| I'll concede that there was definitely more churn around the change from OS 9 to OS X. But the result was definite forward progress: the entire OS moved off of its legacy core. This was clearly a transition period, with both the legacy APIs and modern replacements clearly identified. I don't think Microsoft's churn is like that at all. Instead it seems to reflect churn in their internal strategy. They attempt transitions, but abandon them before they are complete. There's no overall trajectory. The latest is WinRT. Take a look at https://dev.windows.com/ . It's all about Windows 8, Windows Runtime apps, etc. Other technologies are buried. Wouldn't you agree that MS is positioning WinRT as the new preferred way to write for Windows? (If not, their messaging is terrible.) Characterizing these development options as MS giving developers "choices" is crap. WPF developers aren't excited about having WinRT as another choice, they're worried that WPF is abandoned and their investment is obsolete. They saw it happen to Silverlight. See http://pragmateek.com/is-wpf-dead-the-present-and-future-of-... for example. See http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-563 too. This isn't 1998 and I'm not looking for some Mac vs PC flamewar. These are serious problems. They're making existing developers sweat, and new developers are taking a wait-and-see approach. It's hard to watch, but I'm optimistic about Nadella turning it around. Oh, and Carbon is not an emulation layer at all, nor is it "heavy handed." Perhaps you have it confused with the Classic environment? |
Microsoft has historically employed over 30,000 developers. That's a lot of people working on new software products. The "churn" you're talking about is, in fact, just more choices for you. It's crazy though you know - you don't have to use the latest thing from Microsoft! (We don't worship them like a lot of Apple-centric devs seem to do with Apple.) Sure, they're trying new things like WinRT and they'd like devs to use them. If things don't take off, they scrap them.
Who cares? You can still use a kit from 1998 (VB6) to make apps on Windows today without too much difficulty. Could you even use XCode from 2005 to make an app for OS X Mavericks? I doubt it.
According to your logic - web developers would never get anywhere because there's so much new tech/frameworks/etc being thrown at them and no corporation to tell them exactly what to choose.