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The Longhorn Dream Reborn
gbjbaanb writes "Early this month, Microsoft dropped something of a bombshell on Windows developers: the new Windows 8 touch-friendly immersive style would use a developer platform not based on .NET. Cue howls of outrage from .NET developers everywhere, but here Ars Technica describes what's more likely to have been going on and why Microsoft is finally getting its act together for developers."
Film at 11.
Seriously, was it not expected at this point?
i love it when it's blatantly obvious you didn't read the article. i guess i shouldn't expect more from here though
Toss a few chairs and you'll get over it.
RTFA.
Windows developers want to be able to build immersive applications, and they don't want to have to use HTML5 and JavaScript to do it. They won't have to. ... Far from being left behind on the legacy desktop - which was the impression that many took from the presentation - native C++ and managed C# will both be first-class, supported ways of developing immersive, touch-first, tablet-friendly Windows 8-style applications.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Sure I did. It can be summarized, roughly, as "Microsoft won't abandon developers because, uh, they won't. And the reason they've said nothing about native and .NET development is... hmm. BUT THEY'LL PULL THROUGH!"
If anything, we should be surprised that anyone's surprised. Whether or not TFA's theory is true, one thing is absolutely clear: .NET, like any Microsoft technology, has an expiration date.
Anyone remember COM, VBX, and other MS-Windows technologies of yesteryear? Or the Visual Basic debacle of more recent vintage. For as long as I can remember, there's been a steady churn of Microsoft technologies, coming and going.
Microsoft makes a lot of money from selling its development tools, documentation, etc... to its developer base. Microsoft simply runs the whole show. They are in full control, and call all the shots. And they understand perfectly well that if they keep the same technology platform in place, over time, they lose a good chunk of their revenue stream. That's why they have to obsolete their technology platforms, time and time again. They need revenue. It makes perfect sense. If you are a Microsoft Windows developer, one of your primary job functions is to generate revenue to Microsoft. Perhaps not from you, directly; maybe from your company. Whoever pays the bills for Visual Studio, MSDN, and all the other development tools. Maybe it's not you, personally, but it's going to be someone, that's for sure.
So, perhaps this is the death knell for .NET. Perhaps not. If not this time, maybe next year. But it's inevitable. It's a certainty. If you are a .NET developer, your skills will be obsolete. If you were a COM developer, or a VB6 developer, your skills became obsolete a long time. I see no reason why .NET developers will escape the same fate. It's only a matter of time, but that's ok: all you have to do is invest some time and money to retrain yourself on the replacement Microsoft Windows technology, whatever it's going to be, when its time comes. But, it'll come.
Originally I came from a Unix background. Many, many moons ago I explored the possibility of boning up on the MS-Windows ways of doing things. But, after a bit of some exploratory peeks and pokes, this became painfully clear to me; that whatever I learned, all of it was going go to waste, in its due time. And that was pretty much the end of my venture into the Windows landscape.
Well, I'm happy to report that read(2), write(2), and all the other syscalls that make up POSIX, and its derivatives, still work the same as they did decades ago. Everything I have learned, as the sands of time have rolled on and on, I still put to good use today, and I make a pretty good living using them. Nothing has gone to waste. Honestly, this is more than I could say for my peers who practice their craft on MS-Windows. A lot -- not everything but a lot -- they learned decades ago is now completely and totally worthless to them, and to anyone else.
So, whether Windows 8 is Longhorn reborn, as TFA says, or not, one thing can be said for certain. .NET is dead. It's just a matter of time. Good luck learning its eventual replacement. Of course, you understand that it'll be dead too, some years after that, of course; just keep that in mind, as you make your long term plans.
They're not dropping Silverlight or .NET. Try to pay attention. Nobody with any sense ever thought they were going to, but the usual suspects took every opportunity to make a "Durr hurr, Microsoft screwing over developers" thing out of it when there was no indication whatsoever this would happen.
