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Why Vista Had To Be Rebuilt From Scratch
iliketrash writes "The Wall Street Journal has a long front-page article describing how Jim Allchin approached Bill Gates in July, 2004, with the news that then-Longhorn, now-Vista, was 'so complex that its writers would never be able to make it run properly.' Also, the article says, 'Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it together into one sprawling program. Now, Mr. Allchin argued, the jig was up. Microsoft needed to start over.' And start over they did. The article is astonishing for its frank comments from the principles, including Allchin and Gates, as well as for its description of Microsoft's cowboy spaghetti code culture."
Thank you for your insight Captain Makeshitup.
Don't be naive, this is nothing but a puffy feel-good marketing/PR release designed to make you think that the $$$ you'll be forking out for Vista is for more than just WinXP with a new look and feel and a tiny handful of new features. And to make you think that you're "on their right track" if you keep buying into Microsoft solutions. And to make investors think there is some sort of reform going on at MS. And clearly the marketing is working.
We heard the same lies when XP came out. Why do people have such short memories? Yet people really do think "new look and feel" = "rewrite". There is just no way MS will be rewriting any significant portion of it "from scratch".
Microsoft write quality code? I'll believe that when it's on my desktop and I'm using it and I can TELL that it's good. NOT two years before the time from reading one carefully crafted manipulative marketing press piece.