60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten

Alien54 writes "Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten as the Company "scrambles" to fix internal problems, according to this report. In an effort to meet a deadline of the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas Microsoft has pulled programmers from the highly succesful Xbox team to help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media centre functionality inside the OS. Much more at the link."

Comments

Re:Please Don't Interpret this Incorrectly

[swillden]

Anyway, good luck with your zealotry and all that. I'll keep using what works *best*, and if that becomes linux, I'll happily join you in ridding my drive of its windows partition.

So, since Windows works better than Linux for you, anyone who says Linux works better than Windows for them is a zealot?

There are people for whom Linux is simply the better platform. Just because you're not one of them doesn't make them wrong. Actually, it's not clear that you've even done the due diligence to determine if it is a better platform for you. That's probably sensible; odds are that you wouldn't gain enough in productivity to offset the time you'd have to spend learning a new system. But don't assume that no one else has.

I got rid of my Windows partition in 2001 and have never felt a need to go back. I do have a Windows VM that I boot once a week because my employer has some Windows-only apps that haven't yet been made available for Linux. They're working on it, though, and I expect that last need to be gone by the end of the year. I'll keep the VM around, of course, just in case.

But seriously, what have you found for linux that is better than illustrator or photoshop?

Seriously, who needs "better" than Photoshop or Illustrator? I'll happily grant that the GIMP isn't as good as Photoshop, but it's adequate for my needs (and I do quite a lot with it). You must do a lot of graphics work to justify buying Photoshop -- wait... you *did* pay for it, right?

Have you ever tried to layout a technical paper using OpenOffice, including equations and figures?

Nope. I have tried it with Word, though, and that's one of the less pleasant episodes of my life. I notice you didn't say what Windows software you would recommend for the task. I'd recommend lyx, myself.

MATLAB and Mathematica both look like shit on linux

I don't know about MATLAB, but I've used Mathematica on Linux quite a bit, and I haven't seen any of the problems you claim.

Imagine how much less support the Mac would get if its paltry market share were further split between two competing desktop APIs.

I'm supposing this is a jab against the KDE/GNOME issue. It's a dumb one, though, because developers don't have to support both. I use KDE most of the time, and Fluxbox at other times, but I run a mix of KDE and GNOME apps without ever caring which was written with which APIs. At present, they look a little different, but not too much, and the differences are smaller than they were a couple years ago and larger than they will be a couple years from now. Really, it doesn't matter.

But in the real world what matters is applications.

And there are lots of them for Linux. A few of them are better than their Windows counterparts, most of them are almost as good and much, much cheaper, and most of them are vastly more flexible than their Windows counterparts. Especially if you are a developer, which I am. The really crappy thing about most Windows apps is that you only get what the provider of the software thinks you should get, and it's very rare that even that is scriptable or automatable in any convenient way. On Linux, most of the software is designed to be scriptable, and nearly all of it is available in source form, so I can make it work the way I want it to work.

Now, you probably don't care to modify or script your applications. That's fine. Windows works for you. Some of us have different needs.

Re:Please Don't Interpret this Incorrectly

[kelnos]

I was going to mod your original post overrated, but I think I'd rather just reply.

But seriously, what have you found for linux that is better than illustrator or photoshop? If you say GIMP or Inkscape I've already won.

Why? I use GIMP on both Linux, and, when I need to, the Windows laptop issued to me by my employer. I don't need the feature set of Photoshop. GIMP is more than adequate for my purposes, and has a much more attractive price tag.

Have you ever tried to layout a technical paper using OpenOffice, including equations and figures?

No, I haven't. That's not something I do. Just because you have a need for a specialised application on Windows, it doesn't mean the rest of us do.

I doubt it. Word sucks in so many ways, but it actually produces good output, and full-featured equation editors are available.

That may be the case, but every time I try to open a not-completely-trivial Word document with a different version of Word than that which created it, I have to reformat a significant portion of it.

You can cite LaTeX in the linux camp, but good luck doing high quality figures for it without a Windows box.

At least LaTeX output is predictable and consistent. And doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

MATLAB and Mathematica both look like shit on linux, with font (and sometimes keyboard) issues everywhere. In fact, nothing makes linux look worse than comparing software developed for both windows and linux.

I haven't used MATLAB or Mathematica since I was in college, and I'm much happier for it. I'd imagine a good number (maybe even a majority?) of Linux users don't have a need for them, don't care about the aesthetic issues, or only need casual/simple features, and so something like octave is sufficient.

I agree that technically linux is far superior. In theory, linux is great. But in the real world what matters is applications. Linux may have potential over Windows, but the reality is the mess of standards on linux makes it hard to develop for, and it diverts efforts into factions. Linux is a niche market with it's own niches. Imagine how much less support the Mac would get if its paltry market share were further split between two competing desktop APIs.

That's funny, because I can do my job and my fun by only using Linux. Granted, some things -- like talking to an Exchange server -- are much much much easier on Windows. Maybe it's more of a hassle to use Linux, and maybe, in some isolated instances, I'm not using the so-called "best" application for the job, but really, who cares? It works for me, and I'm happy with it. And it costs me significantly less than the Windows counterparts.

Anyway, good luck with your zealotry and all that. I'll keep using what works *best*, and if that becomes linux, I'll happily join you in ridding my drive of its windows partition.

Wow, after all that, you feel that you can call someone *else* a zealot? That's amazing, really.

You don't have to use the absolute #1 best application to get your job (or your fun) done. Sometimes using a mid-range application will do just as well, and sometimes better.

People have different taste, and different needs. You obviously do a good bit of scientific and mathematical computing. I do none, so your arguments and example applications are totally irrelevent to my situation. I'd imagine that's the case for many other people.

Try pulling your head out of your ass, and realise that not everyone has the same needs and wants as you.

For the record, to answer your original question, I have four computers at home. Three of them are Linux-only, and one of them is dual-boot Mac OS X and Linux. The Mac is just for fun, since I've never used the OS before, and I'm curious. Unfortunately, I'm forced to carry around a Windows XP laptop, and IT would kill me if I ditched Windows and put Linux on it. But I would if I could.