Nobody sane wants to develop large applications in fucking native JS and HTML5, and Microsoft knows that.
im somewhat of an audophile, and despite i have been using windows xp with extra software like srs audio sandbox (cryztalizes and clears sounds) and a good sound card (original x-fi x-treme music, from the production batch which got the good chips) with crystallizer and so on, on top of an altec lansing fx6021 speaker set (in-concert array microdrives totaling 12, crystal clear) for a long time,
i was dumbstruck with the audio quality pulseaudio + x-fi x-treme music + audacious media player with crystallizer plugin gave, when i switched to linux.
now im switching to linux every time i want to listen to music in high quality.
Read radical news here
You'll never find a shortage of people who will take anything they can to shout about how microsoft is screwing everyone (these days it's often done with Apple too). Seriously this is entirely based on the fact that they announced that the apps they showed were based on HTML5 and Javascript, yet from that you end up with morons shouting 'MS are killing silverlight and .Net!!!'.
Call me when they start talking about that again. The one thing Microsoft stringed me along for so many years... it'll be in the next version we promise!
You mean that rumor I heard about Steve Ballmer turning tricks in Bellingham are false?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, because they looked at Windows 8. And because anybody who's not, literally, mentally defective knows Microsoft isn't going to abandon .NET. You have to be a little smarter (say, 105 IQ) to know they're not going to abandon Silverlight, so I'll cut you a little slack there.
The idea is ridiculous. You seriously think people are going to write complex end user and enterprise apps in JS/HTML5? Seriously?
You mean that rumor I heard about Steve Ballmer turning tricks in Bellingham are false?
I wouldn't go that far ;)
The thing about talking about something so significant in highly abstract terms is you'll tend to imagine it doing precisely what *you* think the words mean and how you think a vision could be realized.
Then, when you actually get to touch it, you realize their vision either isn't the same as yours, or even if it matches what you had in your head, in practice it won't work out so well.
The ultimate end-user filesystem experience hasn't changed in years for good reason. Any generic approach is going to be fraught with too much work to bother. Sure, Music, Video, Document, etc applications could use the filesystem as a standardized way to store metadata instead of proprietary databases here and there, but much of the time a file containing data is a shared thing in a central place, with much of the pertinent metadata a user caring about specific to their view, making combining that data in the filesystem awkward. Notably some permament attributes (that should go with the file on transfer so it can't just exist outside the file) like title, release year, etc exist that are global in nature, but personal tags, ratings, bookmarks, etc just don't mesh.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Originally I came from a Unix background. Many, many moons ago I explored the possibility of boning up on the MS-Windows ways of doing things. But, after a bit of some exploratory peeks and pokes, this became painfully clear to me; that whatever I learned, all of it was going go to waste, in its due time. And that was pretty much the end of my venture into the Windows landscape.
I have to disagree, as anything learned is an advantage you can leverage in future learning.. Also, during the time that 'xyz tech' is in vogue, you are employed and making money from it.. that's not a waste in my book..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Unfortunately the article doesn't explain how they arrived at that conclusion other than it being their own opinion and possibly their own wish. That whole Longhorn WinFX finally coming to reality thing is another opinion piece. We heard many similar stories for Cairo many moons ago and that whole object oriented operating system rubbish around Windows 2000.
The way I see it is that MS is trying to push toward an easy interface for creating apps, while still leaving "legacy" languages functioning. It's a good sign really, there's a lot on the wind about where iOS will be headed. While Apple may not be able to beat MS at raw market penetration, iOS has shown that you can decimate market leaders by simplifying application development, delivery and accessibility. Look at Nokia, at one stage they almost owned the mobile market, now they have lost almost all their market power.
If MS can pull this off by streamlining mobile, tablet & desktop development I am betting we'll see a final clash of the titans between Apple and MS. At the moment it's just a bit of a dance around each other, will be a great fight to watch.
The article says windows is getting a new API, WinRT, which is a modern version of Win32. .NET and C++ development will both be updated for WinRT and have the same capability as each other so you can work in the environment you choose. Silverlight is supported, updated and renamed (codenamed?) Jupiter. Some other new things were added. In summary, .NET developers, you're getting new functionality. C++ developers, you're getting new functionality. Plus it will be easier than ever to go back and forth between the two because, underlying it all, is a new unified API.
