Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well, maybe true. We also might have ended up with a mil-spec system 
> that is stable, required to operate in a wide range of conditions, and 
> clearly documented interfaces.

We might have, but I doubt it.  That would be over-engineering to a 
tremendous degree.

Where such things are necessary, they're built without too much trouble 
beyond tremendous time and cost.

> What we have is unstable, often doesn't 
> operate even in the conditions it supposedly was designed for, and even 
> the clearly documented interfaces, like modem commands, get screwed up 
> by nonstandard interfaces/drivers/control mechanisms, which where 
> designed to work only with specific OSes.

This is pretty much true of every piece of long-lived general-purpose 
software. It's impossible to foresee every eventuality. If your OS 
doesn't support removable media or streaming 3D holograms, you're going 
to have unstable programs that don't work right when you remove the 
media out from under them or stream 3D holograms into their input files.

> In other words, we started with 100 species of machines, none of them 
> alike, and ended up with something that... has almost as many hacks, 
> bugs, design short cuts, and stupid compromises as human DNA (and not 
> because those things "worked" better than the other paths tried). 

But we have that mainly because of age and backward compatibility. It's 
not like "autoconf" is a gem either, and for exactly the same reason.

> If the 
> military built aircraft the way Microsoft, to a large degree, and 
> others, to different degrees, pushed us to produce computers,
> we would be losing billion dollar airplanes once a week, 

They wouldn't cost a billion dollars. They'd cost $1000, and they'd run 
pretty well until you put a trailer hitch on them and tried to tow your 
RV behind. :-)

> Its a logical fallacy to presume that Microsoft was "necessary", any 
> more than just about any other absurd thing that led to the modern world 
> "had to" happen to get here.

Of course.  What do you see as a motivating factor for hardware to get 
standardized beyond someone selling a fairly cutting-edge software 
package not tied to a particular piece of hardware?

 > Even if true, the real question is, "Was
> the price paid to do so *worth* it, given other paths that may have led 
> to the same thing?"

Except they didn't. The world had the chance for 10 or 15 years, and 
there were just as many competing incompatible brands when PC-DOS came 
out as there were ten years earlier.

> PCs imho where inevitable. Had Microsoft not shown up, someone else 
> would have. Eventually, some standard would have appeared. Likely, given 
> the wide us of Unix, it would have been a *nix standard.

I disagree. UNIX puts too many requirements on the hardware for it to 
work at the time.  What we *did* get that was vaguely standard was CP/M, 
which is what PC-DOS was based on.

And, OK, which UNIX? Why do you think it would have been a standard, and 
which one, and would it really have led to there being fewer flavors of 
UNIX to program against? Even now, there's a dozen or more flavors of 
UNIX in current use. We already *have* a "unix standard". You *still* 
need autoconf, and it's broad enough Microsoft managed to implement it 
in Windows (for some meaning of the word "implement").

Blame BSD for that, perhaps?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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In article <47f9149f@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>  > Even if true, the real question is, "Was
> > the price paid to do so *worth* it, given other paths that may have led
 
> > to the same thing?"
> 
> Except they didn't. The world had the chance for 10 or 15 years, and 
> there were just as many competing incompatible brands when PC-DOS came 
> out as there were ten years earlier.
> 
Neither did cars, until Ford, and frankly, Ford did it right, while 
MS... didn't care about doing it right, so much as doing it profitable. 
That is the difference between visionaries getting involved with an 
industry, vs. those who just see a clear way to make a more cash.

> > PCs imho where inevitable. Had Microsoft not shown up, someone else 
> > would have. Eventually, some standard would have appeared. Likely, give
n 
> > the wide us of Unix, it would have been a *nix standard.
> 
> I disagree. UNIX puts too many requirements on the hardware for it to 
> work at the time.  What we *did* get that was vaguely standard was CP/M,
 
> which is what PC-DOS was based on.
> 
Point was, it didn't have to be PC-DOS. Windows wasn't able to run on 
those either.

