As Microsoft prepares developers and independent software vendors for Longhorn, the next version of its Windows operating system, the company wants to wean them off older Windows programming models. Elsewhere, Microsoft’s Bill Gates took centre stage at yesterday’s software developer day in London to convince UK software developers to stick with Microsoft, even though Longhorn, its next-generation operating system platform, is two to three years away.
Microsoft Shines More Light on Longhorn
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I can’t think of any other way to describe this article. Here is Microsoft, creating a universal framework for object oriented languages, and allowing interoperability with other object oriented languages/programs using the Simple Object Access Protocol, and yet we have an article in which Microsoft pans similar (albeit more complex) distributed object technologies saying something to the effect of “Using objects for IPC is bad”
“How do we discourage unwanted intimacy?” he asked. “The metaphor we’re going to use for integrating programs (on Indigo) is service orientation. I can only interact by sending and receiving messages. Message-based (communications) gives more flexibility.”
Coupling through message passing is one of the primary tenets of object oriented programming. SOAP objects still fulfill the traditional role of objects in OOP… they are state management tools which estabilish and maintain an invariant which can be manipulated by requests made to that object to manipulate its invariant state.
I’m certainly not a fan of COM/DCOM, but there are many applications where SOAP/XMLRPC are simply inadequate, and CORBA is needed. I certainly wouldn’t want to see any large and complex application being implemented with SOAP. The overhead of XML processing is enough to limit a quad Xeon server to a mere 100 concurrent connections, which certainly isn’t a scalable solution. Meanwhile, with CORBA the same server would be capable of scaling to thousands of concurrent connections…
In forcing developers to program the way they want?
Bussiness aside, programmers gain experience and productivity in a programming environment with the time, and getting used to do things a certain way, familiarizing, etc… NOT with magic bloated tools and imposed programming models that they have to relearn.
But of course, since managers still think that programmers are no different than the guys who fill a wall with bricks when building a skyscrapper…
This does affect productivity in the end, and nobody seems to realize it.
Its just another way to lock-in developers to MS. Give them freedom and they will feel “this doesn’t seem like vs.net” and go back to what’s comfortable for them.
If this is the future of computing from Microsoft, I’m glad I bailed years ago and completely switched.
‘The network is the computer’ is hardly a new slogan, I guess Sir Bill must honestly believe his customers (not that I am one of them) are docile, clueless idiots.
I’ve been hearing Microsoft bleat on about ‘speech recognition’ technology for literally ten years now, and as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing has come of it.
Bill Gates and Microsoft just have zero credibility any more for me – I dont believe anything they say, I don’t trust their software, and I have successfuly switched everything I do over to UNIX/Linux. They simply offer nothing I want from my computing environment, with the exception of their monopoly-gained hardware support.
Now Microsoft is trying to kill object-oriented programming in favor of whatever “indigo” is. Microsoft is not doing this for our benefit as developers, of course. Microsoft is doing it to kill Java, and all other programming languages and paradigms, so that the industry will be beholden to Microsoft. OO is too portable.
Microsoft declared war on all other software companies years ago. This is a new phase.
How else can one explain their decision to roll out a new OS written in a new language using a new programming paradigm and incorporating the ultimate in technological and legal anti-competitive measures (e.g., Palladium).
Sadly, the whole industry seems to be fawning over this new new new stuff — quite unlike what they would be doing if any other company announced an all-new platform with an all-new language, all-new paradigm and premission-required excutable format.
Wake up! Microsoft isn’t good for you! It isn’t good for your country, your economy, your I.T. budget, or anything but Microsoft.
Don Box, the guy that wrote Essential COM (Dec. 1997). So, why would I follow his advise now when he says that the object metaphor was overdone when he was one of the people espousing the wonders of such development? Every few years, a new technology/methodology takes the industry by storm and promises to be the panacea of software development. Its supporters then deride all previous claims as <insert adjective here>(overstated, overblown, overdone….).
To this day, I still don’t understand why everyone is so enamored with XML. It certainly has its uses, but it just makes me laugh when people want to solve all problems with it or decide that they need to use it to solve problems that already have mature solutions (EDI). What’s next, onboard hardware XML parsers to increase your EBusiness EThroughput for each EServer so that you don’t need to EBuild an EWeb EFarm?
