171–178 of 178 posts
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You do realize that that's a totally different argument that "nobody cares about computers anymore".
The market doesn't care anymore about getting the hot new computer. They care about the new, shinier gadgets. I don't think it's a different argument.
The people will continue to care for and use computers, even if the hot new market is something else.
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To see the overall architecture, the following block diagram I created for Wikipedia some time ago might be helpful: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_2000_archi... Incidentally, it annoys the living snott out of me that I took the time to put a PNG version of this together, someone redoes the diagram as an SVG then someone loads it to commons and I don't get any credit! Update: I speak too soon. The…
Quite nice. Have you though about adding the new WinRT changes?
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> From my perspective, Windows is an inferior system to any UNIX-based system on almost every front. The core architecture of Windows NT is actually pretty nice. Its chief architect, Dave Cutler, was one of the lead developers of VMS. I think Windows NT and VMS do IO much better than Unix/Linux - making the basic primitives asynchronous, and layering synchronous IO on top, instead of asynchronous IO being a fragile a…
That's an interesting point you make. I've not digged into NT, but is there some fork of linux that provides the same. I can think of GNU Mach, being a case of taking that to the extreme end (i.e: micro services making together a kernel).
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I've tried to adopt powershell, and here are the obstacles I encountered: 1) You can't write or run scripts "out of the box", you need to do a security incantation first. A oneoff hurdle, but right at the start of the learning curve. 2) Perhaps because of (1), it's not very dogfooded: on a UNIX system, there are lots of already-existing shell scripts sitting around as parts of the OS. PS is not so rich in examples. 3…
What comes to mind by 4), is "tee", which powershell also has - but that's perhaps not what you want/mean ?
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Windows can run an executable with a GUI interface compiled for 32-bit Windows over 20 years ago... Though it's far from perfect, Windows has a better binary compatibility record than ANY other OS for far longer periods of time. There is something to be said for that. It's only recently (for 64-bit windows) that DOS support (ntvdm) has been unavailable.
At the user experience level, you're certainly correct. However, as a sibling comment notes, Linux has also preserved binary compatibility (at the kernel level) for a similar amount of time (of course as long as neither of them break compatibility then Windows will have the numerical edge as it's slightly older). So the question becomes, why is compatibility so apparently good on Windows and so apparently bad on Linu…
There really isn't a comparison, but it does have value to a lot of people. I don't mind so much, but there's enough people that do. I've helped many people over the years switch away from windows, and half of those switched back to windows within a year.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Linux... but stability for the standard atypical end user isn't very good at all.
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At the user experience level, you're certainly correct. However, as a sibling comment notes, Linux has also preserved binary compatibility (at the kernel level) for a similar amount of time (of course as long as neither of them break compatibility then Windows will have the numerical edge as it's slightly older). So the question becomes, why is compatibility so apparently good on Windows and so apparently bad on Linu…
But the core libraries used in Windows aren't statically compiled... they're dynamically linked, and work across windows versions for decades. I regularly have several applications I need to re-install, or correct configurations for after doing maintenance updates in Linux. In windows, usually only system utilities (A/V) are broken between major version upgrades. There really isn't a comparison, but it does have valu…
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But the core libraries used in Windows aren't statically compiled... they're dynamically linked, and work across windows versions for decades. I regularly have several applications I need to re-install, or correct configurations for after doing maintenance updates in Linux. In windows, usually only system utilities (A/V) are broken between major version upgrades. There really isn't a comparison, but it does have valu…
The standard on Windows is to toss a bunch of .dlls in with your distribution. Linux uses package managers and tries to avoid multiple copies of shared libraries.
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You're confusing the OS with the UI. This is sadly commonplace.
Sorry, did you answer to a wrong message? I don't know how your response applies to my message.