> And, OK, which UNIX? Why do you think it would have been a standard, and
 
> which one, and would it really have led to there being fewer flavors of
 
> UNIX to program against? Even now, there's a dozen or more flavors of 
> UNIX in current use. We already *have* a "unix standard". You *still* 
> need autoconf, and it's broad enough Microsoft managed to implement it 
> in Windows (for some meaning of the word "implement").
> 
Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
standardization to internals, and commands. Windows new shell even 
borrows the later, in a form of Bash like shell, since their own sucked 
so badly. lol Look at cars. While there isn't much of a standard, and 
not *every* part is interchangeable any more between makers, you can 
still manage to weld together bits from different cars and have 
something that still functions, and you can take parts from dozens, and 
use them to build a car that "none" of the manufacturers would produce 
themselves, and odds are, despite some specific differences, and a few 
adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a 
Chevy frame.

Yes, fragmentations is bound to happen ones the "foundation" is there. 
The problem is, how you get to that foundation. MS kind of forced the 
industry to build from the top floor down, and as a result often the 
stuff on the lowest level doesn't always work reliably, while the OS 
itself *is* standard, so it "looks" like the building is intact, even 
though its shifting on the loose rubble on the bottom level, like a 
drunken sailor on marbles. *nix went the other way. The foundation is 
very close to the same, to a degree that it take relatively little to 
adjust core processes between them, the hardware, when there is 
documentation, and some sort of common interface, just works, without 
having to have 234 device drivers (including different versions, and 
multifunction devices, which may have 4-5 drivers), for 100 devices.

But, my point is. You can't reliably project from "because it happened 
this way.", to, "It needed to happen that way." We have hindsight here, 
and we still can't get out of the hole already dug, to try to fix the 
problems that arose due to how it did happen.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Neither did cars, until Ford, and frankly, Ford did it right, while 
> MS... didn't care about doing it right, so much as doing it profitable. 

And what makes you say this?

> Point was, it didn't have to be PC-DOS. 

Sure. But it was.  It had to be someone without a vested interest in one 
particular brand of hardware, tho.  You didn't see Sun porting Solaris 
to other peoples' chips until they realized they couldn't compete with 
Intel as long as Windows was the problem. (Same reason they wrote Star 
Office, same reason they've been battling Microsoft all along.)

 > Windows wasn't able to run on those either.

Windows ran on lots of machines where a fuller UNIX wouldn't. I'm not 
sure what "those" means, unless you mean 8080-class chips, at which I'll 
agree but wonder why you bring it up.

Windows could do a lot more with a lot less hardware. And it was PC-DOS 
compatible.

And PC-DOS was very compatible with CP/M, conceptually. Indeed, the 
original design was that you should be able to reassemble/recompile your 
CP/M programs for 8086 and have them run under PC-DOS.

> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
> standardization to internals, and commands.

As with various versions of Windows. Yes?

> adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
> because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a 
> Chevy frame.

I see. That's why Apache and MySql and VI don't work at all under 
Windows, yes?  I was wondering why that was.

> But, my point is. You can't reliably project from "because it happened 
> this way.", to, "It needed to happen that way."

I didn't mean to imply it did. *Someone* had to come along and make some 
version of hardware a reasonable target for something like Linux before 
Linux could get popular enough to snowball.  Lots of people wrote 
operating systems for 8080-class machines, and none of them took off 
(except CP/M) because they were all written to specific machinery by the 
manufacturers of the machinery.  Once you had someone realize "Gee, we 
can write the software *without* building the machinery", that's when 
you start seeing "clones."

> drunken sailor on marbles. 

And while I admire your ability to turn a phrase, the hyperbole really 
doesn't manage to communicate anything of interest other than your 
distaste for Microsoft's products. You speak as if every day there are 
thousands of people dying from Microsoft products, or that every 
business that uses Windows goes broke trying to keep it running for more 
than a few hours.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
> standardization to internals, and commands. Windows new shell even 
> borrows the later, in a form of Bash like shell, since their own sucked 
> so badly. lol Look at cars. While there isn't much of a standard, and 
> not *every* part is interchangeable any more between makers, you can 
> still manage to weld together bits from different cars and have 
> something that still functions, and you can take parts from dozens, and 
> use them to build a car that "none" of the manufacturers would produce 
> themselves, and odds are, despite some specific differences, and a few 
> adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
> because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a 
> Chevy frame.

Forget interchange of parts. With cars, if you learn to drive, you can 
drive any car of any manufacturer. Doesn't seem to be the case with 
operating systems, or with applications.