So let’s just add at least two more protocols on top of our communications stack (HTTP/SOAP) so we can decrease overall throughput to solve problems that have had solutions for a decade. We’ll then put a pretty bow on it and convince all organizations that their IT infrastructure will decay into chaos, thereby destroying their business if they don’t upgrade now.
Re COM/DCOM:
While COM has facilitated easier integration between systems, it has also given half-wit programmers the ability to build more crapware. DCOM was great because it meant you could focus on the EBusiness ESolution without needing to worry about how or where the EBusiness ELogic is EDeployed. Location transparency? Right! I can’t tell you how many times I have seen VB/DCOM programs written without any Network I/O considerations thus bringing the ENetwork segment to its knees. The response of this of course is put the onus on the client for not having a switched gigabit network, since the developer was told not to worry about such things at the EBusiness N-Tier ETraining EConference. DCOM development in the training lab worked great, as I’m sure SOAP will as well.
Every book and article ever written on software development project management warns against the silver bullet syndrome, yet many of us continue to cling to every new technology/Methodology that comes out. The goal of MS and others is to sell product. There is nothing wrong with that, but don’t think that their new wiz-bang technology is as good as they say. Using history as your guide, you will quickly see that everything ever promised in this industry is one part reality, one part embellishment, and one part utter bullshit.
happy ECoding everyone!
One word: Amen.
Repetitive is’nt it.
—
commence censoring *now*
Another amen to that.
That’s why I still use C up till this minute. When your new language/concept/software paradigm has 30 years of maturity, exposure, reliability, versatility and speed; and doesn’t have any profit motive behind it, I’ll be the first to switch.
Man, Sir Bill keeps trying to get people off the old versions of Windows and each time he does the problems from the older versions seem to follow.
For instance, the new “My Doom” virus affects EVERY version of Windows since Windows 3.11. That is crazy! You mean that there are security holes out there from 1995 that make their way into each version of Microsoft’s OS?
And if the version of Longhorn I downloaded and have played around with is anything close to what the final product is going to look like then it’s going to have the same security problems… LOL!
What’s worse is the MS doesn’t fix security problems it just covers them up. Like with Windows 2003 server. Yes they turn on a LOT of security features, but these are features that are already in Windows and IE. And to use the darn system you have to turn half of them off! So now I am again open to security problems! (Instead of them just fixing the problems or admitting that some of their design ideas like VB scripting and the way they implement macros don’t work!)
Yes there are some good Microsoft products, but most of them even though useable leave you open to some kind of flaw or problem. That is just the facts!
We’re glad you bailed too!
————————
Back on topic…
It must be so hard now for software houses, they must spend a fortune learning this stuff just to find it superseeded by something else a few months later.
This surely can’t be health for the consumer.
Maybe people would have learned earlyer if everyone saw Windows 1.01
was an open source programming language that was both easy to use and compatible with ALL other languages (ex: WinRAR- sort of)
can you imagine coding in java then re compiling into c at the touch of a button (with all the proper translations) and people constantly working on it too!!
You know, just once, I’d like to see a reasonable discussion rather than the usual MS-bashing. None of you has ever even tried running the Longhorn PDC code. You don’t understand WinFS. You don’t understand Indigo. You don’t understand WinFX. You don’t understand Fusion. You don’t understand Avalon. And yet, here you are, shooting off your mouths about “Uncle Bill”, “viruses”, “M$”, etc, etc. It’s so tired. Do us all a favor. If you have nothing to contribute, go to . and rant. But, as for me, I’d like to discuss the new features of this OS as a developer and take an honest look at what it has to offer.
Your computer connected as a client to your bank at all times? It’s days like these I consider trading in my white hat, cause he’s just makin life easier and easier for the black hat hackers.
The rest of what Bill Gates has been saying has seemed to be hype as of late. I want to hear the man come out and use technical terms.
Linux kernel 2.6 came out recently, what was one of the bragging points:
O(1) scheduling. Ok, so a lot of people don’t know what that means, so we translate it to: really amazing scalability. But for those of us with some technical knowledge, we say “cool, great work I want 2.6!” Why doesn’t M$ do this?
