[throwafk81]

Most of the arguments I read here are the same one: WP was fast and smooth. But it was not particularly fast, you are simply comparing it to Android, which fucking sucks.

And other than that, it had no other redeeming qualities.

[__sr__]

Being better than Android is a low bar to clear. Android was, and remains, a Frankenstein’s monster[1] which was hastily cobbled together at Google to capitalise on the new marked created by the iPhone before MS could lock them out of it. In fact, if MS had brought WP 8 sometime in 2010, the story would be a lot different.

[1] It is evident by the fact that Google is still trying to fix the fundamentals like permissions, updates etc. Android is essentially what you get when you try to cram an OS primarily used on servers and high end workstations on a mobile phone and pair it with a programming environment which is also used primarily used on servers by implementing a quick and dirty runtime from scratch.

[bitmapbrother]

>Being better than Android is a low bar to clear.

I'd ask you to cite some examples of why Android is a "low bar to clear", but I doubt I'd get back anything of substance.

>Android was, and remains, a Frankenstein’s monster[1] which was hastily cobbled together at Google to capitalise on the new marked created by the iPhone before MS could lock them out of it.

Could you point to the Android github examples that support your claims that Android is a Frankenstein’s monster which was hastily cobbled together? You see, that's the nice thing about being an open source OS - you can actually see the source code and call out people for making ridiculous comments about things they have no idea of what they're talking about.

>In fact, if MS had brought WP 8 sometime in 2010, the story would be a lot different.

No it wouldn't have. It would have played out exactly the way it did.

[pjmlp]

So easy for anyone that has suffered throught Android development.

Starting with Eclipse, then rebooting the whole development environment just because some management guys happened to be InteliJ users.

Several years later there are still Eclipse based tools, like the graphical manifest editor, that haven't been replicated in Studio.

NDK is treated as a 20% project, done by an handfull of engineers.

Devs were left in the cold when the migration away from Eclipse was decided. It was only due to the coincidence of Clion being developed, that Studio eventually got C++ support.

The amount of cruft on NDK build tools is a joke, already with 4 official variations.

The decision to use Gradle has made "how to optimize builds" a recorrent topic in any major Android conference.

Google teams like Android development build tools so much that they rather use blaze, throwing yet another build tool into the mix.

There isn't a single release of Android Studio or the Support Library, that isn't followed by bug related complaints on online forums, despite being several weeks, months, in testing phase.

Their initial emulator implementations was so lousy, that it required the public shame of Genymotion and Microsoft doing a better job for Google actually improving theirs.

There was so much more to rant about, but this is already quite long.

[bitmapbrother]

>So easy for anyone that has suffered throught Android development.

The pain of Windows phone development was significantly worse especially when you consider they kept on changing it every year because of their inferior development environment and tooling.

>Starting with Eclipse, then rebooting the whole development environment just because some management guys happened to be InteliJ users.

Google switched IDE's. Microsoft changed their development environment and tooling each time they decided to osbourne their still born OS.

>NDK is treated as a 20% project, done by an handfull of engineers.

Well, at least they stuck with it instead of chucking it to the curb each year and starting over.

>Devs were left in the cold when the migration away from Eclipse was decided. It was only due to the coincidence of Clion being developed, that Studio eventually got C++ support.

Isn't being left in the cold an annual event for Windows phone developers?

>The decision to use Gradle has made "how to optimize builds" a recorrent topic in any major Android conference.

This is in contrast to the Windows phone .build conference where there were no sessions because no one was building Windows phone apps.

>Google teams like Android development build tools so much that they rather use blaze, throwing yet another build tool into the mix.

Isn't choice good.

>There isn't a single release of Android Studio or the Support Library, that isn't followed by bug related complaints on online forums, despite being several weeks, months, in testing phase.

Because XCode and Visual Studio are bug free when new versions are released, right? Oh wait.

>Their initial emulator implementations was so lousy, that it required the public shame of Genymotion and Microsoft doing a better job for Google actually improving theirs.