Post a reply to this message

In article <47f9b2be$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Sure. But it was.  It had to be someone without a vested interest in one
 
> particular brand of hardware, tho.  You didn't see Sun porting Solaris 
> to other peoples' chips until they realized they couldn't compete with 
> Intel as long as Windows was the problem. (Same reason they wrote Star 
> Office, same reason they've been battling Microsoft all along.)
> 
True.

>  > Windows wasn't able to run on those either.
> 
> Windows ran on lots of machines where a fuller UNIX wouldn't. I'm not 
> sure what "those" means, unless you mean 8080-class chips, at which I'll
 
> agree but wonder why you bring it up.
> 
> Windows could do a lot more with a lot less hardware. And it was PC-DOS
 
> compatible.
> 
> And PC-DOS was very compatible with CP/M, conceptually. Indeed, the 
> original design was that you should be able to reassemble/recompile your
 
> CP/M programs for 8086 and have them run under PC-DOS.
> 
Yeah, so what went wrong? lol Lets see. Code bloat, people actually 
wanting to be able to transfer documents between unlike systems (with 
filenames intact), oh, and an endless list of cases where people 
"tried" to make something run on alternatives, but MS changed theirs in 
some way that either broke the alternate, or broke their code "on" the 
alternate. But sure. If they hadn't tried to rule the world, just live 
in it, some of us might not be so annoyed by them.

> > Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
> > standardization to internals, and commands.
> 
> As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
> 
Umm. Not really.. Half the stuff that doesn't work between 3.1 and XP is 
a result of hacks needed to make it work right at all on 3.1, but which 
where bugs, hole or unintended interfaces. The other half are cases 
where MS changed the underlying implementations, so you just *can't* do 
it any more. They are still doing that, releasing .NET, then basically 
making it very very hard to code anything with MFC. Sure, it will still 
*run*, usually, but its fairly clear that, if they could, they would rip 
out all those old libraries and bury them, never mind what inconvenience 
it might cause anyone.

> > adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
> > because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
 
> > Chevy frame.
> 
> I see. That's why Apache and MySql and VI don't work at all under 
> Windows, yes?  I was wondering why that was.
> 
Sorry? Are you saying all of those just had some bits of code lopped 
off, some new code tacked on, then recompiled, because... I get the 
impression its a *tad* more complicated than that most of the time. lol 
Besides, your talking what is basically command line systems, which just 
"happen" to have GUIs built to access them. Or, to put it another way. 
Mind you, you get some of the same with Linux, depending on if its X, or 
some other GUI you are running, but I get the sense that the gaps you 
have to leap are "slightly" less cavernous. Besides, now you are talking 
about odometers, gas gages, or steering wheels, which is a bit higher 
level than the "core" systems.

> And while I admire your ability to turn a phrase, the hyperbole really 
> doesn't manage to communicate anything of interest other than your 
> distaste for Microsoft's products. You speak as if every day there are 
> thousands of people dying from Microsoft products, or that every 
> business that uses Windows goes broke trying to keep it running for more
 
> than a few hours.
> 
Which version? lol Seriously though, forgive me if I would prefer to 
avoid MS in my critical life saving devices. ;)

Ok, its not that bad, "anymore". It was, not that far back. I might 
argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability 
for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we 
can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave? 
Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. Or an 
admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of 
security. Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
of control I *used to have* over my system. XP, is kind of getting on my 
nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed 
up at this point.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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In article <47fa4acd$1@news.povray.org>, 
nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom says...

> > Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
> > standardization to internals, and commands. Windows new shell even 
> > borrows the later, in a form of Bash like shell, since their own sucked
 
> > so badly. lol Look at cars. While there isn't much of a standard, and
 
> > not *every* part is interchangeable any more between makers, you can 
> > still manage to weld together bits from different cars and have 
> > something that still functions, and you can take parts from dozens, and
 
> > use them to build a car that "none" of the manufacturers would produce
 
> > themselves, and odds are, despite some specific differences, and a few
 
> > adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
> > because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
 
> > Chevy frame.
> 
> Forget interchange of parts. With cars, if you learn to drive, you can 
> drive any car of any manufacturer. Doesn't seem to be the case with 
> operating systems, or with applications.
> 
True too. But just ask my father about that, he might disagree. His 
favorite gripe is, "Why the #@$# can't they standardize where basic 
controls like windshield wipers, emergency lights, etc. are located?" I 
kind of have the same gripe, due to where I work, with how they can't 
seem to decide where to put fracking door handles, or how they open the 
door. Interestingly, this is one common factor in Windows upgrades too. 
They can't decide where to put things, so keep changing them, and every 
version you have to rediscover where they put the blasted speed control 
from the wipers. Trivial, until you find yourself **needing** to change 
it, but trivial enough, its probably "not" going to be the first thing 
you try to figure out the new location for.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Yeah, so what went wrong? lol Lets see. Code bloat, 

Sure, bloat my OS code with printer drivers. I'll take that over having 
six disks of printer drivers distributed with each application any day.