Avalon and WinFS are extremely technical subjects, and the only places I get even semi-technical reporting from is extremetech.com. Microsoft acts as if telling us that WinFS is SQL will give away their secrets. Or if telling us that Avalon is going to use all 3D objects will mean they will be the last to come up with this. Personally, I think it’s silly. I have a 2D screen, and I care about usability as much as looks. 3D is just gonna mean I have to buy a better gfx card.
Microsoft has become nothing but hype. I wish they would just come out and say what they are doing. Try exciting the geeks for once, all they do is try to excite the lay person.
And they constantly change their development model. They should take notes from ANSI. Developers do not have time to relearn the wheel everytime M$ reinvents it. I used to know VB, but that was version 6. vb.net is very much different, and I am not about to relearn it.
I understand where you are coming from… yes WinFS seems to be a good idea,
BUT!
simple ideas, like REAL security (Mabye openVMS?) should be the FIRST to put in effect, not some new take on the same ol’ GUI..
now do you get where my rants come from??
I want to be able to NOT have IE INTEGRATED into my os, and what if I want to use another file system??? I SHOULD be able to have that choice.. (since my network at home relies upon MS apps, my family is not much more computer literate than the average internet user)
I should be able to choose to cut almost all of the os away, XP SHOULD fit down to 200 or 400MB…
Why do we HAVE to settle for MS’ “Good Enough”?
THEY SHOULD RELEASE THEIR SOURCE CODE TOO!!!!
so us that complain too much can satisfiy ourselves!
Linux kernel 2.6 came out recently, what was one of the bragging points:
O(1) scheduling. Ok, so a lot of people don’t know what that means, so we translate it to: really amazing scalability. But for those of us with some technical knowledge, we say “cool, great work I want 2.6!” Why doesn’t M$ do this?
Tried MSDN ?
Microsoft has become nothing but hype. I wish they would just come out and say what they are doing. Try exciting the geeks for once, all they do is try to excite the lay person.
That’s because all the geeks do is spend their time talking about how $MICROSOFT_TECHNOLOGY is only meant for taking over the world.
And they constantly change their development model. They should take notes from ANSI. Developers do not have time to relearn the wheel everytime M$ reinvents it. I used to know VB, but that was version 6. vb.net is very much different, and I am not about to relearn it.
Huh ? The first version of VB would have been what ? 1993 ? You don’t think “development models” on other platforms have changed in the last decade ?
If you’re a competent (or better) programmer, changing languages should not be a particularly hard task.
simple ideas, like REAL security (Mabye openVMS?) should be the FIRST to put in effect, not some new take on the same ol’ GUI..
NT has had a security model on par with VMS’s since day one. VMS and NT were both designed by much the same people, after all.
now do you get where my rants come from??
Ignorance and bias. Check.
I want to be able to NOT have IE INTEGRATED into my os […]
So rip it out and replace all the stuff that breaks with your own tools.
Do you complain as much about the various shared components “integrated” into other OSes ?
[…] and what if I want to use another file system???
Write a filesystem driver.
I SHOULD be able to have that choice..
You do. Just don’t expect Windows to work as advertised if you go ripping parts out of it and don’t expect Microsoft to waste their time and resources implementing things only you want. They’re a business, not a charity.
I should be able to choose to cut almost all of the os away, XP SHOULD fit down to 200 or 400MB…
When hard disks cost about $1/gig, who cares ?
Why do we HAVE to settle for MS’ “Good Enough”?
Same reason you have to settle for anyone else’s “good enough” if you don’t do it yourself.
> Write a filesystem driver.
>
Ask Hans Reiser about his experiences writing a filesystem for NT. Yes, he wanted to write reiserfs as a proprietary(?) filesystem for NT. But he got burned so bad by MSFT that he now is a really vocal OSS advocate and writes propably the most advanced file system in existence for linux 🙂
Serves microsoft right. They can keep their bloated winfs. By the time longhorn comes out we will all be using linux2.8 with reiser5.
Ignorance, yes I can,.. bias nope I just don’t like the idea that I have to WASTE more of my time to get my os’ to do s*it that should be part of the installation process.
$1/gig eh… I don’t care about price! access time. and transfer rates, what If I preferred a rocket drive or something? so yes I am ignorant, of why still i have to waste my time (we as humans only live about 2 billion seconds) “writing a filesystem driver, ro cutting all the bloat”?
mabye you have the time though??
