Windows: A software engineering odyssey (2000) • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows: A software engineering odyssey (2000)

#101

Post by exikyut » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #97

exikyut wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a moment, a tangential question. A little while ago I read a very interesting comment responding to some general "why is this and that broken [in Windows]", that said > Windows is only $5m a year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34934946 I was very impressed to determine that was only $416k/mo. Since I read that I've been like "that can't be right." (There's certainly no qualification of scope to work…

I would take that with a serious grain of salt. The kernel is also in the Xbox, the headset, the azure deployments in some form, the server os, etc. There are easy three other divisions neck deep in the funding of the kernel.

Very good point. It did seem a bit disjointed.

Re: Windows: A software engineering odyssey (2000)

#102

Post by alexvoda » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #21

alexvoda wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Distributed part is definitely not a waste. Some people have different workflows from yours and depend on it heavily.

Tell me more. When is the D relevant? When is it super critical? Working offline is distinct from distributed. In practice almost all development is defacto centralized on GitHub (or other central host). > In software development, distributed version control (also known as distributed revision control) is a form of version control in which the complete codebase, including its full history, is mirrored on every develo…

Yes, most development is de-facto centralized on GitHub/GitLab/SourceHut/BitBucket/etc.

The Linux kernel is not, and Git was designed by the creator of the Linux kernel to serve the needs of the Linux kernel developer community. And I am certain they are not the only ones with that workflow.

Re: Windows: A software engineering odyssey (2000)

#103

Post by forrestthewoods » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

alexvoda wrote: post #102

forrestthewoods wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me more. When is the D relevant? When is it super critical? Working offline is distinct from distributed. In practice almost all development is defacto centralized on GitHub (or other central host). > In software development, distributed version control (also known as distributed revision control) is a form of version control in which the complete codebase, including its full history, is mirrored on every develo…

Yes, most development is de-facto centralized on GitHub/GitLab/SourceHut/BitBucket/etc. The Linux kernel is not, and Git was designed by the creator of the Linux kernel to serve the needs of the Linux kernel developer community. And I am certain they are not the only ones with that workflow.

We agree.

Git makes fundamental design choices that are (maybe possibly but not necessarily) good for the Linux kernel. They’re objectively bad and problematic for the majority of dev work. Which makes it really fucking shitty that the industry standardized on a tool that is bad for standard workflows.

Re: Windows: A software engineering odyssey (2000)

#104

Post by lozenge » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 8:56 AM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #99

lozenge wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kernel is better than ever. As for the shell, it's always had junk on it for commercial reasons - remember MSN and baking IE into the OS, or how the system requirements were ridiculously low for the reasons of marketing and to placate OEM manufacturers? And how OEMs were allowed to add loads of junk software on computers wearing their "Designed for Windows" stickers? I'm pretty sure XP came with a digital app sto…

> Windows Media Player had ten music stores integrated all selling DRM'd WMA files... Apologies. This was me. Pretty much all 10. Most of them were just white-labels of the same code. Believe me, I hated doing it. MS didn't want to do the right thing and vertically-integrate everything like Apple was doing, which was the better solution as then you owned the entire user experience from end-to-end. We know how that st…

Yes I could tell they were white label. One supermarket chain in the UK was offering everything from pet insurance and funeral insurance to phone plans and digital music. The way it was listed in the interface among so many other random brands was hilarious to me.