 > people actually
> wanting to be able to transfer documents between unlike systems (with 
> filenames intact),

Never really had a problem with that...

> oh, and an endless list of cases where people 
> "tried" to make something run on alternatives, but MS changed theirs in 
> some way that either broke the alternate, or broke their code "on" the 
> alternate. 

Well, sure.  Even in the cases where that was deliberate, I'd still say 
"well, duh."

>>> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
>>> standardization to internals, and commands.
>> As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
>>
> Umm. Not really.. Half the stuff that doesn't work between 3.1 and XP is 
> a result of hacks needed to make it work right at all on 3.1, but which 
> where bugs, hole or unintended interfaces.

Yes. If you take advantage of bugs or undocumented interfaces, or bypass 
the API to try to do the same thing yourself without using the API, then 
when the API gets upgraded, your program breaks.

It's not like nothing got rewritten since System 7 either. This is all 
normal computer stuff that happens on every operating system and 
application and framework everywhere.

> The other half are cases 
> where MS changed the underlying implementations, so you just *can't* do 
> it any more. 

Sure. See above. If you want a multi-user system, you can't take a 
single-user application and expect it to run without giving it undue 
privileges.  I mean, heck, even POV-Ray had to get beaten over the head 
before it stopped writing per-user configuration into per-computer 
directories. How long was Windows doing multi-user systems before Vista 
finally said "OK, enough, really, you have to deal with multi-user 
configuration"?

Things that are actually written to the documented APIs port 
surprisingly well. If you write your own INI file parser, don't expect 
the next upgrade of Windows to put your stuff in the right place in the 
registry for you.

> They are still doing that, releasing .NET, then basically 
> making it very very hard to code anything with MFC. 

In what way are they making it hard?

 > Sure, it will still
> *run*, usually, but its fairly clear that, if they could, they would rip 
> out all those old libraries and bury them, never mind what inconvenience 
> it might cause anyone.

And this differs from the desires of every single programmer inheriting 
a legacy system in what way?

>>> adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
>>> because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a 
>>> Chevy frame.
>> I see. That's why Apache and MySql and VI don't work at all under 
>> Windows, yes?  I was wondering why that was.
>>
> Sorry? Are you saying all of those just had some bits of code lopped 
> off, some new code tacked on, then recompiled, because... I get the 
> impression its a *tad* more complicated than that most of the time.

No. I'm saying none of those programs "flat out refused to work" on any 
OS, including Windows and variants of UNIX.

> Mind you, you get some of the same with Linux, depending on if its X, or 
> some other GUI you are running, but I get the sense that the gaps you 
> have to leap are "slightly" less cavernous.

Well, yes, so? And putting a Ford headlight in a Ford car is going to be 
much easier than putting a Ford headlight in a Toyota. (Note that there 
used to be two kinds of headlights: Round, and Square. Now there's a 
whole bunch.)

 > Besides, now you are talking
> about odometers, gas gages, or steering wheels, which is a bit higher 
> level than the "core" systems.

I haven't any clue where your analogy is supposed to be going. You seem 
to be arguing that since cars are built from physical parts, Windows sucks.

> Which version? lol Seriously though, forgive me if I would prefer to 
> avoid MS in my critical life saving devices. ;)

I certainly would too. But then, I'd avoid Linux in those same situations.

IME, hardware is much flakier than software. I have about 40 Linux 
servers I'm controlling right now. Between the colo "testing" their 
generator and frobbing the power on and off, the bakery dumping a 
50-pound bag of flour into the fans, the brand new expensive Dell 
servers just deciding the disk controller doesn't exist any more, I've 
had way more crashes than anything in software causes.

I've also worked at companies where the servers were running Windows, 
and they just never died unless the hardware did.