It solves the architecture-compatibility issue easily enough, but there are serious limits in what currently exists as "HTML5 and Javascript" (lack of threads, performance, etc) that make this a potentially very bad decision.
What decision? They aren't 'moving developers' to this platform, all i've seen is that they have a new development platform - clearly not as technically capable as their multiple existing development platforms - based on HTML5 and Javascript.
+1 to this, some of the tards crying on linkedin was priceless
The whole idea is to confuse you, so that you won't jump ship, and the ______ that you use now will kinda sorta be ok, and hey, imagine stuff working from phones to tablets to notebooks to desktops, any of which could have a cool GPU to do stuff, and you can maybe sorta use your old code.
Got it? Great. Logon now. Please. Pretty Please. HTML5! Java! You're a FOSS guy, right? You like that Java stuff! We promise not to fork it! Not like that stuff that's in court facing a huge settlement with Oracle, right? C'mon, please???
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Early this month, Microsoft dropped something of a bombshell on Windows developers: the new Windows 8 touch-friendly immersive style would use a developer platform not based on .NET, which Microsoft has been championing for the past decade. Instead, it would use HTML5 and JavaScript.
But he doesn't believe the alarmist hype:
Windows developers want to be able to build immersive applications, and they don't want to have to use HTML5 and JavaScript to do it.
They won't have to. Want to write an immersive application in native C++? That's cool. Want to use C# and Silverlight? That's cool too. Both will be supported. Far from being left behind on the legacy desktop—which was the impression that many took from the presentation—native C++ and managed C# will both be first-class, supported ways of developing immersive, touch-first, tablet-friendly Windows 8-style applications.
(Feel free to write another, better summary. The one given is just completely inadequate for such a long article.)
Currently I am working in a software project that is cross platform with Mac and Windows. I alone do the WPF/.Net side of things, a few other guys work on the Cocoa side of things. I am getting really tired of hearing them complain that it is hard or even impossible to create a rich and custom UI experience on OS X because of the lousy tools and development platform Apple offers. The Mac product is full of bugs and is about a good month behind on parity, and this is with 2 guys working on. I am sure they are equally tired of hearing me tell my project manager that I have just finished whatever feature they dreamed up of using WPF and .Net. Bottom line is, there is something wrong with a person or developer that prefers constant headaches and lack of productivity over something that offers rapid development, quality code, and ability to develop a rich applications without limitations. I should mention there is a small team looking to port to Linux and they are so lost they are at least a year behind to even reach parity with the Windows version.
I know everybody hates Microsoft at Slashdot, but you don't know sh*t about f*ck when it comes to software development if you are bitching about how bad C# or .Net or WPF is for developing applications. Bottom line is I get paid to develop software for Windows, and I can do it quickly, easily, and have a lot of fun doing it, but if I had to use the OS X or Linux tools for developing software, I would probably shoot myself.
I'm kinda glad to see .NET go. It was a nice idea but like so many things Microsoft tries to invent, they just don't seem to carry on the way they imagine. Sure some things stick but those are usually the things they force on users, businesses and governments everywhere. But you know, I like my xboxes...
You know Java isn't related Javascript, right?
HTML5 plus JS can be a nice option for small stuff - gadgets, simple apps, etc. Lack of threading isn't very important - you can use asynchronous tasks, Ã la Web Workers. Sure it's less powerful, but more than enough for many tasks (and probably preferable if you don't really need threads).
The main concern is Trident's performance compared to V8 or TraceMonkey.
Dilbert RSS feed
The article is something that I have never seen before -- Microsoft fanfiction.
What creates an interesting problem -- since Microsoft fanfiction exists, according to the rule 34 there must be Microsoft slash fanfiction. But since there is only one instance of Microsoft fanfiction and it is not slash, someone on the Internet must write Microsoft slash fanfiction.
