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jrtom"How Microsoft Lost the API War"
It's not clear to me that the future is as clear-cut in this regard as Joel makes it out to be. But it's an interesting article.
It's not clear to me that the future is as clear-cut in this regard as Joel makes it out to be. But it's an interesting article.
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Date: 12 November 2004 11:00 (UTC)I think that Joel is reading MSDN too much and needs to talk to more people who still need to support legacy apps. And, for the record, I am looking very hard myself at the capabilities of the API and the enhancements going forward.
Incidentally, comparing upgrading to Longhorn from XP as being a less compelling upgrade than to Windows from DOS is, well, stupid. To paraphrase Pulp Fiction, it's not only not the same ballpark, it's not the same fucking sport. No, it's not the same, but there's a lot in there that will be very useful if they can make it work.
(no subject)
Date: 12 November 2004 11:15 (UTC)As for your comment about the support of legacy apps, and web development: well, two things. One is that I think that he was suggesting that a lot of *new* development was web-based; if your column was a few years back, I would guess that things might well have changed in the time since. The other is that he seems to be implying that a lot of the legacy apps simply won't work under Longhorn, because the Windows API that they were written to use won't exist any more. Which seems like an impressively stupid thing for MS to do, but that seems to be what he was claiming.
I've heard that Longhorn is supposed to have some interesting new stuff going on. However, if they keep trimming major parts of it out (like the new file system) in order to make their schedule, then I doubt that it will have as much of an impact as MS would like it to.
(no subject)
Date: 12 November 2004 11:29 (UTC)The thing is, some of it is Web-based, but there's also a ton you can do with the new interfaces. Avalon has some new stuff in it that ISVs are very interested in, but so far as I know is not alien enough to prevent today's apps from running. Yes, Web forms are cool, and, sadly, no one's doing much with them so far as I know. My query to readers of that column was about a year ago.
As for new things not working on Longhorn, too early to really tell, but that's not the plan as I understand it. For those apps that won't run (like the DOS apps that demand hardware access that NT OSes don't allow), we have VMs. An OS that will not support legacy apps is a dead OS, at least in the mainstream Windows world. A smaller market like Mac, selling largely to true believers, can maybe force the change better. Inertia in the Windows world is HUGE.
As for trimming, that worries me. A bunch of stuff was already supposed to be in R2 (interim release) and didn't make it. Then again, they could just implement all the stuff that was supposed to be cool about NTFS and never made easy to take advantage of, and they'd be better off.
Anyway... back to work. :)
(no subject)
Date: 12 November 2004 11:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12 November 2004 11:39 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12 November 2004 11:44 (UTC)It frustrates me mildly that I don't have as much time to put into replies as I'd like to. I skipped huge chunks because, well, this isn't work writing and I can't put that much effort into it.
For this reason, I occasionally post deep insights about what kind of tree I am. :P :)
(no subject)
Date: 12 November 2004 12:57 (UTC)I, on the other hand, can simply go for the cheap joke and assert that I am a Joshua tree. :)