Indeed, the worst OS I've used is actually Solaris, where we had to 
rearchitect a number of services to account for the bugs in the OS that 
would (for example) not reap processes spawned by cron such that even 
kill -9 didn't stop them, or write file data over top of the inodes just 
because the disk got busy.

So I don't know what kind of professional experience you've had with 
long-running Windows machines, but "drunken sailor on marbles" is far 
from my experience.

> Ok, its not that bad, "anymore". It was, not that far back. 

I had no problems with keeping Win2000 servers running indefinitely. We 
had them locked down in a different state, with the only access being 
remote unless you wanted to hop on a plane for a couple hours.

That's 8 years back, now.

Sure, DOS could get locked up pretty easily. WFW worked surprisingly 
well for the time and the power of the machines it was on.

Try running Unix on a machine with no virtual memory, no memory 
protection, and the kernel in the same address space as the user 
programs, and see how well it runs.

> argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability 
> for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we 
> can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave? 
> Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
> shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 

Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP 
by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?

 > Or an
> admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of 
> security. 

What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?

> Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
> of control I *used to have* over my system. 

Like what?

> XP, is kind of getting on my 
> nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed 
> up at this point.

Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems 
it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."

The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
something dangerous.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Forget interchange of parts. With cars, if you learn to drive, you can 
> drive any car of any manufacturer.

No more true than with OSes, I think. Try driving a school bus, an 
18-wheeler, a formula 1 race car.

It's more like "once you know how to work one Windows app, you know how 
to work them all", or "once you know how to work one MacOSX app, you can 
figure out how to work all the others."

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

In article <47fbacee$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Yeah, so what went wrong? lol Lets see. Code bloat, 
> 
> Sure, bloat my OS code with printer drivers. I'll take that over having
 
> six disks of printer drivers distributed with each application any day.
>
Umm. Actually, I was referring to Windows there, not the bloat in Linux, 
which at its most bloated looks anorexic by comparison. lol
 
>  > people actually
> > wanting to be able to transfer documents between unlike systems (with
 
> > filenames intact),
> 
> Never really had a problem with that...
> 
Well, it didn't come up often, but some times...

> >>> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
 
> >>> standardization to internals, and commands.
> >> As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
> >>
> > Umm. Not really.. Half the stuff that doesn't work between 3.1 and XP i
s 
> > a result of hacks needed to make it work right at all on 3.1, but which
 
> > where bugs, hole or unintended interfaces.
> 
> Yes. If you take advantage of bugs or undocumented interfaces, or bypass
 
> the API to try to do the same thing yourself without using the API, then
 
> when the API gets upgraded, your program breaks.
> 
> It's not like nothing got rewritten since System 7 either. This is all 
> normal computer stuff that happens on every operating system and 
> application and framework everywhere.
> 
True enough. One wonders why most of that stuff was so deeply buried in 
the first place though. Try, for example, writing your own program, 
which doesn't use IE core or export to wsh, so that it can a) run 
scripts, b) use "createobject" like COM support *and* also correctly 
bond those objects connection points to event managers. Two years I have 
been looking for a solution and all I have gotten is "Well, why no just 
rewrite everything in .NET, .NET is magical (never mind it seems to have 
some similar problems), or 2-3 articles involving work arounds, none of 
which supply useful example code, but just babble about theory and how, 
"If you are as skilled and well versed as I am, implementing this 
wizbang solution should be trivial!". Uh, yeah, that *kind of* why I 
went looking for answers, because some of us don't have leet skillz. lol

Even knowing, in theory, all the bits that make it work, I can't find 
any damn way to use it, without practically rewriting the entire program 
I want to do it in from scratch, and then, it might still not work. Bad 
enough when you don't document unknown interfaces, but to intentionally 
make every single library so that it *prevents* people from being able 
to use the documented interfaces to do anything but use early bound 
objects... That is just perverse.