Google has to support 3 platforms unlike Microsoft who couldn't even support 1.

[pjmlp]

> The pain of Windows phone development was significantly worse especially when you consider they kept on changing it every year because of their inferior development environment and tooling.

Vastly superior to Android Studio.

> Google switched IDE's. Microsoft changed their development environment and tooling each time they decided to osbourne their still born OS.

Google replaces Android Studio plugins at each major release.

Profilers, Gradle configurations, IDE plugins

> Well, at least they stuck with it instead of chucking it to the curb each year and starting over.

It already started over 4 times, with incompatible build systems.

> Isn't being left in the cold an annual event for Windows phone developers?

Not as much as at Google IO. Oh sorry, maybe you are right we don't feel the cold as we are taking care of our sun burns.

> This is in contrast to the Windows phone .build conference where there were no sessions because no one was building Windows phone apps.

There is no such thing as Windows Phone specific conference, there is only BUILD conference, Connect conference and Windows Developer days.

> Isn't choice good.

Not when it increases development costs.

> Because XCode and Visual Studio are bug free when new versions are released, right? Oh wait.

Android Studio wins in bug counts.

> Google has to support 3 platforms unlike Microsoft who couldn't even support 1.

Strangely, you cleverly forgot to mention Genymotion.

As for Microsoft their Android Emulator still runs better than Google's on Windows.

Maybe Google needs to do less inverted balanced tree whiteboard interview exercises and more OS related stuff.

[bitmapbrother]

>Vastly superior to Android Studio.

Last time I installed Visual Studio that pig sprayed 30 GB of garbage all over my SSD.

>Google replaces Android Studio plugins at each major release.

It's how the IDE is updated with new features. It also doesn't need third party plugins, like Resharper, to actually make it useful.

>It already started over 4 times, with incompatible build systems.

How many build systems did Windows phone have again? Be sure to factor in the Silverlight clusterfuck.

>Not as much as at Google IO. Oh sorry, maybe you are right we don't feel the cold as we are taking care of our sun burns.

At least they have sunny weather as opposed to depressing weather followed by depressing keynotes. Hey, let's open with a 2 hour Azure demo. Did people actually pay to go to this?

>There is no such thing as Windows Phone specific conference, there is only BUILD conference, Connect conference and Windows Developer days.

Which is why I specified Build.

>Android Studio wins in bug counts.

I'll take that bet any day. I've used Xcode and it has its fair share of bugs. As for VS, when you're spraying 30GB of files your bound to have a clusterfuck of bugs.

>Strangely, you cleverly forgot to mention Genymotion.

Really? Do they also make an IDE for all 3 platforms?

>As for Microsoft their Android Emulator still runs better than Google's on Windows.

No it doesn't. It's not even comparable. Perhaps you should install the Android Emulator one of these days and compare them. In fact, I'm not even sure the Microsoft Emulator even works anymore. Do they even update it?

>Maybe Google needs to do less inverted balanced tree whiteboard interview exercises and more OS related stuff.

They have Android, Chrome OS and Fuschsia so they seem to be doing well on the OS front. As for Windows, you better hope Microsoft is prepared for the release of a free, modern, real time microkernel OS with a capabilities based security model.

[realusername]

> I'd ask you to cite some examples of why Android is a "low bar to clear", but I doubt I'd get back anything of substance.

Manufacturers can do mostly what they want without any downsides so at the end you just end up with ROMs similar in quality to WinXP themes. The Android APIs themselves are just layer and layer of hacks and inconsistencies on top of each other which is the main reason why most of the Android apps look so ugly in the first place.

[bitmapbrother]

>Manufacturers can do mostly what they want without any downsides

No they can't. They need to pass the CTS and VTS.

>so at the end you just end up with ROMs similar in quality to WinXP themes.

When was the last time you saw an Android phone? 2008? Name those WinXP themed OEM skins.

>The Android APIs themselves are just layer and layer of hacks and inconsistencies on top of each other

Considering all of the bugs and security issues iOS has had I would have to give that award to iOS.

