The other day, I wanted to look at how to write applications for Windows for a class I am in. Where is the logical place to look? The manufacturer’s developer website would be a good place to start. Upon arriving at Microsoft’s Developer Network homepage, suddenly everything got really confusing.
I have a theory about developer home pages, whether they be from Microsoft, Apple, ARM, or Intel: they should be extremely simple and geared mainly towards beginners who know nothing about the technology they want to write software for. I feel that Microsoft fell far short of that. Their MSDN homepage is cluttered, hard to pinpoint where to go if you want to write Windows applications, depends on you knowing about existing Microsoft technologies, and even has ads for their developer products (making people pay for Developer tools is another whole issue).
Now on the other side of this spectrum is Apple’s developer homepage, which is simple, clean, and extremely informative about where you should go next: “Are you developing for the Mac or the iPhone?”
Matters get worse with the Mac and Windows Dev Center. If I am developer wanting to write an application, I want something that tells me where to go, that explains things simply, and walks me through getting started. Once again, Apple gets it, and even after trying to get through Microsoft’s developer site for about a half-hour, I couldn’t figure it out. Apple’s seemed to take about 2 seconds (or maybe like a minute).
Microsoft’s Windows Dev Center:
Apple’s Mac Dev Center:
So I guess my question is: what’s so wrong with making things simple? Is it just a personal thing?
Granted, all this said, neither of these two developer sites is perfect, in any regard. Both sites place a huge emphasis on their products, versus the actual development on said products. Secondly, anyone who wambles onto their site should be able to write a 5-minute “Hello world!” application with no hassle. Apple and Microsoft both need to simplify, swallow the fact that people do not care to see ads for their products, and then provide a handy guide for how to write applications for their platforms.