[OT] Windows dying

[Joakim]

On Monday, 30 October 2017 at 12:30:12 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
> On Monday, 30 October 2017 at 08:21:56 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> That's funny, because you're the only one using that routine.  
>> I've linked to extensive data showing that Windows is already 
>> dying in the thread that I gave you, specifically my first and 
>> last posts in that thread.  You seem not to be able to follow 
>> such links and data, as you not only don't acknowledge but 
>> seemingly flatly deny the ongoing PC sales decline?  The 
>> collapse is next.
>>
>
> I don't see why anyone would deny a PC sales decline, but it 
> doesn't imply a collapse. I would expect more of a decline and 
> then a stabilization. One reason is that the enterprise market 
> is slow moving and a big component of PC sales. I dispute that 
> the average white collar worker isn't going to be doing a bunch 
> of work in Word/Excel/PowerPoint on a laptop or desktop ten 
> years from now. Maybe twenty years from now, I don't know?

The decline itself doesn't imply a collapse, the collapse is 
coming because the mobile market is looking for new growth 
avenues and releasing mobile accessories like Samsung's DeX dock 
or laptop replacements like the iPad Pro or this laptop shell:

https://sentio.com

Mobile convergence killed off standalone mp3 players, e-readers, 
GPS devices, point-and-shoot cameras, feature phones, a whole 
host of former mobile single-purpose devices.  They're going 
after the PC now, with all the massive scale of the mobile wave:

https://twitter.com/lukew/status/842397687420923904

Can the PC market withstand that tidal wave?  I'm betting not.

As for the average white collar worker in a decade, if they're 
using Google Docs on their Samsung S18 connected to something 
like that Sentio laptop shell, do you really imagine they won't 
be able to get their work done?  I think it's more likely they're 
using software completely different than Office or Docs to get 
their work done, as those suites are already way outdated by now, 
but that's a different tangent.

> I'm not really sure what the point of all this is. I have no 
> intention of doing data analysis on a smart phone any time in 
> the next ten years. I don't see why anyone would. So my main 
> use case for D is probably not going anywhere. And I get stuck 
> using Windows at work because everything's slow moving and 
> there's no way I'm gonna be switching to Linux there. The whole 
> Windows is dying is too far off to be relevant to things I need 
> to actually accomplish.

I don't know how intense your data analysis is, but I replaced a 
Win7 ultrabook that had a dual-core i5 and 4 GBs of RAM with an 
Android tablet that has a quad-core ARMv7 and 3 GBs of RAM as my 
daily driver a couple years ago, without skipping a beat.  I 
built large mixed C++/D codebases on my ultrabook, now I do that 
on my Android/ARM tablet, which has a slightly weaker chip than 
my smartphone.

The latest ARM-based iPad Pro is notorious for beating low to 
mid-range Intel Macbooks on benchmarks.  It is not difficult to 
pick up smartphones with 6-8 GBs of RAM nowadays.  Unless you 
need monster machines for your data and aren't allowed to crunch 
your data on online servers for security reasons, a very niche 
case, you can very likely do it on a smartphone.

You may be right that your particular workplace moves slowly and 
they're not going mobile anytime soon.  But this is such a big 
shift that you have to wonder if many such slow-moving workplaces 
will be able to compete with places that don't: just ask all the 
taxi companies phoning in rides to their drivers who got put out 
of business by Lyft, Uber, and their smartphone-wielding hordes 
of drivers.

There will always be a few Windows cockroaches that survive the 
mobile nuclear blast, but we're talking about the majority who 
won't.

As for you particularly, I can't speak to your situation without 
knowing more, but nobody's saying D should drop Windows support.  
I started off this OT thread by saying that investing more time 
in getting D somewhere close to the level of C#/C++ support in 
Visual Studio or some other IDE is a waste of time.  I stand by 
that.  If Rainer or someone else does it anyway, that's up to 
them how they want to spend their time.