> > The other half are cases 
> > where MS changed the underlying implementations, so you just *can't* do
 
> > it any more. 
> 
> Sure. See above. If you want a multi-user system, you can't take a 
> single-user application and expect it to run without giving it undue 
> privileges.  I mean, heck, even POV-Ray had to get beaten over the head
 
> before it stopped writing per-user configuration into per-computer 
> directories. How long was Windows doing multi-user systems before Vista
 
> finally said "OK, enough, really, you have to deal with multi-user 
> configuration"?
> 
> Things that are actually written to the documented APIs port 
> surprisingly well. If you write your own INI file parser, don't expect 
> the next upgrade of Windows to put your stuff in the right place in the
 
> registry for you.
> 
Yes, yes, I can understand that. Tha isn't the problem though. Its not 
privilege levels that are being screwed up, its stuff like the patch 
that prevents you executing certain types of packets on a network, which 
only inconveniences the hackers, but, in some configurations/networks, 
also hoses certain tools use to do determine what is wrong with your 
network. And then there are issues like deciding that no one is going to 
care if you make 99% of all games prior to Vista stop working, because 
you think you have a *better* solution for sound support than 20 years 
of sound card manufacturers, and it doesn't actually try to support the 
old method. Sure, lots of processing power. But, are you *sure* that 
**no one** is going to be trying to use any of it for other things 
"while" playing the games that need that sound?

Look, we can go back and forth all day about why they decide to do some 
things, how its bad, or not bad, etc. Just saying, if you are the guy 
that needs something to work the way it did, and not the other 90% who 
don't know a phone jack from a cat5e jack, some of this stuff is a pain 
in the ass when they start messing with it.

> > They are still doing that, releasing .NET, then basically 
> > making it very very hard to code anything with MFC. 
> 
> In what way are they making it hard?
> 
Umm. Other than buying the full compiler because they decided that the 
"free" version would only support the newest version, there is the fact 
that MFC was a bonehead design to start with, and its not easy to recode 
any of it to work under a different library. Mostly, in my case, its 
that I never had a reasonably up to date copy of MS' compiler, so I 
would have to sell a kidney to be able to make changes to a product 
written in something that they don't freely support. Which seems wacky 
to me. You would think that writing the .NET system and releasing it 
would cost "more" than dropping the 10+ year old MFC libraries on a 
website and saying, "we don't support this anymore, but for that that 
want it, here you go." They are going to charge me for the stuff that 
obsolete, but not the newest stuff?

Yeah, yeah, I know the reason. It doesn't help my mood when I look at 
the price tag. lol

>  > Besides, now you are talking
> > about odometers, gas gages, or steering wheels, which is a bit higher
 
> > level than the "core" systems.
> 
> I haven't any clue where your analogy is supposed to be going. You seem
 
> to be arguing that since cars are built from physical parts, Windows suck
s.
> 
No, I mean that I was talking about core features, while you are talking 
about a layer higher than that. Its bound to be easier, within limits, 
to rewrite something where 90% of the function is "in" the application 
and its only a few interfaces and the display that need tweaking. Its a 
bit more serious if the heart of your application is relying on some 
core feature working, which doesn't work the same on the new OS, or come 
close enough to patch over.

Point was, unless its hardware related (and that is a whole new can of 
worms), *nix isn't likely to have too many of those, even between 
different "versions".

> IME, hardware is much flakier than software. I have about 40 Linux 
> servers I'm controlling right now. Between the colo "testing" their 
> generator and frobbing the power on and off, the bakery dumping a 
> 50-pound bag of flour into the fans, the brand new expensive Dell 
> servers just deciding the disk controller doesn't exist any more, I've 
> had way more crashes than anything in software causes.
> 
Got an external HD with similar issues. Power goes out, I have to reboot 
for some reason (something messed up Halo so bad I had to reinstall, 
after rebooting, since it froze solid), and the drivers and drive 
monitor both insist that its unformatted... Not as bad as insisting it 
doesn't exist, but geeze... Oh, well, they hosed the backup software on 
it anyway. It doesn't backup anything not in its "approved" list, 
including settings, databases for your browser and email, etc... Oh, 
and, just to be real jerks, they don't sell an upgrade that *does* work 
like the older version that did do all those things. WTF?

> I've also worked at companies where the servers were running Windows, 
> and they just never died unless the hardware did.
> 
> Indeed, the worst OS I've used is actually Solaris, where we had to 
> rearchitect a number of services to account for the bugs in the OS that
 
> would (for example) not reap processes spawned by cron such that even 
> kill -9 didn't stop them, or write file data over top of the inodes just
 
> because the disk got busy.
> 
Gah.. Ok, that is just nuts. Yeah, if someone can manage to fowl up 
something that is *usually* stable, they will find a way to do it.