Go, Internet, go!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Yeah.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Came here hoping for something about Texas, left disappointed.
Enterprise, yes. Personal, maybe/probably not. Lemme answer for him since I work on "enterprise" applications.
In the enterprise, you have two options for deploying to hundreds of users: installing local apps on every workstation, or using Citrix (which is nice, but pretty flakey sometimes). Citrix is basically Windows Remote Desktop, but more tuned to the task. In fact, MS licensed the technology from them.
Anyhow, when you need to perform maintenance or upgrades, you have to touch hundreds of workstations. Yes, there are ways to do this more easily, but it's easier with Citrix. And it's most easy if you just have web server software to upgrade.
Now, none of this actually relates to Microsoft per se, but this is how large ISV enterprise-oriented companies are moving. Hope that helps!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
> No, because they looked at Windows 8.
Except that they didn't. They looked at a random build. Remember that Sagans of KLoCs were written for Longhorn and then abandoned. That wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. People wrote articles based on those leaked copies too, because they were intentionally leaked for just that purpose. It has always been thus, everyone else's shipping products are compared to what Microsoft says it will ship 'RSN.' Then it eventually ships and isn't anything like what was promised. Rinse and repeat every couple of years.
About all that can be stated with any certainty is that Windows 8 will probably ship sometime between 12 and 24 months from now and will add support for ARM and a tabletish touch interface. The tablets are a done deal because they would totally piss off OEMs who are already putting product into the pipeline that they would ship Android or Meego if Microsoft changed course on em.
Windows 7 is the only product that resembled the prerelease hype and that was because the goals were so minimal, Make a Windows Vista that doesn't suck donkey balls. Since they had eliminated most of the worst suckage by Vista SP1 (and people generally were buying it on new hardware instead of upgrading by then) about all that was left was to reskin it so people who had heard that "Vista Sucks" wouldn't look at 7 and instantly associate it with Vista.
Democrat delenda est
Keep in mind, MSDN licenses are annual subscriptions - so MS developers pay for the dev tools EVERY YEAR, and they keep on paying .......
So they're switching to Qt or GTK? Probably Qt but it doesn't really matter because they'll also provide wx so you can use the language of your choice and the UI details will be transparent. So what that means is dumping a bunch of legacy code and providing wx.net. Sounds good to me, I won't have to change a thing to remain cross-platform.
I work at a pretty large multi national manufacturing company that is primarily a windows shop but also has a pretty large Citrix user base. Citrix is primarily used by users on the shop floor that require basic functionality (although we have several custom applications that are run under Citrix). While I agree with you that maintenance can be very easy in a Citrix environment, the company I work at has a pretty good handle on how to leverage AD, GPO and Windows Update Server to ensure that all machines connected to the network are updated properly and are always configured properly. I don't work in the networking group but I think it's pretty impressive how simple it is to manage such a large number of Windows workstations pretty much 'hands off' if the domain servers (login scripts and GPO rules) are configured properly.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Microsoft is going to implement a new core set of APIs without shitting on the current developer base.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
This is all what Joel said in his blog about Fire and Motion. Every second you have to think about platform changes, you're wasting time that would be better spent building your product or even making it platform independent or even competing with MS - hey, you're both writing software. Windows developers are on a treadmill and think that's a normal condition. There are mature ways to write mostly platform independent code these days. This entire discussion is for people who are not using them - the rest honestly don't care and will not be wasting time thinking about it.
Anyhow, when you need to perform maintenance or upgrades, you have to touch hundreds of workstations. Yes, there are ways to do this more easily, but it's easier with Citrix. And it's most easy if you just have web server software to upgrade.
You can have both of the world with REST (no session logic on the server) and a framework that accepts plugin-updates (e.g. Eclipse framework).
