A Fat 8 Percent of Vista Developers

June 19, 2008

A Fat 8 Percent of Vista Developers

I'm the first to bash Microsoft when I feel they deserve it, but when incompetents do the same with no technical ground I'd rather side with them.

I'm the first to bash Microsoft when I feel they deserve it (see my recent posts on 5 reasons to get Vista), but when incompetents do the same with no technical ground I'd rather side with them. A nonsense study by Evans Data (see Tim Anderson report here) places developers writing applications for vista at a mere 8%, and c|net makes a fuss of it (see Steve Trefethen comment -- I agree with him, better not link similar articles).

I fully agree with Tim: as a huge portion of the Vista API (both in native Win32 form and in the .NET form) is available on both platform, what does it mean to target Vista or XP? I doubt that "XP developers" don't check their programs on Vista these days. And what about Delphi 2007 developers? Simply by recompiling existing Delphi applications with the latest version of the IDE an application becomes Vista enabled. For example, all MessageDlg call are redirected to the new Vista-specific TaskDialog API. Similarly, a WinForms developer is equqally targeting XP and Vista.

Speaking of Microsoft (in not to positive terms) you might want to look at the discussions around the future of LINQ and also this post about the terrible performance of the stock over the last 8 years. I know I'm digressing but I'm between trips (Germany, Sicily, seaside) and doubt I'll have time to blog more about these issues.

PS. I probably won't approve posts until Monday, as I'll be a few days off line.

posted by marcocantu @ 4:21PM | 3 Comments [0 Pending]

3 Comments

A Fat 8 Percent of Vista Developers

I still maintain that we need to become OS agnostic by
using tools that abstract us, application developers,
from the OS.
I don't see what is in it for me (developer) to become
"married" to Linux or Windows or OS X or <your
favorite OS>.
If your customers want your application to run on
Windows, no problem! On Linux, here you go! On... you
get the point. 
The problem lies in the fact that Microsoft will lose
ground on dominance if cross platform development
becomes generalized. 
Oh there is so much to say, but I'll stop here.

Cheers!

Comment by Alan Fletcher [http://www.DelphiBistro.com] on June 20, 02:19

A Fat 8 Percent of Vista Developers

 > I doubt that "XP developers" don't check their
programs on Vista these days. <

Here is part of an exchange posted on the JEDI JVCL
newsgroup yesterday, where the excellent (and usually
modern and comprehensive) JVCL library is supported. I
think it speaks for itself. OBones is JVCL's lead
maintainer.

From: Mistral <prova@microsoft.com>
Newsgroups: jedi.vcl
Subject: Re: JvMaskEdit and Vista Theme
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:44:25 +0200

Mistral ha scritto:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm using TJvMaskEdit and TJvEdit in my 
> applications and I've noticed a 
> different behavior executing on Win Wista :
> 
> TJvEdit is painted correctly with the Vista theme 
> caracteristics
> TJvMaskEdit is painted like XP theme
> 
> I've already posted this problem on 21th november 
> and Remko Bonte told 
> me that he was investigating. Recently I've tried 
> some daily version of 
> VCL but the behavior of TJMaskEdit is not changed 
> at all. Is there any 
> news about that?
> 
> Thanks

I can't believe that no one is able to tell me
something about this issue. I took a look at the issue
tracker but I don't find nothing similiar to my
problem. Should I have to put it in the issue tracker?
I'am using this component mixed with other edit
components and on a Vista Themed computer there's too
much difference on drawing TJvMaskEdit 
respect other component. If you are going to not
support TJvMaskEdit in the future versions please tell
me so I can find another way.

Thanks.


From: OBones <obones_gf_@_fe_altern.org>
Newsgroups: jedi.vcl
Subject: Re: JvMaskEdit and Vista Theme
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:08:21 +0200

Thing is, none of us have a licence for Vista, nor the
computer that is required to use the Aero theme.
Basically, we don't need Vista and we can't justify
the cost of owning it.
So in the end, we are relying on users to have a look
at the sources and give us a hand when an issue arises
on Vista.

Comment by Will Watts on June 20, 12:45

A Fat 8 Percent of Vista Developers

Well, I am not surprised the JVCL team can't test 
directly on Vista. They are voluteers that work on a 
free library with the OS and hardware they have and 
can afford - they do what they can.
JVCL users, if unable to help the projet submitting 
code to work on Vista, can setup a fund raise to 
donate Vista and the required hardware to the JVCL 
team.
Sounds like "paying for software"? Hey, you can't 
have *everything for free, and when I need it, damn'd!
*. Open source means "contributing" also, not 
only "hey, that's free, I can make my programs better 
withou paying a dime!".

Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on June 23, 19:09

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