, Vista) will ALL work. There isn't enough benefit to code specific and exlusively for one platform.

[RaZor9000]

As many have pointed out this article is misleading at best. Developers writing client applications for Windows (nevermind ASP.NET although these apps typically run on a Windows Server) use the .NET framework which is independent of OS. Vista simply embeds .NET 3.0 requiring one less step in typical application deployment since users will already have the required libraries installed. That said, Vista does expose additional APIs and libraries that programmers could access when writing their applications but as many have pointed out most applications would not invoke these given the small install base of Vista, especially in corporate environments.

[John L. Galt]

@kenpofighta - good answer.

Here is my personal take:

http://www.dozleng.com/updates/index.php?s=&showtopic=18596&view=findpost&p=82017

For those who cannot view the link, I said:

"Lol. Yeah, OK. So lack of kernel-level access is preventing developers wrong writing apps.

Just how many apps currently written for XP versus the *total* number of apps written for XP have kernel-level access?

Then, on to having to deal with UAC - well, sorry, but if *nix app writing is on the rise, guess what? You have to model your applications in the same was as in XP - because in *nix you don't run apps with admin level privileges.

Unbelievable what statisticians can put out these days."

[ferretboy88]

What a bunch of silly people. I use Vista on all of my custom built computers and I have not had one single problem. A bunch computer will all custom parts and I have not had any driver problems or anything. Xp is garbage. It crashes all the time for me. Vista has not crashed at all since day 1.

I bought Vista for $111 dollars. If it doesn't stick and windows 7 is the replacement then who cares its not like I paid the full price.

[tabani3]

@ferretboy88: Let's be real, dude. "XP is garbage. It crashes all the time for me" and "I have not had one single problem [with Vista on my computers]" does not exactly qualify as a statistically valid analysis. For starters nobody was talking about either XP or Vista actually crashing...neither OS does, as a rule, and if you had that experience with XP I just hope you're not selling any of those custom-built PCs. Nobody was really talking about drivers, either, because the number of developers doing that kind of work is small. This article and most of the comments are discussing something else entirely.

[Gunady]

I was a junior programmer at the time Windows XP was released. And I didn't remember I learned or developed a program just target to Windows XP or used Windows XP feature. It will be good if it's running on Win2K and WinXP + Win98. Nowaday, most microsoft developer will target their application to run on specific version of .NET Framework (2.0 or 3.5). Microsoft really does a good job with .NET Framework. When Windows Vista is released, I just ensure that my application runs well on Windows Vista (and mostly it does). Nowadays, I believe most developer has developed their application in the web platform, do they make any special target to Firefox or IE6 or IE7?

One will be a good web programmer, if the web application can run on any browser, include Safari or Opera (which is damn hard and I can usually ensure it runs in IE and Firefox only, due to time constraint). So, question here, why do I need to design my application specifically for Windows Vista? Same question for Mac, do I need to design my application for Leopard, rather than Tiger?

[surfboy90291]

With Vista, Microsoft jumped the shark. I can barely afford to fill my gas tank, buy food and pay my rent. Why then would I spend hard earned money on an over-priced piece of bloatware that offers absolutely nothing but incompatibility and mind-numbingly slow performance. The Home Basic version doesn't even offer the ability to play DVDs without buying a third-party decoder. I'm putting aside some money until my holiday bonus and then buying a Mac Book. Sorry, Microsoft, even if WIndows 7 is better than Vista, it's just not worth the wait.

[gaby8523]

I'm not sure what you been using.. but I use Vista Home edition and I can play my dvd's just fine without buying anything.

Heck, vista runs for me much better than XP did

[Imalittleteapot]

I'll try to clear this up, but I'm not sure I'm 100 percent accurate here myself. I think Home Premium and Ultimate come with the DVD decoder built in. I know Home Premium does. After installing XP you have to install the decoder separately or Media Player won't play a DVD. I just did a fresh install of Home Premium and playing DVDs just works. It's built in. With Home Basic and Business I think you still have to install it separately like you did with XP. Most OEMs will install it for you before it leaves the factory. You would only notice after formatting and reinstall the OS. Like I said though, I'm not 100 percent on that.