>which is the main reason why most of the Android apps look so ugly in the first place.

Not only do Android apps look better, but they also take up considerably less space than their bloated iOS counterparts.

[realusername]

> No they can't. They need to pass the CTS and VTS.

Well then, the CTS and VTS are so weak they are useless then.

> When was the last time you saw an Android phone? 2008? Name those WinXP themed OEM skins.

Have you worked with Samsung or a no-name Chinese brand? There's plenty of errors arising from bad ROMs customising low-level stuff they should not do.

> Considering all of the bugs and security issues iOS has had I would have to give that award to iOS.

At least iOS fixes them and they can update their devices.

> Not only do Android apps look better, but they also take up considerably less space than their bloated iOS counterparts.

That's only for the top-notch part of the Store, the rest is just a dimension below iOS in term of usability (and I say this using only Android). The reason being that you need more dev time to have the same result on Android compared to iOS.

[bitmapbrother]

>Well then, the CTS and VTS are so weak they are useless then.

No they're not as they enforce and verify Android compatibility.

>Have you worked with Samsung or a no-name Chinese brand? There's plenty of errors arising from bad ROMs customising low-level stuff they should not do.

Yes, and there is no WinXP theme resemblance. So, once again, where are the links to these Android Phones with WinXP like themes?

>At least iOS fixes them and they can update their devices.

So does Google with 3 years of OS and security updates for their Pixel phones.

>That's only for the top-notch part of the Store, the rest is just a dimension below iOS in term of usability (and I say this using only Android). The reason being that you need more dev time to have the same result on Android compared to iOS.

The problem with iOS apps is that the top apps seem to think their a special snowflake and that they must develop their own UI and UX to differentiate themselves. The end result is an app that doesn't follow Apple's Human Interface Design guidelines and looks and navigates completely different from every other app. And then there's the garbage apps that are blown up on an iPad because Apple didn't understand Pixel density independence.

[tehlike]

Fast, smooth, and had very robust development environment. One thing Microsoft knows how is to develop a language/platform (.net, for example), and provide tooling around that. 5 years ago, Visual Studio was years ahead of what today's mobile tools can do.

[bitmapbrother]

Did you even develop for windows phone? Because it's like you have no idea of what the development process entailed or how frequently they changed it.

[pjmlp]

Still way less how Google handles Android development, where recommended API in version X, turns out legacy in version X+1, replaced in X+2, but all need to be supported thanks to lack of updates.

[bitmapbrother]

Unlike the chaos, constant churn and developer frustration of Windows Phone development, Android development hasn't needed to osbourne their development environment and tools every year because of incompetence.

[pjmlp]

Instead they show incompetence at stuff like fragments, replacing build systems, broken Gradle builds at each update, outdated documentation, broken Android Studio and Support library releases, removing AS plugins without documenting how to work with them gone, adding PWAs and Flutter to the mix, ...

Which so much Android love I am curious to see how many apps you have released, since you seem to like the experience so much.

[bitmapbrother]

Incompetence was trying to convince developers to use that Flash ripoff Silverlight for mobile app development or trying to debug that horrible XAML pile of garbage or trying to build UI's with that bug infested piece of garbage expression studio. With Windows phone development you could never get comfortable because they were always osbourning the OS once they realized what a piece of garbage it was.

[tehlike]

Yes, i did. I have also done android.

[throwafk81]

I hope you’re kidding with the dev environment thing. WP died because they changed everything completely with every OS release.

Not to mention that to develop an app they required you to have Hyper-V, which is only available in Pro editions of Windows and CPUs with VT-x.

[tehlike]

I was definitely not kidding. 10+ years of c# experience, and 5+ years of android, and you can see the difference between the two.

Hyper-V and so on, i certainly do not remember as I had them anyway, but talking about purely the dev env and ease of platform to me tells it all.

Android has not been written from "application dev" pov. With all these contexts, application contexts, leaky abstractions all over, it certainly is not a robust platform.