Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I use Teams every day for work, I'm not sure why it's considered so bad? It seems user friendly and useful, to me. Non-tech worker (finance).


In my case, because it crashes incessantly and its apps are all web applications bundled for a platform. None of them perform well.

It is somehow worse than mIRC and I used that 30 years ago.


The thing I hate most about the new version of Teams is that it flashes the taskbar when a new message is received. You can disable the pop-up notifications, but that doesn't affect the flashing taskbar for some (??) reason. The old version of Teams didn't work like this, it was possible to turn off all notifications & alerts so that you only got notified when a meeting started or somebody @'d you.

You can go into do-not-disturb mode to stop the flashing, but then pings aren't delivered and you can't do 1-on-1 calls. So there's a pretty significant tradeoff. I wasn't able to find a way to disable them any other way (registry hacks I saw recommended online didn't work).

This sucks because if I see the taskbar flashing, I MUST go and check out Teams. It's too distracting to leave on. So there can't be a background group chat where I'm not taking part and doing other things -- I get dragged into checking every message which is extremely annoying. I suspect that 'immediately check out the app causing the taskbar to flash' is basically a conditioned response for most computer users so I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.

----

I also strongly dislike the vibe of the Teams emoji set. The :) looks like it's playing dumb, and it adds that connotation to messages I see from people using it. (admittedly I've only seen it be used by my dumb coworkers)


I've seen enough financial software to know that someone in your world may be used to slow, tire-fire software.

In that context, maybe Teams is user-friendly and high-performance!


You must not have seen Bloomberg Terminal then. Most devs on this forum wouldn’t be even able to build anything this performant and ergonomic.


True, Bloomberg Terminal is excellent.

Is that the "exception that proves the rule"?

What else ya got? Genuinely interested.


Bloomberg Terminal is a hardware/software dynamic duo! Reuters and Dow Jones have competitive packages too.

Other software in finance:

kdb, for time-series analytics [0].

AmiBroker - amazing tech analysis package, and AmiBroker Formula Language (AFL - found this because I like J and APL), an array-based PL with debugger built-in to the AmiBroker platform. Fast [1].

I have been programming since 1978 starting on a Commodore PET 2001, but I saw computers and programming as tools. I was studying neural nets and genetic algorithms in the early 90s. I gravitated to lean, simple and easy software, but somehow every software I use just seems so bloated, in-your-face, inefficient, that I have chosen simple tools to use now. I keep a J interpreter open on my desktop along with Frink as more-than-desktop calculators. I use a Home edition of Mathematica, the orginal notebook interface, that has so much curated data and built-in functions that what was once complicated is now a great ecosystem to do math, analysis, reports, engineering, etc. And, yes, Excel, no matter how much it is disparaged by programmers. I gave up Inventor and other CAD programs for Alibre Design (yes, I have SolveSpace on my toolbar for fun!). I am so glad I steered clear of IT/SW engineering/etc. after speaking to many in all parts of the industry. The tool is their job, not the thing the tool does.

PS: I have run hundred-million-dollar construction jobs in SE Asia and MENA using WhatsApp in the field from my Samsung Note to annotate drawings, photos, etc. even though Slack and high-end PM programs were back in the office.

[0] https://kx.com/products/kdb/

[1] https://www.amibroker.com/


KDB is the epitome of finance software. Cool in theory, and a decade ago probably the right choice if you needed to separate compute/storage and just get crazy high performance, but god damn I hate actually having to deal with it. Would rather DuckDB or even just Polars every time these days.


Have you used anything else?


If it is the only tool you use and you came from a world of Skype/Lync, then for you Teams is a significant improvement. But for example if you come from Slack, Teams provides an abysmal experience.


It's decent now, but it took 5 years to get there while Slack is still better.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: