Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 31st Aug 2011 19:42 UTC
Over the past few days, Microsoft has been talking about improvements made to Windows 8 on its 'Building Windows 8' blog at MSDN. Strangely enough, the improvements mentioned were either dealing with the classic desktop, or were demonstrated using the classic desktop - and not the fancy Metro user interface which is supposed to be Windows 8's big new thing. Today's post finally gives a little more detail about how the classic and Metro UI work together, but questions still remain.
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Member since:2006-03-12
What's wrong with file system?
For starters, the massive depths you have to go to to change permissions just to allow yourself to see some of the files on it, and the opaquely named directories those files reside in. Basically, the fact that the OS itself has decided you're not allowed to modify things you might actually want or need to modify, not that you can tell because the file and directory names are useless.
Does he mean the explorer file manager? It didn't become too bad until vista I thought. But in 2003, he says unusable? Surely he isn't talking about the actual fs, because what casual users ever mess with file permissions, etc?
In Mac OS X, I can copy my home directory or ~/Library across installations and be completely migrated. In Windows XP or newer, if I try to copy my Documents and Settings or User folder, I get an endless stream of permissions errors. You need tools specially designed to work around the Windows voodoo. In short, you are not in control, because the filesystem is not usable.
And complaining in 2003 that the registry isn't usable? Wikipedia tells me that the registry originated in 1992, so Bill is about 11 years too late here. The registry was always doomed to failure.
Only because Microsoft names everything with hashes or serial numbers like Q329048, which, as Gates points out, is meaningless.
And last, about the add/remove programs thing, he actually has a point here. I have no idea how they managed to so royally screw this up between 2000 and xp. Maybe I have rose-colored glasses, but I don't remember things being that bad in 2000. But again, this is the result of not having something like aptitude.
I remember Windows 95 being unable to uninstall Red Alert from my mom's work laptop. She didn't use it for anything, so I played RTSes on it. She got in some trouble for that. The Add/Remove Programs pane is nothing but registry entries pointing to scripts. It's a tenuous system with many weak links, but yes, it used to at least look clean.
Member since:2011-08-30
Member since:2006-07-14
Pretty much true. I always thought Gates was referring to different things that were originally meant to be human understandable but now aren't. The registry seemed like a good idea at some point. A central registry for all settings. So all of your programs would be have the same way! But then COM got its hands on it so each com control had to install itself in the registry to let every program that could ever use it could figure out what features it provided.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2011-08-30
Wow, that's a pretty hypocritical email. About the only complaint that might be a result of lazy/underperforming employees is that the website was slow. Everything else is down to the fundamental nature of windows.
It's basically complaining that windows doesn't have a dependency tracking package manager.
What's wrong with file system? Does he mean the explorer file manager? It didn't become too bad until vista I thought. But in 2003, he says unusable? Surely he isn't talking about the actual fs, because what casual users ever mess with file permissions, etc?
And complaining in 2003 that the registry isn't usable? Wikipedia tells me that the registry originated in 1992, so Bill is about 11 years too late here. The registry was always doomed to failure.
And last, about the add/remove programs thing, he actually has a point here. I have no idea how they managed to so royally screw this up between 2000 and xp. Maybe I have rose-colored glasses, but I don't remember things being that bad in 2000. But again, this is the result of not having something like aptitude.
And why is all this hypocritical? Because he's complaining about the things which are prime ways that MS uses to make money. Why should they make something like aptitude? They're not in the business of making it easier for people to get software on their computer with just a few clicks, and a nice roll-backable interface. Third parties have to be able to send out installers with exes that have to be run as root. They need to run as root to install copy protection. Bill wants to change this to make it harder for third parties to install their copy protection? Third party app lockin is a major reason many people need windows, and thus are sending money to redmond at all.
And where does a portion of this copy protection metadata get stored? In the registry of course. And MS allowed whatever exe to write wherever in the registry the user has permission, not in a dedicated registry directory for that app. This is, of course, partly to facilitate copy protection (the other part being complete stupidity wrt security), and what makes migrating installs of windows apps (and windows os installs) such a royal pain.
So did Bill send this out expecting a bunch of grunts to wave a magic wand?
"Let me get this straight sir, you want me to take on the responsibility of fundamentally changing some of the software paradigms which are necessary to third party developers, and therefore, our own business? After they've festered for all these years, getting worse and worse, making money for you all the while? No sir, I will not be the one to take the heat for that, and .... you're dumb."
But on the slow website and bad form validation, he probably had a good point. I only wonder if he was just trying to "discipline the troops", all the while knowing full well the truth? Or if maybe he seriously has no idea how the software actually works? Or maybe just in a bad mood, and not very good at giving orders? (Hint: don't give orders which are destructive to essential core of the company. Some naive employees might take you seriously.)