“For instance, the new “My Doom” virus affects EVERY version of Windows since Windows 3.11. That is crazy! You mean that there are security holes out there from 1995 that make their way into each version of Microsoft’s OS?”
It’s a virus. It does not rely on any ‘Windows’ security hole other than that you can run programs as root on your computer. Removing that capability makes using the computer somewhat tricky.
I have flamed people here in the past about Windows security holes, and was pointed to some resources about Windows security, and did a little of my own research.
It boils down to the problem that Windows can be quite secure, but few make use of the security features it offers. The main problem is that almost everyone runs everything as root. You don’t always have to, but the emphasis on ease of use at Microsoft sadly encourages this.
I am sorry but I am a system admin for the US government and NONE of our users run as admin (There is no root in Windows)
Yes people have gotten this new virus because our exchange server did not block every copy.
We also had this same problem with the Blaster worm. People who were locked down using Windows 2000 (People who were regular users not power users or admins) still got the blaster worm!
See the problem here is that even as a non admin user you can still run VB scripting and Macros.
On top of that if you go to Microsoft.com and look at what they tell you do to protect yourself from this virus “My Doom” it’s laughable. LOL!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/mydoom.asp
“How to Help Protect Against This Worm
To avoid infection, you should block harmful attachments at your Internet mail gateways. For this worm, block all attachments with the .zip extension. Additionally, you should use the features in the latest versions of Outlook and Outlook Express to block harmful attachments.
For Outlook 2000 and Outlook XP
Outlook 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and later and Outlook XP SP1 include the most recent updates to improve the security in Outlook and other Microsoft Office programs. This includes a feature that blocks potentially harmful attachment types. This feature can be configured to block zip file attachments but does not do so by default.
Get the latest Office product updates
By default, Outlook 2000 prior to Service Release 1 (SR1) and Outlook 98 did not include this feature, but it can be obtained by installing the Outlook E-Mail Security Update.
Get the Outlook E-Mail Security Update
For Outlook 2002
Learn which attachment types are blocked in Outlook 2002
For Outlook Express 6
Outlook Express 6 can be configured to block potentially damaging attachments.
Learn about virus protection features in Outlook Express 6
For Earlier Versions of Outlook Express
Earlier versions of Outlook Express contain no attachment-blocking features. Users of these products are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the latest version and to use extreme caution when opening unsolicited e-mail messages with attachments.
For Web-Based E-Mail
If you use Web-based e-mail, you should install a third-party firewall to help protect your computer from this worm.”
As always, install patches and 3rd party applications etc, etc. Nothing about hey if you are in XP or 2000 or NT you can change your permission levels etc. Because that will not make a difference. If you open the attachment you are screwed. LOL! Admin or no admin.
Microsoft made a choice to avoid taking the hard route in the beginning when confronted with ease of use vs security. It is easier to let anyone install a program in Program Files to make things easier, but this means no matter how you lock down the computer, people can sneak in anything they want. I know because the computer in my University Lab are locked down to the point of it being silly. I cannot even right click on anything. But I can still install my favourite ftp client and what else I want. They have also been hit by this new virus.
They also had problems with Nimda, code red, Blast, Welchia and tons of other viruses. Bottom line, they could make it more secure, but that would severely compromise ease of use. I have never run a computer on the proper internet, always behind some serious firewall. But I have had problems with all flavours of Windows regardless. It is a real hassle to remove the things I do not need. (Anyone ever tried removing MSN Messenger – there are some serious hacks you have to do to get that, apparently someone at Microsoft decided it was a required feature of Windows.) The end result is it is difficult to do Windows security, most people resort to installing a firewall and anti-virus.
Stupid defaults also compound this. Why does the RPC service listen to network event by default? How many people actually use Remote Desktop on Windows to justify putting it by default.
This problem could easily find its way to Linux if distributors feel they must include and activate every service by default. But, for example, Fedora will not install the ftp server by default, and will not activate it by default if installed. Ditto for the Apache server. while generally neither are generally safe to expose on the internet in their default configurations, I am sure, due to the absence of viruses, the Fedora setup will have an easier time on the internet.
