Disqus - Latest Comments for joe72

Re: Can Anyone Stop YouTube TV from Dominating Cord Cutting?

Joe Wood — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 08:37:32 -0000

Is youtube TV really cord cutting though? It's really cable TV through the internet. What's more interesting is the shift out of traditional network and cable TV.

Re: Interesting Stuff - Week 08, 2024

Joe Wood — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 08:08:44 -0000

Always great and useful links, thanks for putting these regular posts together

Re: Unlocking Azure AI Studio: My Journey to Overcoming Subscription Snags

Joe Wood — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:07:37 -0000

This seems to be a result of how Microsoft has designed Azure AI and the initial Copilot beta. The Azure and Microsoft 365 (Office+) ecosystem is very complex, and it doesn't help that the target users seem to be domain admins, instead of developers, architects who want to test out a simple POC.

Re: Hands on with Surface Pro X: The most beautiful Surface ever!

Joe Wood — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 19:48:49 -0000

Isn't Chromium Edge the ARM64 build?

Re: Cord Cutting Part 2: Roku vs Apple TV vs Fire TV vs Android TV

Joe Wood — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 09:07:06 -0000

Worth mentioning that with Movies Anywhere support by iTunes and Google Play, you’re not really locked into these ecosystems any more.

Re: How Warner Bros. might “reset” the DCEU

Joe Wood — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 18:06:16 -0000

The answer is simple - just move forward 20 years. Make a Batman Beyond movie with an older Bruce Wayne behind the console (different actor). Superman could be out in space somewhere. Keep the current "god" characters as they won't age.

Re: Microsoft “buries” UWP, ports Skype to React Native

Joe Wood — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 16:49:23 -0000

Yes, lots of investment and tooling in XAML. There's a bigger issue here though - that the designer workflow ideas were aimed at designing entire experiences, each unique. When, in reality, componentization of applications that are consistently styled have ended up being more popular and efficient. This is why ReactJS and Vue are popular, and frameworks like Angular have become much more focused on Componentization.

Re: Microsoft “buries” UWP, ports Skype to React Native

Joe Wood — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 14:57:23 -0000

That's not accurate. React-Native uses the UWP APIs (you can see this in the react-ative-windows repo). It produces a native UWP application, but just doesn't use any XAML markup. RN uses React and JavaScript instead of the application's markup language. I can't speak for the app itself, but the Skype team made a good decision given the breadth of devices that they need to target and performance requirements. When PWAs are more mature they should be able to easily re-target with regular ReactJS.

Re: Microsoft “buries” UWP, ports Skype to React Native

Joe Wood — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 11:37:31 -0000

Some quick answers to questions for those interested in this topic:

* "Why not PWA" - I would imagine the main reason for Skype not going PWA is around codec support. PWAs will always use the native browser engine on the device, and video streaming and capture support is still very uneven. React Native makes it very easy to break out your app to a native component.

* "What is Linked In built using" - last time I read it was a native/JS/HTML hybrid app (so some native components and some WebViews). AFAIK it does not use Cordova though (the popular OSS library for hybrid apps). On Windows 10 the app looks like it's a UWP HTML/JS app (native webview, not Electron).

* "Why not Xamarin/XAML" - I think the C# (or any .NET language) dependency is one consideration. More likely though is that React Native will allow code reuse with the web (regular ReactJS Single Page App, or server side rendered React in nodejs). IMO React provides a more componentized approach and supports the web, mobile native, Xbox, desktop etc...

It's worth keeping an eye on PWAs as they're likely to take over areas where Cordova and Electron dominate now. I'm sure Microsoft will provide an easy upgrade path from Electron to PWA, now they're set to own the stewardship.
However, PWAs don't really provide a way to break out of the DOM to render using a native component - so React Native still has an advantage. PWAs can load native non-visual code components though.

Re: Microsoft “buries” UWP, ports Skype to React Native

Joe Wood — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 08:50:07 -0000

This article is misleading. This is more about the abandonment of XAML (and Xamarin), not UWP.
The Skype version using react-native has been in development for quite some time and it is a UWP app. React Native allows a developer to share a large proportion of the application code, while targeting multiple different platforms with real native apps.

The Windows 10 version uses react-native-windows https://github.com/Microsof..., which creates UWP apps. Thee are equivalent versions of RN for OSX, WPF and even the browser. RN ships with iOS and Android support.

So, the Skype team has decided to save on development costs by using a cross platform library from Facebook, rather than using the in-house Xamarin/XAML stack.

Re: Windows Mixed Reality headsets see further market share loss in latest SteamVR numbers

Joe Wood — Fri, 11 May 2018 09:54:47 -0000

I would always take the Steam data with a pinch of salt. These numbers are for WMR users running VR titles on Steam. If titles are starting to be cross published to the Windows Store then the Steam numbers would be going down. That said, I think the VR adoption is generally disappointing and still being treated as a science experiment.

Re: Kafka Serialization and the Schema Registry

Joe Wood — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 22:11:57 -0000

Nice article. One little typo, you say "The Connector Interface is" and show the interface for the Converter.

