I'm going to have to strap on an external brain

[MasterRacker]

A couple of PC Magazine articles about what's coming with Windows and Windows development.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1356828,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1356850,00.asp

Microsoft has hundreds or thousands opf developers working on this stuff and making huge changes on many fronts. How is any one person supposed to learn this stuff quickly enough to become proficient at it before it all changes again?




Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[sleipnir214]

You know, if I had earned a penny for every time I've heard that question, and had to pay a million dollars for every time I've heard it answered, I'd be a rich man.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[MasterRacker]

Yeah, I know. I swear to God though that the pace of change is accelerating. You gota wonder if we really aren't heading to the singularity.


Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[chiph]

> How is any one person supposed to learn this stuff quickly enough to become proficient at it before it all changes again? <

Software development is a lifetime of learning.

I used to have a boss that switched from mainframes to PCs because he felt the PC was small enough to where he could know every little detail. By the time of the IBM PS/2, he realized that wasn't going to be possible.

You just have to deal with it -- there's a ton of stuff out there -- I'd love to learn about AI, graphics programming, etc. But there just aren't enough hours in the day to learn it all, even if you have no outside life like me.

One of the things to remember about Microsoft is that they maintain their position in the industry partly through constant change. By keeping their competitors off-balance they stay ahead.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[MasterRacker]

Any part if IT is continuous learning.

My point is that, if MS outpaces its own development community, they're going to eventually shoot themselves in the foot.


Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[jsteph]

It's not so much learning it that I worry about--what about dealing with the bugs and other issues of compatibility:

&quot;Well, you can run this program ONLY if you run it in Tier1, but if you run it in Tier2 here is a list of graphics cards that might give you problems...&quot;

&quot;Oh--you say you were in Tier2 but it was Tuesday? Well, that's a whole different ballgame. If you're on Service Pack 2.4.0.5.00.5, then try this. But if it's Wendesday, and you sometimes run in Tier1 but your last name starts with either P or Q, then it's....&quot;

I can here it now...
--jsteph

 

[lionelhill]

Welcome to the real world!

Most of us already work in fields that are large. IT people have had it lucky because you can create your own world that only contains 64K of information and call it a BBC micro and know it all, totally, absolutely. If you are a biologist, for example, all you know is that no one can possibly know even the tiniest bit of what's out there. It's depressing or exciting depending on personal viewpoint.

But whether it is a good thing to take a nice enclosed 64K world and deliberately generate something too big to understand, that is a different question.

 

[sedj]

Unfortunately people just expect vast depths of field knowledge these days ... its no longer acceptable to be &quot;specific&quot; about the areas we know (well not for a lot of us anyway).

Take &quot;web&quot; development - you are expected to know HTML, JavaScript, CSS, a minimum of one programming language (Java, C++ etc), a page scripting language like ASP or JSP, knowledge of the webservers like Tomcat or IIS, SQL etc etc etc.

Never mind eh !

 

[Onyxpurr]

Yes, but you gotta admit, it's fun!

Part of the reason why I decided to go into this field is because of the constant change. I couldn't imagine being in field where we do the same stuff day in, day out, until retirement. I love the ability to have justification for training each year. I love the challenge in not knowing how to program somthing for the user initially, but finding out.

 

[fourdollarbill]

I always thought about consuming DDR. Some things evolve?


Procedures Followed = Planned Satisfaction ---me

 

[rosieb]

Onyxpurr
You’re right.

I just spent a day trying to work out why our call-tracking software has suddenly started producing totally spurious results. The PABX and the software are totally new territory. I have a feeling I’ve turned over a nasty little rock….

But it’s interesting….. and suddenly I’m an expert (you only have to be half a step ahead to be an expert, one step makes you a guru).

 

[GwydionM]

With Windows, the stuff that ordinary users know for one version will work on the next. You don't have to learn the extras, or use them either.

 

[donttreadonme]

Yeah - if you can find it! They buried some things deeper.

That is not a true statement. MS constantly changes things to keep competition off balance. Take dll files and the WINE emulator for example, with constant change it makes it almost impossible to create an emulator that works on up-to-date Windblows applications. However, if MS quit changing this, then an emulator could be developed that would work with current Windblows apps.

 

[collierd]

I'm not so sure you really do need to keep up with it
Lets face it, most businesses don't
I know of 250m+ turnover a year companies still using win 95

There's enough work out there on older platforms

 

[MasterRacker]

This thread started out talking application development though. In the Windows arena, I don't thnik you're going to see a lot of new apps being developed for older versions.


Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[infinitelo]

The cfo where i work just got back from a trade show, she hasnt said anything yet but i think we may be moving to xp from win98. Smaller companies are a lot slower in replacing hardware. She did say that updating the mainframe might be good. shoot i think the thing has been around since the mid 90's.

ive always gone on a 5 year life cycle for cpu's, this may be material for another thread, but is that too long?.


if it is to be it's up to me

 

[CajunCenturion]

A 5 year life cycle for PC's may be reasonalbe, but for mainframes, the life cycles is considerably longer. Just simply look at the costs for starters.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[MasterRacker]

I'm going to start a new thread for lifecycle - please post that stuff there.


Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[dogbert2]

Just so you know, here is Microsoft's product timeline for it's operating systems:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycleconsumer.mspx

As you can see, windows 98 won't be supported by Microsoft in any way after Jan 16, 2004, and effective end of life is at Jan 16, 2005.

In addition, Windows ME is in the end of life cycle as of next year as well, and Windows NT 4.0 workstation suppport ended as of June 30, 2003.

Food for Thought...