[WakeRunner]

This has a decidedly slant against MS and Vista but lets face it Vista has not been well accepted. I am a developer and I am just now using Vista as my main development system. I have never waited so long to switch to a new version of Windows (except ME which I skipped alltogether).

MS is losing marketshare slowly but surely. I think mainly due to fear. So many things they do are because of fear of losing marketshare and I think they are their own worse enemy.

They dropped real VB because of fear of Java and I think they lost more developoers due to that than anything they have ever done. I will never use .NET to develop anything, I will never be hung out to dry again. I feel sorry for the developers that are using .NET now, how long do you think it will be before they come out with something new again and drop .NET for ".New kid on the block" and make you redo it all from scratch again?

[kenpofighta]

If you jumped because of the VB switch to VB.Net then you made a mistake. Everything evolves in technology and if you think things should stay the same you need to be running an ancient hardware as well. With that attitude you might as well drive a model T. Things evolve for the better, if you don't like it stay in the dark ages.

[whitespider77]

@YOU ALL. How about you all get over yourselves and think about what you write applications for.
Shouldn't we all be adapting to whatever is required for the end product. If it means we write in .NET one day or XCode the next so be it. We're programmers for goodness sakes. We're all about diversity so be diverse. Expand those minds of yours and use what is necessary for that project your on to deliver the best applications you can.
We all know that each and every OS out there has good and bad practices, security issues, vunerabilities etc. This will never change.
So get on with it and develop excellent applications that are rock solid with whatever language/platform you happen to be writing for or with.

[hgardiner]

This is an online magazine. It's supposed to have articles that spark a response. Looks like it worked. BTW, my home Vista machine crashes pretty regularly, while my work one does not. (the Intel chipset works, while the nVidia chipset crashes) I'm pretty sure it has more to do with the hardware drivers which is not really a Microsoft problem at all.

[cimtaurus]

I think people are confusing everyday use of Vista with development for Vista. I didn't touch Vista until sp1 came out. I have it installed on my MacBook with no issues at all.
When I develop an application, excluding Web Apps wich dont apply, I do not target a specific OS. As stated many times above, most if not all developers target a framework.
Anyone can see that as an OS Vista has been a flop when compared to other MS OS launches and even compared to other non-MS OS's. Development of applications in the MS realm have little to do with OS these days and everything to do with .NET. Even the development 'features' that tie into MS Office are version dependent and not OS dependent.
Vista was not the XP 2.0 that we all would have liked to see, but it's only effect on the development community is in regard to its acceptance as an OS, not as a target for development. Consequently the lack of acceptance as an OS has made any special features that Vista may offer on the development side less of a priority for developers when designing an application. I think that is the point that the article slaughtered through obvious bias.

[anton.vanwamelen]

Microsoft is a sort of Philips, the other electronic giant, in former days, nice stuff, but too expensive. Nowadays Philips is still expensive againts the others, but they seem to have learned their lessons in the event over the years. Microsoft ought to be wiser, and had better to catch up nowadays. If they don't they may be go broke, like Philips nearly did, long ago.

[TimInVA]

Vista offers my customer higher costs, slightly worse performance and no benefits - and this is their point of view not mine. Some of these customers have switched to Ubuntu on laptops or have bought Macbooks, and expect us to provide software for them. For now we are on the Mac using Parellels, but soon we will be on both platforms via the Mono Project implementation of .net. They tell us Ubuntu allows them to run on older hardware while Vista does not, so they "upgraded" from XP to Ubuntu. Others who love laptops got a Macbook, often after trying Vista on a Dell or Acer laptop. Developers go where the customers go. We were out front supporting Vista - but the customers for the most part did not care.