> So I don't know what kind of professional experience you've had with 
> long-running Windows machines, but "drunken sailor on marbles" is far 
> from my experience.
> 
Oh, Windows 95 worked great, so did Win3.1, as long as I was careful 
what I let it patch over. XP has been good so far. 98... Lets not talk 
about it. lol

> > argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability
 
> > for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we
 
> > can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave?
 
> > Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
> > shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 
> 
> Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP
 
> by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?
> 
Because, its like having a goon sitting "inside" your house telling you 
what *you* are allowed to do sometimes, instead of standing "outside" 
the house, to protect you from the real problems. Sure, some people 
*need* the goon, since they are not too bright and will do dumb things. 
I get a bit annoyed trying to learn how to "not" do dumb things and 
having the goon tell me, "Yous sure you wanna do that?", all the time, 
even when I know that it will work. Its almost as bad, but less 
intrusive, than the stupid paperclip thing they had/have in certain 
applications.

>  > Or an
> > admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of
 
> > security. 
> 
> What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?
> 
Umm. People making your machine a zombie. They seemed to figure that no 
one has a legitimate reason to create certain types of arbitrary 
packets, so no one would mind if they limited what zombies could do, 
even though it also torpedoed things that used the same principle to 
work, and where legitimate products. Heh, its just one I ran into 
recently, not a huge issue, but its not the only thing I hear people 
griping about with how they did Vista's security model (and also partly 
XP).

> > Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
> > of control I *used to have* over my system. 
> 
> Like what?
> 
Mostly trying to fix things if they broke, or changing settings that 
even the admin user doesn't necessary have clear access to. I haven't 
run into it recently, since for the most part the case where you needed 
to do those things where ones where it was just easier to find some 
other way to solve the problem. I am not going to go into a list, since 
its been a while since I used either OS, and I don't remember half the 
annoying things I tried to adjust in them. (some there cases where you 
could only change the setting via regedit though).

> > XP, is kind of getting on my 
> > nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fe
d 
> > up at this point.
> 
> Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems
 
> it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
> to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."
> 
> The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
> MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
> confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
> great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
> something dangerous.
> 
lol Yeah. Though, at times I wish Sudo existed on Windows. Frankly, I am 
running, and shouldn't be, in a full access user, precisely because I 
know if I change to a protected one I am going to be spending way too 
much time arguing with the OS about what I am doing, or situations where 
a sudo would solve an issue real easy, but where only logging out and 
back in as admin would fix in Windows (and having to close down 
applications that I either don't want to, or can't afford to if they are 
doing something, like BeyondTV. Mind you, once in a while you get one of 
the system updates that the OS **incists** you reboot with, and you 
don't even realize it happened until the next morning when you find that 
a) the applications you had open are all closed and b) what ever you had 
it doing overnight never finished... There doesn't seem to be a "let me 
fracking reboot when "I" want to option. Instead it keeps popping up 
ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No 
frell you!!

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Umm. Actually, I was referring to Windows there,

I was too. I guess you never actually used DOS or something.

> True enough. One wonders why most of that stuff

What "stuff"??

> "while" playing the games that need that sound?

Don't even *start* talking about sound being poorly supported on Windows 
until you've made sound work on Unix.

> don't know a phone jack from a cat5e jack, some of this stuff is a pain 
> in the ass when they start messing with it.

I agree. Of course. I'm just disagreeing that this is unique to one 
operating system, or even that it's avoidable.

> would have to sell a kidney to be able to make changes to a product 
> written in something that they don't freely support. 

So, by "hard to support", you mean "commercial."  Come on, it's not 
*that* expensive.

> Yeah, yeah, I know the reason. It doesn't help my mood when I look at 
> the price tag. lol

Well, why are you even supporting Windows, then? It's a commercial 
product. If you want to work on stuff for free, there are excellent 
alternatives available.

> No, I mean that I was talking about core features, while you are talking 
> about a layer higher than that.

I'm not sure what you consider a "core" feature. Me, it's starting a 
program, reading and writing files, using internet connections, normal 
windows widgets like scrollbars and text entry, etc. I have zero problem 
moving my core programs between Windows and Linux with appropriate 
libraries underlying.

> bit more serious if the heart of your application is relying on some 
> core feature working, which doesn't work the same on the new OS, or come 
> close enough to patch over.

Well, yes.

