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“I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

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Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#31

Post by hughrr »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #28
hughrr wrote: post #20

I love the backpedalling later about how great Vista is. Which was bollocks.

I disagree. Vista did have some problems, but this was because it introduced SuperCache (which worked in a way that did not match everyone's expectations), a new strategy for file copies (that didn't work better in a lot of cases), a new display server, and new driver models for networking, sound, and video in user space. Vista is when we stopped having to reboot for changing the video driver, where a sound driver cr…

It had some problems because they mostly didn’t test it properly. That hasn’t changed now. Hence why the edge and windows alt tab integration actually broke alt tab on windows 10 RTM for nearly 6 months.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#32

Post by tobr »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #17

And that was in the PowerPc Era! I think this is the video mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ2lWbRU3xM

Here’s the linked page on Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040108215755/apple.com/ilife/v...

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#33

Post by rsynnott »

throwaway4good wrote: post #2

So what has changed? You can buy a Mac today even if you are working at Microsoft.

This was during the reign of noted loon Ballmer, so probably not a great idea. Remember this? https://www.cultofmac.com/501138/apple-history-steve-ballmer...

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#34

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

hughrr wrote: post #31
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Vista did have some problems, but this was because it introduced SuperCache (which worked in a way that did not match everyone's expectations), a new strategy for file copies (that didn't work better in a lot of cases), a new display server, and new driver models for networking, sound, and video in user space. Vista is when we stopped having to reboot for changing the video driver, where a sound driver cr…

It had some problems because they mostly didn’t test it properly. That hasn’t changed now. Hence why the edge and windows alt tab integration actually broke alt tab on windows 10 RTM for nearly 6 months.

Things are actually much much worse today in regards to testing. I don't think Microsoft even has testers for Windows these days, they just push updates to users and and force them to test.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#38

Post by pjmlp »

basisword wrote: post #4

I think the context of this occurring during Longhorn (LH) development is important. For anyone that doesn't know Longhorn[1] was the precursor to Vista. They tried to do a lot of big things but it dragged on for years before they had to recalibrate, abandon a lot of ideas, and ship Vista. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista

The project that Windows team kind of sabotaged the .NET efforts, and instead of having everyone team together and create a Midori like effort, they just redid the .NET original components in COM, and later doubled down on the idea with WinRT.

Now we have the company trying to undo 10 years of pushing everyone to go down the path that only WinDev can love, because apparently a large portion of the world rather write .NET (with its shortcomings) + DLLs than having to deal with COM boilerplate.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#39

Post by thejohnconway »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #12

I've read enough of buggy behaviors on MacOS that I'm not sure I'd buy a Mac today. Wasn't their new filesystem a giant mess? Even the shiny new M1 had SSD wear problems in the beginning, hmm, great QA, guys!

> Wasn't their new filesystem a giant mess?

No? It was a very smooth rollout (even more impressive if you consider it also rolled out to all iOS devices). I can’t think of a similarly large technical change that went so smoothly.

There are things to complain about with the software quality of Macs, but the file system isn’t one of them in my opinion.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#40

Post by pjmlp »

wesnerm2 wrote: post #21
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #5

I think LH refers to what appeared later as Windows Vista. It's kind of nice to see a Microsoft executive had the same opinion of this product as their customers.

Longhorn was a failed version of Windows after Windows XP and before Windows Vista. Longhorn was planned to be a dramatic follow-up version of Windows XP in which the Windows shell was rewritten on top of .NET with three main pillars: communication (WCF), presentation (WPF), and data (WinFS). WinFS was a new filesystem based on a relational database engine (SQL Server). Longhorn was similar to a previous failed Windo…

Apparently Cairo's lesson wasn't good enough, so they ended up rewriting all Longhorn stuff mostly in COM and since it was such a good idea we got WinRT (IInspectable + .NET metadata) as "improvement".

Which kind of was, had the respective teams not botched the whole idea with WinRT, UAP, UWP, replacing C++/CX with toolless C++/WinRT, left .NET Native stagnate,....

So now we get WinUI, Reunion sorry AppSDK, and the whole marketing with deemphasis on the COM love of WinRT high marketing push.

I feel if there was some actual real cooperation across all the business units instead of the feudal wars, either Cairo or Longhorn would have worked out quite well.

What to expect when it was easier for contractors to navigate across units, then asking for stuff directly.

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