I heard cases in which stock trading apps were crafted this way - can't respond fast enough in a simple page in browser (mainly because of the server overload), can't afford not to update them, can't imagine a way in which the deployment a new version can be achieved by "download the installer and run it" means.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
They are NOT dropping .Net ... Do you seriously think that MS is going to make people write enterprise applications and server processes in HTML and Javascript??? Why are so many people incapable of applying a little critical thinking after reading/hearing something? Here's a test: go try writing a service in html & javascript. Do it. Go now, I'll wait. K, how well did that work out? Still think they're dropping .Net?
The GUI will be based in html & Javascript ... which potentially means an end to winforms & WPF. POTENTIALLY. There's a lot more to .Net than GUIs.
On a side note, the sky is falling, and oh, WOLF!
...can't imagine a way in which the deployment a new version can be achieved by "download the installer and run it" means.
These people have a serious lack of imagination. You install the app once, via whatever mechanism you choose, then it "self-heals" by downloading updates and replacing itself on disk. It's not that hard, and (assuming you never screw up the upgrade process ;-) it works great.
They're always looking for new ones who don't know how the last ones got screwed.
what happened to "developers developers developers" ?
They moved into the "O-cloud-O cloud-O cloud"
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Maybe the response from .net developers is more rooted in the fact that a JS/HTML5 based application development language brings a whole lot more developers to the party with less of a learning curve.
You mean that rumor I heard about Steve Ballmer turning tricks in Bellingham are false?
Having visited Bellingham, all I can say is he'd fit right in
Wow, APK? You actually follow this guy around? You have *serious* mental health issues, mate and I say that with all sincerity. You have spent a good 10 years carrying on in the same way - abusing everyone online, shouting about your l33tness and generally just coming across like a tool. Have you truly never wondered why every single person you speak to online thinks you're an idiot? Is every single person on the planet wrong, except you?
Yeah.
i don't think you do.
You missed out on hta applications then... Ok Microsoft absolutely has tried to get people to develop application in HTML/vbscript/javascipt in the past/
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
they do. good luck finding such streams in the world of dynamic range boosted audio recordings.
there is no crystalizer support for x fi under linux, but audacious media player does that perfectly well (even better) with its crystalizer plugin.
Read radical news here
The difference is that Longhorn's projected API's were advanced API's built on existing languages, tools, and frameworks, whereas the JavaScript switch is an attempt to move developers to a totally different (and arguably inferior) system.
But this is not a radical switch to Javascript designed to eliminate all other development systems any more than when Microsoft used HTML and Javascript to implement the Windows Sidebar, or when they used HTML and Javascript to implement HTML Applications (HTAs), or when they used HTML and Javascript to implement Active Desktop gadgets.
This is just a continuation of their development strategy that dates back to 1997. The controversy surrounding the use of HTML5 for the interface is just stupid and unjustified angst that ignores nearly 15 years of API precedent.
Comparing posix read() and write() to the shifting sands of MS APIs is pretty silly. If you're going to make a comparison to Unix, at least compare apples to apples. So once upon a time I wrote code in C++ with Qt 1.0. Then Qt 2.0 came along, which was mostly compatible, but introduced new features. Then Qt 3, then Qt 4. Some things were deprecated, some things added. Developers had to adapt. Same with Gtk+ 1 to Gtk+ 2. That was a pretty painful leap for developers with several important (but understandably obsolete) widgets were deprecated. A few vertical apps out there probably never have moved from Gtk+ 1.
Anyway the point is things on Unix, as nice as they are, are not static, or even stable. The real world APIs that are necessary for developing real applications are in constant flux, and many fade away (like Motif). New languages come along that get popular for a time, like Python. Will we be using python in 10 years? hopefully. But maybe something else will come along.
So is learning python and it's current standard library of APIs, and the various current GUI apis a waste of time? I mean if the Gtk+ developers are going to pull the rug out from under me every couple of years, what's the point, right?
Can you show us any work you've done in .NET? Somehow I don't think you can. That'd make you a bullshitter.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261720&cid=36545928 Did something you did (like run after having your behind handed to you 10 times in a row, lol, upset you? You did that to yourself).
