Ask Paul: April 13 (Premium)

Another week, another set of excellent questions from readers.
A follow-up on Thurrott Now
Before getting to this week's questions, I wanted to provide a quick follow-up to the Thurrott Now news I shared last week. As you may recall, I plan to remove the Thurrott Now widget (which is a Premium feature) from the Thurrott.com home page and begin posting that kind of content directly the (Premium) forums instead.

Given that the majority of the feedback to this change was negative, I will discuss some options with the team and not move forward with what I was planning.

The issue here is many-fold, but one of the interesting things I heard from you regarded RSS/Twitter/basically some way to know when something was posted. So let me talk to Brad and Tim, in particular, and see what we can work out.

Here's one idea. First, forums do have RSS feeds: Everything in WordPress has RSS feeds. So maybe the best approach is to create a Thurrott Now forum and use that as the replacement instead of putting the posts in other places.

Thoughts?
Microsoft and the future for developers
JaseCutler asks:
Google is getting close to adding the ability to run containers (basically Docker) to mainline ChromeOS. This allows advanced users to do things like run Visual Studio Code on a Chromebook while still having all the benefits of an OS that is always updated and super secure because these apps are all sandboxed. (There is some onus on advanced users to keep their containers backed up and set up correctly).

As a new web developer leaving the IT administration field... I want to switch to just a Pixelbook to code on. I don't have the desire to go tinker with and pick an Linux variant, and I'm getting super tired of how Windows is treating their OS and all the updates and patches going on. I can take a Pixelbook and never know I had updates installed, perform a wipe at any point, or just move to a new laptop if something happens and just sign in. Windows is in trouble.
Well, yes. Windows is in trouble. :)

That said, Microsoft's positioning here is in good shape, I think. And it stands in sharp contrast to Apple's position with developers, where you are required to own a Mac to develop for its platforms.

Microsoft already makes Visual Studio Code available on macOS and Linux in addition to Windows (and in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions on Linux), and that positions them nicely for the future, I think. That future is heterogeneous, and from a developer standpoint, you should be able to use the same tools on any platform of your choice. Microsoft recognizes that the user base is moving off Windows. What it wants is for that user base to continue using its tools/technologies/services.

And given that VS Code is so highly-regarded, I think it has a great future on whatever platforms that developers choose going forward. Including Chrome OS. (The PixelBook would be an amazing developer laptop if VS Code and other web-centric editors were avail...