Can you ignore DDE as a programmer on Windows? "While it was a reasonable solution back in the cooperatively-multitasked world of 16-bit Windows where it was invented, the transition to 32-bit Windows was not a nice one for DDE. Specifically, the reliance on broadcasts to establish the initial DDE conversation means that unresponsive programs can jam up the entire DDE initiation process. The last shell interface to employ DDE was the communication with Program Manager to create program groups and items inside those groups. This was replaced with Explorer and the Start menu back in Windows 95. DDE has been dead as a shell interface for over ten years."
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Member since:2005-07-06
True, and with each successive generation of Windows, it has to be hauled along, maintained, updated to make it compatible with API changes further down the chain - it all costs money.
As for should they drop compatibility; given that the need to use it was killed over 10 years ago, I hardly, see the requirement for continuing on something that should have been dropped from code bases for many companies long ago.
This is how Apple keeps their costs low; when they kill something off, they depreciate it, remove the ability to compile against it, then they finally remove it; Microsoft has given companies 10 years to remove that piece of functionality from their application - and the best thing for Microsoft to do? not *only* remove it, but if there are any applications out that rely on it, and Microsoft can provide an alternative to it, then they should off those affected customers a free upgrade to the Microsoft version of the said application.
Member since:2006-01-11
Member since:
2005-09-03
Perhaps you are right in respect to initial cost of human labor; however, its is important to consider time spent updating the code when systems it depends on are modified, or the cost of fixing potential bugs or security concerns that relate to the code.
Now, I am not saying Microsoft should or should not, that is their call. But there is an advantage to removing truly superfluous code (whether DDE is, is another issue). Mainly less code complexity, which means an easier to maintain code base.