Hello, World in the App Store
Like many of you, I’ve been doing some testing with Windows 8 RTM. It’s been a bit of a learning experience, with new ways of doing familiar tasks. One thing that I enjoy is perusing the App Store, just to see what is new, and what other developer types are up to.
Usually, there are number of professionally built and useful applications popping into the store on a daily basis. However, my faith in the quality level of applications in the Windows 8 app store dropped a bit today.
One of the sections that I hit without fail, is the tools section. There are really a good number of tools in there, and most of them are pretty okey-dokey. But today I found this:
For those of you have any coding experience at all, this is just one step above "Hello, World!". Seriously. Here is a chunk of code from elsewhere on this site, that shows the simplicity of it:
Dim MyRandomNumber As Long 'The chosen number
Dim RandomMax As Long 'top end of range to pick from
Dim RandomMin As Long 'low end of range to pick from
Dim Kount As Long 'loop to pick ten random numbers
RandomMin = 1
RandomMax = 13
Randomize Timer
For Kount = 1 To 10
MyRandomNumber = Int(Rnd(1) * RandomMax) + RandomMin
Debug.Print MyRandomNumber
Next
And this one actually creates 10 random numbers!
I know that we all have to start somewhere, and it can be tough to get going. I applaud the guy (whoever he/she is) for banging out a couple lines of code, and practicing the process of getting it uploaded to the app store. What puzzles me is how did the app actually make it to the public?
I thought one of the tenets of the Microsoft app store was to provide quality applications for a good price, as well as provide developers a place to sell their wares. But if it can be filled this easily with apps that turn your phone into a flashlight (make a white screen), a mirror (make a black screen), generate random numbers (see above), I see the store becoming more like the Google Play store; a treasure trove of useless crapware, loaded with advertisements.
And really, do we need more crapware thrown in our faces?
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dwirch posted this comment on 2020-05-10:
Or in PowerShell:
1..100 | % {Get-Random -Minimum 2000 -Maximum 3000 }