What keeps you on Windows via slashdot

[Steven McCown]

Slashdot posted a question "What's keeping you on Windows?"
(http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/11/11/0233227/whats-keeping-you-on-windows)

Years ago, this started a huge flamewar. Judging from today's
comments, I took away 2 main themes. 1) Games keep people on Windows
and 2) I got the impression that the question no longer seems to
matter.

Whether it's Google Docs, MS 365, or whatever your favorite cloud apps
are, the cloud seems to deliver (or promises to) whatever you want via
your browser. If that's true, then you only need your favorite stable
OS and browser.

In Aug, InfoWorld ran an opposite article: "Hail the return of native
code and the resurgence of C++" (http://tinyurl.com/3oj7o5b)

Over the years, we seem to go around in circles, but replies to
today's /. question struck me as the calmest I've ever seen.

Just curious what you think, did the cloud erode the OS issue?

Steve
(OSX, Windows, Linux, Android, & iOS user, btw.)

[Shawn Willden]

The cloud may be a lot of it, IMO, but I think two factors have had even more impact:

First, the growth of competing platforms.  Linux has become more accessible and useful, OS X usage has grown tremendously and multiple mobile operating systems have become widely-used computing platforms, too.  Windows isn't just an "also ran", it's still the dominant personal computing platform, but that dominance isn't nearly as overwhelming as it was, which has turned the discussion from a Windows vs Linux holy war to "what's your favorite flavor this year?".  (Aside:  I think proliferation of options has also defanged the famous Emacs vs VI holy war; people just can't seem to get as worked up when there are a half-dozen decent choices).

Second, the web.  This might seem to be the same as what you said (the cloud), but I think there's more to it than just cloud apps.  Even outside of what we might typically call "cloud", the web browser has become the application in which we spend huge amounts of our time... and the web has become pretty well standardized.  The Balkanization that existed a few years ago, where there were large numbers of web sites that required IE, has largely disappeared, and the web now works about as well whether you're using IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Seamonkey, Opera, Konqueror... etc.

Bottom line, I think maturation and growth of smaller platforms, increasing standardization, growth of cross-platform tools and growth of the cloud have all contributed to making it perfectly feasible to use any of the platforms productively, and without being a guru.  And people just can't get as worked up about A vs B vs C vs D as they do about A vs B.

That said, I don't use Windows :-)

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[Bryan Murdock]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 9:15 AM, Steven McCown <steven...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Slashdot posted a question "What's keeping you on Windows?"
> (http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/11/11/0233227/whats-keeping-you-on-windows)
>
> Years ago, this started a huge flamewar.  Judging from today's
> comments, I took away 2 main themes.  1) Games keep people on Windows
> and 2) I got the impression that the question no longer seems to
> matter.
>
> Whether it's Google Docs, MS 365, or whatever your favorite cloud apps
> are, the cloud seems to deliver (or promises to) whatever you want via
> your browser.  If that's true, then you only need your favorite stable
> OS and browser.
>
> In Aug, InfoWorld ran an opposite article:  "Hail the return of native
> code and the resurgence of C++" (http://tinyurl.com/3oj7o5b)
>
> Over the years, we seem to go around in circles, but replies to
> today's /. question struck me as the calmest I've ever seen.

Everyone on slashdot got 10 years older :-)

>
> Just curious what you think, did the cloud erode the OS issue?

Web apps, game consoles, and phones did. Not sure if any of those
count as "the cloud." At my house we game and watch netflix on the
wii, and do everything else through web browsers (on any OS) and
phone/tablet apps (android, some webos, and iOS). My desktop at home
is more of a file store/server, firefox/chrome runner, and a dev
machine for my hobby development projects (which I would *not* use
windoze for, ever, so there's a bit of excitement for you).

I think this is all much more healthy than 10 years ago.

Bryan