Has everyone forgotten that the iPhone didn't support copy-paste, at first?
Edit: [completing my thought]
Apple was ridiculed for it, though; however, it's more evidence that the phone isn't 100% complete, and that Microsoft wants a tool out there to show the world what they've made. Perhaps then, as requests are made concerning the phone, they'll incorporate those, not to mention adding features they, themselves want. (It won't take long to want copy-paste).
As a second thought I had while extending this post. Startups are encouraged to release early and release often. Releasing early, I imagine, comes with "releasing a not 100% complete and not even completely polished" subtext to it), why are large corporations slammed for it? I thought we praise companies like Google because they similar to a startup, and yet we scoff at companies like Microsoft when they may very well be doing something similar. Admittedly, I've not followed Windows Phone 7 very closely, as I'm pleased with my current smart phone (Droid original), so perhaps they've not alluded to this being the end-all, be-all for their phone. Given how XP came to be, though, we really should be prepared for their original version to not be perfect, and it take a few (free) updates to get it up to something very good.
So long as I'm rambling, I should add that, if carriers start modding the heck out of the operating system to the point that a user can't download the patches that Microsoft comes out with, producing an incomplete product is a very, very bad idea for them (or maybe for the carriers) -- but I don't want to start the carriers versus phone-makers versus software-developers war, again.
End my two cents on things related to the subject.
I feel bad for the MS devs, but from a consumer perspective, this is how it works:
It's 2010. If you start a television production company today, you won't come out with a black and white CRT using the excuse "has everyone forgotten that Panasonic didn't support color HD TVs at first?"
You have a point, though I would liken this lack of a feature to something more like "this blu ray player can't connect to the internet via WPA2." It's not entirely essential to its operation, and an upgrade could be around the corner.
[Hacker News bug report: I had to come to treeface's comment page to reply to this message. I wasn't allowed to on the main thread]
Most likely it was the time it took you to go to his comments page that made the difference. When comment threads reach a certain level of activity, the HN software starts putting a delay before you can reply. I believe it's meant to curb useless chatter and flamewars.
I meant I feel bad for them because they're expected to crank out an Android/iOS competitor in an unreasonably short period of time. For some of them, this is probably the crowning achievement of their programming careers, yet people like us are sitting around complaining because they don't have a feature that took iOS developers quite a long time to bring to market.
I certainly don't feel bad for them in a general sense. They're probably paid pretty well and I would imagine they have an otherwise great working environment.
Gotcha, that's cool. Sorry, I miss-read your comment.
I just think it's time we start to view C# with a bit more respect/understanding. It's a great language and Anders Hejlsberg doesn't get enough credit for what he's done (and is doing) as C# continues to evolve; ditto Miguel and the Mono team..
MS devs deserve sympathy for the shortsightedness of their managers, who thought that Windows Mobile was good enough for a market that they didn't know was competitive. Micorsoft's developers may have been handed an awfully short timeline for Windows Phone 7, but the company as a whole had plenty of warning.
Edit: [completing my thought] Apple was ridiculed for it, though; however, it's more evidence that the phone isn't 100% complete, and that Microsoft wants a tool out there to show the world what they've made. Perhaps then, as requests are made concerning the phone, they'll incorporate those, not to mention adding features they, themselves want. (It won't take long to want copy-paste).
As a second thought I had while extending this post. Startups are encouraged to release early and release often. Releasing early, I imagine, comes with "releasing a not 100% complete and not even completely polished" subtext to it), why are large corporations slammed for it? I thought we praise companies like Google because they similar to a startup, and yet we scoff at companies like Microsoft when they may very well be doing something similar. Admittedly, I've not followed Windows Phone 7 very closely, as I'm pleased with my current smart phone (Droid original), so perhaps they've not alluded to this being the end-all, be-all for their phone. Given how XP came to be, though, we really should be prepared for their original version to not be perfect, and it take a few (free) updates to get it up to something very good.
So long as I'm rambling, I should add that, if carriers start modding the heck out of the operating system to the point that a user can't download the patches that Microsoft comes out with, producing an incomplete product is a very, very bad idea for them (or maybe for the carriers) -- but I don't want to start the carriers versus phone-makers versus software-developers war, again.
End my two cents on things related to the subject.
[edit 2: some grammar-o's fixed]