This is a sample preview chapter of a book in progress, titled Inside “Indigo,” to be published by Microsoft Press. Elsewhere, Visual C# “Whidbey” will include several IDE enhancements including a first-class code editor with rich editing features, a powerful debugger, and drag-and-drop visual designers. Additionally, these presentations describe the architectural vision that drives the “Longhorn wave” of technologies from Microsoft, and introduce a set of key initiatives that will form the pillars of the Longhorn solution architecture. Presentations require the Windows Media Player.
MSDN: Learn About Indigo, Whidbey, Longhorn Strategies
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Apple and Microsoft push out so many new APIs and technology initiatives that only they themselves can digest it all in time to bring applications to market. I don’t think it is a coincidence, that apart from any monopolistic or predatory action, these two firms are also the most significant “ISV” for their own OSes…to justify fees for upgrades these OSes have essentially become moving targets that only these two vendors can track (as they are at the steering wheel).
On the other hand, linux APIs have been more stable over time and are released early to the public, thus allowing a huge ecosystem of development to take place outside of the providers of the OS itself.
It is amusing that free and open OSes are proving to be more receptive to ISVs than the closed OSes.
On the other hand, linux APIs have been more stable over time and are released early to the public, thus allowing a huge ecosystem of development to take place outside of the providers of the OS itself.
So, what do you call releasing early versions of APIs for an OS that won’t be officially available for 3 freakin years?
“So, what do you call releasing early versions of APIs for an OS that won’t be officially available for 3 freakin years? ”
I call it shocking. The first time MS has done it.
The first yime MS has done it? What about developer editions of earlier versions of windows? or the betas of VS.NET?
I HIGHLY recommend that people interested in Longhorn watch the following URLs with videos of the MSDN TV show and the .NET Show. They are highly technical, some of them even comprise nothing otherthan two MS architects, Don Box (a big Emacs fan, judging by what editor he uses in the show) and Chris Anderson hacking away with the new APIs.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/Archive.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/archive.aspx
I like open source (I’m a big fan of KDE, and I run FreeBSD on my router) but I think that Longhorn will really advance the desktop a lot, both for developers and users). It’s not so much that each of the new features are all that innovative, it’s that they are all being put together coherently in one place.
Brand new shining OO API for .NET (Win32/MFC only to be used by legacy apps, even the registry is a no-no), one-click installs with sandbox security and side by side DLLs to avoid “DLL Hell”, vector graphics, integrated database (something I loved when I used BeOS and having watched the presentations about WinFS I think it’ll be even better), widget layout management, dynamic object construction for GUI and any other stuff (XAML), free build system shipped with the OS, central customizable notification system, the list goes on and on. I’m really looking forward to it.
That Visual Studio presentation link blew me away. After years of the ridiculous VB and VC++ IDEs, it looks like they actually managed to produce something world class.
When I look at Longhorn, I see that MS is overhauling a lot of their technologies:
1. New graphics subsystem (Avalon)
2. New file system (WinFS)
3. New API based on .NET (WinFX)
4. New messaging/communication subsystem (Indigo)
None of these things may be innovative by themselves (?), but as someone else mentioned, it’s nice to see these things are coming together into a coherent whole even to the point of the OS is being written on the same framework that developers will be using, and also taking strides to make the whole package more secure. Not only that, but (according to the videos), the Win32 will still be available for legacy apps to run.
So, having said all that, what’s Linux/open source doing in these same regards? I see the whole Mono thing happening, but considering that will probably always be one or two steps behind .NET, what are some t hings happening on the open source front that people can really get excited about?
So, having said all that, what’s Linux/open source doing in these same regards? I see the whole Mono thing happening, but considering that will probably always be one or two steps behind .NET, what are some t hings happening on the open source front that people can really get excited about?
Read the story below this one! Autopackage has reached 0.4! Whenever there is a 1.0 release, (Jan 2005 at the current rate), you will be able to install ANY Linux software on any ANY distribution! Truly a magical day! Let me know when Windows can do that. IE, install Winamp on Win98, Win98SE, Win ME, Win 2000, Win XP, Win Server 2003.
“Whenever there is a 1.0 release, (Jan 2005 at the current rate), you will be able to install ANY Linux software on any ANY distribution!”
I’m dumbfounded that anyone can compare this to all that it going into Longhorn.
I think he was being sarcastic.
“I think he was being sarcastic.”
Probably.
Make sure they ignore superior technologies today in favor of the promise of better technologies in a few years.
Who is ignoring what, and what are these superior technologies? I look at what MS is doing and see all the stuff I mentioned in my previous post (with .NET available now) and then I look at Linux and what do I see? It looks like they’re still trying to get the installer right – WHOOPPIEEEEEEE!!!!!
‘m also dumbfounded that people will compare what linux has now to what Microsoft promises to offer in 2006.
I don’t think anyone was comparing – I was simply asking what Linux/open source had planned for the future, or do we know? As for Apple, since they don’t make anything (sans iTunes and Quicktime) on hardware I wish to run, I don’t really care what they do.
Else chooses to only hype up technologies that are real, available and due for imminant release as opposed to hyping vaporware still years away from beta
I think as far as open source goes, instead of hyping it, they’ll release version 0.1 ‘pre-alpha’ something with more bugs than a roach motel, and then have zealots proclaim it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
‘m more excited about the freedom of Linux to run my software how I want than I am about all the ms-sandboxing, DRM crap and “trustworthiness” of Longhorn.
I find it ironic how some people regard the technologies in Longhorn to be irrevalent because the OS is not available right now and is thus not even worth thinking about, yet they certainly don’t mind bitching and moaning about any DRM-related aspects of Longhorn right now.
In other words “Yeah, forget about all the good stuff in Longhorn, lest we can’t convert you to our religion, but OMG the f**king DRM!!!!’
Like… Linux? Please. They’ve been hyping half-assed implementations of other peoples ideas at least as long as I’ve been aware of their existence.
ACPI, never worked right in my experience. DevFS, being ditched because it was a crummy implementation. Nothing more than a written standard for package management, and a terrible one at that. Different filesystem layouts on nearly every distribution, and even in different versions of the same distribution, and none of them really seem to be trying to implement the so-called standards (LSB etc.).
I’ve read many times over that Linux’s POSIX compliance is less than stellar. There is little consistency between apps, and (for example) multiple desktop environments that keep the Linux fans nicely diveded and bickering amongst themselves for them to be a serious threat to any other system on the desktop. The GNU utilities are bloated and haphazardly developed, again, divided little groups pouring their efforts into a rag-tag system that gets mutilated as they’re incorporated into a few hundred different variants of a slapped together OS.
Basic things like documentation like manual pages wallow and rot and are for the most part (in my experience) so ridiculously outdated as to be of very littel meaningful use. Compared to FreeBSD’s excelent documentation, and (for crying out loud!) even Windows XP’s, what you’ll find in the Linux world looks like it was thrown together by amatures.
I don’t like DRM. I don’t like Microsoft. I don’t like Linux. I don’t like GNU. I’ve learned not to like the communities that have formed around either. The future of one isn’t mutually exclusive with the future of the other, contrary to popular belief. At the same time, from where I’m standing, of the two of them, only one of them is going to be bringing these various new technologies into play, bennefitting a large number of people, and I don’t think that Linux will be the one to do it.
Freedom is always a good thing, but it’s always seemed to me that Linux was more about disgruntled teenagers than about anything else. If you’re really excited about freedom over function, by all means, stick with Linux. If ever you want freedom and function, I’d recomend a BSD. Any one of them, take your pick. They’re also more coherent solutions that anything in the Linux world.