[KLUG Advocacy] Re: Now there's an idea!!! :-) -- Wrong! You guys have it _backwards_!

Bryan J. Smith advocacy@kalamazoolinux.org
Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:24:16 -0500 (EST)


Quoting ke4rit@attbi.com:
> I think a lot of people could and would live with that kind of
> solution... I really like M$ apps... The the unreliability that gets my
> goat....

You guys have it _backwards_!  [ So does Cringley ]

NT is actually a damn good operating system design.  The "real" Win32 API
doesn't suck.  The NT introduced the concept of a "profile" and other things
that partially brough it "on-par" with UNIX (except for timeshare/multiuser,
which Citrix introduced later).

The "applications" are the problem with Windows.  They aren't written to Win32,
they are x86-centric and they are NT security/protection ignorant.  Many Windows
applications have "compatibility issues" with how NT works, which is why NT 5.1
(aka Windows XP) is slightly "cracked" in its security and protection models to
accommodate.  All for [incomplete] compatibility.

Much of the problem was that applications were still written for DOS-based
Windows (95/98/ME), which allowed continued use of "hacks" that did _not_ work
under NT (or under NT as a non-privileged/admin user).  Even Microsoft's own
Visual Studio products _still_ write code that is not "clean" Win32.  I mean, it
took "extra effort" to write a "clean" Win32 application, because such an
application usually would _not_ work completely on DOS-based Windows (which an
in _incomplete_ Win32 API)!

So most developers just wrote DOS-based Windows applications, and left NT to
accommodate after-the-fact.

The proof was "in-the-pudding" when Windows 95 diverged from established,
Windows NT 3.1/3.5 approaches.  As a result, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95/98
lacked support for each others own, self-centered APIs (let alone even
filesystem, registry and user-level standards).  Windows NT 5.0 (2000) improved
some things (e.g., Int21h functions _finally_ got DOS-based Windows style long
filename support -- an abomination created by the Windows 95 group), but still
had issues.

And, again, Windows NT 5.1 (XP) is no longer "pure" NT, but a collection of
compatibility hacks in the NT kernel.

So do you really think this is technically feasible to move to Linux???

Microsoft is trying to now move its codebase to .NET, since most Windows
applications, including Microsoft's own, again, _failed_ to be properly written
to the full Win32 API.  The same damn thing is going to happen all over again. 
Especially since .NET basically _destroys_ Visual Basic as 80% of the Windows
application world knows it.

The first decade of 2000 is just going to be a repeat of the '90s.  98%+ of
Windows applications are _not_ going to be written to a "clean" .NET, and a lot
of hacking and use of deprecated APIs will continue -- even in the Visual Studio
product itself!


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. (BSECE)       Contact Info:  http://thebs.org
[ http://thebs.org/files/resume/BryanJonSmith_certifications.pdf ]
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