PCs do a lot of things well, and Windows just happens to be there. It's like finding a fast-flowing river and sticking a huge dam that draws power from the current and sends it off to who-knows-where.
Software that's written for Windows just doesn't have that "loving touch" that a lot of us have come to expect with other platforms. Even when the product has an exoribitant price tag, in a lot of cases it still lacks that little something extra. Windows programs take the exact opposite approach, giving the customer/client only enough, barely enough, to cover their asking price. Sometimes it doesn't come that far.
As an example, I program {bleep}pit panels and custom gauges for Microsoft Flight Simulator. It uses the most bizarre assortment of instructions with a non-standard XML wrapper. It absolutely feels like the people behind that API just did enough to get a paycheck and left it half-complete. Maybe. I'd call it about a third of the way done. It works, but it's awful. It's similar to having about a third of the functionality available in C, and for the rest, "just stick to assembler and pretend it's easy."
But that's everywhere. Maybe not in that exact form, but the general ideology shows up frequently. It just doesn't have that overall slickness that the Amiga has benefitted from for decades.
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This seems like a decent enough thread to post this:
My sister-in-law is one of those people who has so much on their plate that they can't get anything done until it's almost too late, and then screams for help from anyone close enough to hear.
She comes in begging her sister and me to rush to the courthouse as fast as possible with copies of a form. Had to be there by 4:30.
It's about 3:30 and we're in Washington D.C.
Rush hour traffic.
We only had the one form. Copies had to be made.
Okay, shouldn't be too bad. We've got a laptop. We've got a portable scanner. We've got a portable printer. We'd just used them shortly before and they work well enough. Let's go. We'll make copies on the way. So there we are, driving down the road. I turn on the laptop, reconnect the printer and the scanner, then start getting the document ready. This is going to be easy.
Wait, please insert the disc with the scanner driver on it? What disc with the scanner driver on it? That's back there! Great. Try the scanner in other USB ports. Nope. Not happening. Gotta have that disc now. So it's a fast trip to Kinko's for copies and make it to the courthouse very late. Lights are going off as we walk down the corridor.
Skin of our teeth we made it by.
What was the document that was so critical?
My sister-in-law was helping extremely poor immigrant parents who'd been separated from their child. The document had to be filed by closing that day or it would be another year before they could apply to have their son brought to the states from Africa.
And no, I'm not making this up. True story.
