Tag: Windows

Is Microsoft more open than the Open Source community want us to believe? I think we need to “Hit Refresh” on our opinions as well!

Microsoft

The second day of MS Ignite 2017 was for me all about technical architecture in contradiction to the first day where strategic vision was the focal point.

Having been in my career at both sides of the proprietary vs open divide, I started in an academic and open source java oriented setting and moved to consultancy using MS .and NET oriented technologies, I must admit that what I’ve seen MS doing today with Linux was once again an eye-opener.

You see MS pushing for Windows on Linux and Linux on Windows. Not only is the command line interface cross platform but SQL, VS Code, .NET Core and ASP.NET Core are now running on Linux. This means .NET applications can be developed and run natively in a Linux environment. The support for Linux on Windows is also extending rapidly. Linux containers run on Windows. Bash, a traditional Linux CLI, runs on Windows. Also in the cloud we see great evolutions by now, 8 Linux distributions are supported with close Azure integration something you would only have expected from Windows VM’s before.

In the Apple IOS world, we are already more accustomed to MS solutions to be present. Think about Office for Mac, Skype and Visual Studio. I was amazed to see that Skype would come to Linux. We are still not there yet but I hope to see one day Office and Visual Studio running cross platform.

In the SharePoint and Office 365 world further adoption of open tools to support the development of customizations is realized. The push for JavaScript is remarkable. Development of extensions is relying on TypeScript, Gulp, Yeoman, React and node.js!

If you see the evolution one can ask, who is truly open across all these eco-systems? I remember in 1999 we said Linux and Windows would never work together I guess pigs can fly and hell just frozen over.

Hit refresh on your opinion of MS!

I have been working all my live in the Windows computing eco-system with the exception for Linux during my university and academic research time.

Recently I bought a Mac just to get to know this eco-system and to check for myself how easy it was to use Mac OS. I entered the arena with an open mind but got very fast disappointed. I see the same issues than I have on a Windows computer. The moment you need to set up something complex it is back to the command line. So far for user friendliness.

On top of that I found that a lot of out-of-the-box application are not really useful in an enterprise context. I tried the mail client and safari browser and quickly switch to Office for Mac and Google Chrome. I struggled to find a decent remote desktop application (VNC) that could deal with my Azerty keyboard. The out-off-the-box VNC server has this issue open since 2006. This is more than 10 years … so far for user friendliness.

To come back to the book as this is the focus of this blog post. To help me on my quest I used “Switching to the Mac: The missing Manual” by David Pogue. The book is a great companion and helps you quickly through the set-up and getting acquainted with the quirks of the Mac. It contains chapters on Mac equivalent software for things a Windows user is accustomed to and on free Mac software you want to consider.

Although I still have a lot of doubt and reservations for the Mac OS the book was a great help in the endeavor.