> Point was, unless its hardware related (and that is a whole new can of 
> worms), *nix isn't likely to have too many of those, even between 
> different "versions".

I disagree. Where's /dev/mt?  Do you have /proc under Solaris?

And again, I point to autoconf as a trivial counterexample. Take a look 
at all the things autoconf can configure, and tell me which of those are 
hardware related, and which you're unlikely to need in a "core" application.

> Oh, Windows 95 worked great, so did Win3.1, as long as I was careful 
> what I let it patch over. XP has been good so far. 98... Lets not talk 
> about it. lol

Yeah, some of the older OSes could have problems if you installed 
crapware. If you didn't, no problem.

>>> argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability 
>>> for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we 
>>> can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave? 
>>> Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
>>> shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 
>> Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP 
>> by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?
>>
> Because, its like having a goon sitting "inside" your house telling you 
> what *you* are allowed to do sometimes, instead of standing "outside" 
> the house, to protect you from the real problems. 

The analogy police are on their way. You've been warned.

How does this differ from UNIX saying you're not allowed to delete 
something out of /bin for your own good?

> Sure, some people 
> *need* the goon, since they are not too bright and will do dumb things. 

I think it isn't that they aren't too bright. It's that they know 
nothing about how the computer works.

> I get a bit annoyed trying to learn how to "not" do dumb things and 
> having the goon tell me, "Yous sure you wanna do that?", all the time, 
> even when I know that it will work.

It's asking permission to elevate your privilege. If you're running as 
administrator, you're already doing something wrong, so complaining that 
you're being annoyed by the warnings is kind of silly, methinks.

>>  > Or an
>>> admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of 
>>> security. 
>> What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?
>>
> Umm. People making your machine a zombie. They seemed to figure that no 
> one has a legitimate reason to create certain types of arbitrary 
> packets, so no one would mind if they limited what zombies could do, 
> even though it also torpedoed things that used the same principle to 
> work, and where legitimate products. Heh, its just one I ran into 
> recently, not a huge issue, but its not the only thing I hear people 
> griping about with how they did Vista's security model (and also partly 
> XP).

I expect they actually have a different interface of some sort for 
creating those alternate packets, and people are griping that it 
changed, but that's just a guess.

>>> Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
>>> of control I *used to have* over my system. 
>> Like what?
>>
> Mostly trying to fix things if they broke, or changing settings that 
> even the admin user doesn't necessary have clear access to.

Sorry. "Admin user" in 95?  Impress me by explaining what you're talking 
about, given that Win95 is a single-user OS.

> annoying things I tried to adjust in them. (some there cases where you 
> could only change the setting via regedit though).

And UNIX is better at this, is it? ;-)

>>> XP, is kind of getting on my 
>>> nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed 
>>> up at this point.
>> Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems 
>> it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
>> to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."
>>
>> The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
>> MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
>> confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
>> great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
>> something dangerous.
>>
> lol Yeah. Though, at times I wish Sudo existed on Windows. 

Um, it does. It's called "runas".

> Frankly, I am 
> running, and shouldn't be, in a full access user, precisely because I 
> know if I change to a protected one I am going to be spending way too 
> much time arguing with the OS about what I am doing,

You'd be surprised, actually. I mean, unless you've got really old 
crappy software.

> or situations where 
> a sudo would solve an issue real easy, but where only logging out and 
> back in as admin would fix in Windows 

Why would you log out just to log in as administrator? Just lock the 
screen, and log in while the other user is still logged in.

> the system updates that the OS **incists** you reboot with,

Never had that happen. The worst I get is the little yellow shield in 
the corner saying "please let me know when I should install these patches."

> There doesn't seem to be a "let me fracking reboot when "I" want to option. 

Of course there is. Or do you think people have production servers all 
over the internet randomly rebooting on patch day?

Go to the control panel, under automatic updates. If you want it to 
reboot after installing patches, tell it when and on what day of the 
week in the drop-downs. Otherwise, set it to "download updates but let 
me pick when to install them."  Or "notify me but dont download them."

> Instead it keeps popping up 
> ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No 
> frell you!!

If you let it get to that point at all, you can stop it by (surprise) 
stopping the windows update service.

"Gee, this CD player keeps playing this CD over and over! It's driving 
me nuts!"
     "Did you try stopping the CD player?"
"Oh. No. Didn't think of that."

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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