Re: With new Sets app tab feature for Windows 10 Microsoft capitulates fully to web apps

Joe Wood — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 21:57:25 -0000

This is a nice power feature. Tabs were around long before browsers (MDI apps etc..) - it has nothing to do with embracing web apps. Hopefully this should address the issue of how to handle multiple documents (Excel still suffers from this).

Re: First leaked benchmarks of Windows 10 on ARM alarming

Joe Wood — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 08:52:32 -0000

Unless the ARM SDK is out then this will be the Win32 x86 compiled version of Geekbench running under emulation. It's not going to be fast - no surprise. Far more interesting will be the numbers for the native compiled binaries when the SDK is out. MS explicitly stated that support will be extended to regular desktop apps and not just UWP.

Re: Validating a React form upon submit - Gosha Arinich

Joe Wood — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 14:20:00 -0000

Your refs look wrong, even in the JSBin. I don't think you need findDOMNode, the parameter in the ref callback _is_ the DOM node.

Re: React and Redux are a joke right?

Joe Wood — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 09:04:46 -0000

A hierarchy, mutable file systems is inherently a tree. The data model that represents your application state is typically a graph. Storing graphs in a flat structure (Nodes and Edges) is very common, plus it makes updates far easier.

Re: React and Redux are a joke right?

Joe Wood — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 08:27:08 -0000

Some quick points:
* You don't have to use immutability, it's optional and it allows 'PureComponents" to avoid re-rendering. React *can* be used with Observable, mutating libraries too (e.g. MobX etc.).
* Generally speaking, keeping immutable structures is very good practice and is an efficient way of tracking changes. Without it you have to end up using some form of dirty notification tracking.
* Code to do immutable updates is much, much easier when using object and array spread operations (see http://redux.js.org/docs/re....
* Redux stores are also best kept flat, this avoids modifying complex tree structures (which can become complicated). A flat structure with a Dictionary makes for efficient updates using the spread operator (i.e. you can do it in one line). Then model your store using relations.

Re: Redux vs MobX: Which Is Best for Your Project?

Joe Wood — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 09:51:12 -0000

I've only used MobX a little (and a while ago), but one big disadvantage I found was that the observable/mutating data approach is fundamentally at odds with "PureComponents", which require immutable properties to update force a re-render.

Re: When to Define Action Creators in Redux

Joe Wood — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 10:39:20 -0000

Just on the comment on the refactoring justification: - if you use TypeScript and an interface that defines the Action then refactoring is performed by (most) editors.

In my view, the Action Creators help when you want to augment an action with some other information for the reducer (e.g. some context that applies to the component using it). It's easier to curry in that data into an action creator. Plus, as Steve said, they're essential when performing asynchronous actions that are later dispatched.

Re: Microsoft Reportedly Building Windows 10 Cloud Version but Nobody has a Clue about it

Joe Wood — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 07:38:59 -0000

I think you're missing the issue of security. The difference between then (Windows RT's day) and now is Project Centennial - this means regular desktop apps can be listed in the store. With Centennial, desktop apps run as sandboxed - in that they are prevented from making changes to the machine. With regular Windows, the casual user takes a risk every time they install any software as the download could either be infected or make changes to the PC introducing ransomware or other malware. Windows store only prevents this. Consider also that these infected PCs also contribute to DDoS attacks as robots. Sandboxing is something we all need to get used to.

Re: Compiling Electron Apps for the Windows Store

Joe Wood — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 12:43:13 -0000

Makes me wonder if the regular HTML/JS based UWP app container could be extended to offer everything that the Electron container offers. Of course, there would be some sandboxing issues that the desktop bridge allows, and some rendering differences of webkit vs. edge/trident etc.. But I would assume this would be a goal as it would produce a true UWP app.

Re: 2017 Microsoft Predictions: New Devices and AI -- Redmondmag.com

Joe Wood — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 17:19:39 -0000

Makes a lot of sense. It's funny that there's a trend of returning to the old platform first model - making 2017 more of a year of OEM partnerships rather than lots of new first party device activity. That will probably apply to both Windows Holographic and Cortana / IoT investments.

Re: AMC Considers Charging More Money For Tickets To Big Tent Pole Movies

Joe Wood — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 14:26:33 -0000

Variable pricing is inevitable. Not just for the type of movie, but the time since release day (so higher prices for the first week, then reductions based on attendance). They could even do the same as some airlines, selling the first few seats cheaper and raising prices as the theater fills up. It's a balance though, some will just hold out and wait until the price drops. Personally I wish they adopted this for day and date home movie rental or purchases. Communal viewing is overrated.

Re: Microsoft Mechanics walks through Microsoft Teams, watch it here

Joe Wood — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 13:58:16 -0000

Amazing that there's no Windows UWP app. The Windows download is an old school desktop app.

Re: F.lux could be coming to the Windows Store

Joe Wood — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 20:03:30 -0000

The objective with Centennial is for a clean install/uninstall without impacting the rest of the system. This avoids malware, registry bloat and the chance of any app messing up your system. Registry changes are still valid, but only in a local hive for the application. I therefore doubt F.lux is going to be work, and explains why MS are adding the feature at the OS level into Redstone.