Users must be educated about their computers. It is no use hiding away some things from them. A user can only implement a security policy once they understand security, and they will not understand security until someone actually exposes them to it.
Also, some solutions are laughable. Blocking zip files is not really a solution. Some (a lot) of people like to zip things before sending them off to whoever wants them. It saves bandwidth to zip your word documents and excel files. Email has grown beyond simple text messaging, and blocking attachments is not really feasible for many people. I have this nasty feeling many windows problems are masked because of years of developing virus databases to stop specific viruses from wreaking havoc, and that many problems remain.
mabye if outlook “LOOKED” into the zip archives it recieves but DID NOT EXECUTE! (again kind of like WinRAR) people could see MYDOOM or what ever the hell the viral trash of the month is!
just mu 2 cents (or less apparently)
😉
~How many people actually use Remote Desktop on Windows to justify putting it by default.~
hear hear
I cannot believe the gall of MS. “block zip attachments” !
that might as well read “DOn’t send E-mail”
and what kind of company falsifiys SECURITY on WINXP retail box it says “enhanced security” sure i’ll give them that
but then I believe it says “leading security in the industry” (mabye thats on the retail display) what industry?? allowance of Malisiousness?
Rant rant rant… blah blah blah
As a software developer developing applications with my Borland software has been a breeze, you people should try it.
Anyway the only problem I see with microsoft is really security. Thyere current software would be ahead of its time, in 1966. They have done very little for that section.
Other then that Windows is good enought to make me a dollar
Ignorance, yes I can,.. bias nope I just don’t like the idea that I have to WASTE more of my time to get my os’ to do s*it that should be part of the installation process.
Many would say the same about, say, Linux.
$1/gig eh… I don’t care about price! access time. and transfer rates, […]
Will be unaffected by a few hundred megabytes here or there.
[…] what If I preferred a rocket drive or something?
Then Windows is not the product for you. Use something more customisable.
so yes I am ignorant, of why still i have to waste my time (we as humans only live about 2 billion seconds) “writing a filesystem driver, ro cutting all the bloat”?
You don’t *have* to, you can use the perfectly good NTFS.
mabye you have the time though??
Hell, no. Nor the expertise.
It’s a virus. It does not rely on any ‘Windows’ security hole other than that you can run programs as root on your computer. Removing that capability makes using the computer somewhat tricky.
“Root” – or the rough Windows equivalent, Administrator – is not necessary for either this, or the vast majority of other, viruses to do their work.
It boils down to the problem that Windows can be quite secure, but few make use of the security features it offers. The main problem is that almost everyone runs everything as root. You don’t always have to, but the emphasis on ease of use at Microsoft sadly encourages this.
Running as root makes no difference. This “virus” is exploiting the simple fact that dumb people will run untrusted programs. These programs being run aren’t doing much more than something like telnet or ftp, so locking down the machine with generic rules that would disallow them from working is somewhat impractical.
Why some of these programs run themselves. This is a feature (bug) that should be removed from all software. I think the Mac route is generally the best. Have a folder you put all your apps in, and extend this by not letting programs launch from anywhere else, then just monitor that folder. Of courrse this idea is too raw, too unrefined, but then, that’s the job of a system designer to optimize it.
Why some of these programs run themselves.
Generally, they don’t – they require the user to run them. AFAIK, MyDoom requires the user to execute the attachment, it doesn’t exploit any bugs to do it “automatically”.
Operating systems are inherently vulnerable to viruses at some level because a virus is simply a program, and OSes are meant to facilitate the running of programs.
This is a feature (bug) that should be removed from all software.
Removing the ability to automatically execute code would kind of wreak havoc on automation.
I think the Mac route is generally the best. Have a folder you put all your apps in, and extend this by not letting programs launch from anywhere else, then just monitor that folder.
That’s not really how the Mac works, any more than Windows “works” by having “all programs” have to end up in the “Program Files” directory.
Restricting the ability to run applications is already possible on unix and NT-based Windows (using NTFS) by removing the “execute” permission.
The problem with that plan is that on consumer desktops being used by newbies, it could lead to some fairly perplexed users wondering why the hell they can’t run $EXECUTABLE they’ve unzipped onto their desktop. Not to mention the trivial method of circumvention – the virus simply gets itself copied to $EXECUTABLE_FILES_FOLDER before running.