Hundreds of users? Lol. No, I'm talking thousands. You develop web apps. You use a Java or .NET backend, and something like JSF, ASP.NET, MVC, or Silverlight for the front-end. Unless you're a glutton for punishment you don't write a lot of raw HTML/Javascript, though Jquery seems to have its place.
So your argument is that Microsoft intentionally periodically obsoletes languages in order to make money? Am I reading this correctly?
You do understand that:
Pretty much every commercial MS developer already has an MSDN license, which (minimally) gives them access to the latest development languages, SDKs, and tools.
You do understand that:
MSDN licenses cost a lot of money. Were it not for the constant churn, developers wouldn't need MSDN subscriptions, and could save a a lot of money.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
OP made it sound like you doubt the transition to web apps. Apparently I'm arguing for nothing. Good night!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
No, seriously. You've been making comments like this for at least 10 years. Dodging the issue and just plain being a nutcase. No one is talking about whether or not you "won" some round. You've never whipped anyone like a dog. for TEN YEARS every single forum you show up on has people saying "go away, you're an idiot" and you STILL maintain you're some sort of God.
Time to grow up. No one likes you. Stop acting like a tool and start actually reading the feedback you get EVERYWHERE and you might have a hope of understanding what you've become.
And no, I am not Erroneus.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261720&cid=36545928 Is it because you trolled someone http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=36521452 and they shot you down on every so called point you tried to make and they did it with documented facts anyone could see? I saw you run like a whipped dog 10 times there in fact, and for your starting trouble with others you threaten to blackmail? Very intelligent (not).
The reason to move to a js based system should be quite obvious. The only reason winodws is still the most used Desktop Os is because of the ton of applications which were developed over time. If all of these worked on linux, who knows if windows would be that widespread as it is now. Anyway, the reason i can imagine ms pushes a js system is to ensure crossplatformness in their apps. Windows 8 will be the first time they will support a different architecture on windows (arm). It will be easier to ensure a unified look and feel (as well as compatibility) if the thing is written in js. Suffice to say, you would have to be mad to develop anything big with js as your main language.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261720&cid=36545928 Is it because you trolled someone http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=36521452 and they shot you down on every so called point you tried to make and they did it with documented facts anyone could see? I saw you run like a whipped dog 10 times there in fact, and for your starting trouble with others you threaten to blackmail? Very intelligent (not).
ROTFLMAO - sure you're not erroneus
And no, I am not Erroneus.by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23, @11:56PM (#36551186)
Are you going to blackmail me too?
It's the blackmailer erroneus posting as ac now. How clever!
http://slashdot.org/submission/1671410/erroneus-makes-blackmail-threat-on-slashdot
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=36521452
Erroneus you blackmail & others have mental issues?
This is basically the problem the One-Click is designed to solve. It deploys apps by web and is very easy to use.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
The last time they promised that, Vista.
I have a little difficulty believing that Microsoft, a company that has - since the inception of Windows - sacrificed functionality, security and stability for the sake of backwards compatibility is now all of a sudden forcing developers to switch to an entirely new language and development model.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Nobody sane wants to develop large applications in fucking native JS and HTML5, and Microsoft knows that.
If they can make them fast enough and add a layer of XUL like markup, I don't see any problems ...
I really don't see what the fuss is about. Microsoft aren't going to shitcan .NET or COM any time soon unless they want to break every app in existence. However their imperative is probably to give tablet based devices, especially those running ARM the best chance possible and that means facilitating development which is not tied to the old Win32 API or native instructions. And that means providing an API for developers to use to do it. It would be nice to know how they expect native C++ apps to migrate though - seems like Windows 8 would be screaming for a LLVM like solution where a single binary could target multiple architectures without especially caring what architecture it was running on for the most part.
Yep it seems like yet again MSFT is ripping off Apple, even the bad parts. I don't know which is worse, MSFT screwing their developers with "me too! Web 3.0 bling bling yee haw" bullshit, or Apple boning the creative industry by putting out an upgraded iMovie and calling it Final Cut Pro while yanking the rug out by refusing to sell new licenses to the previous version.
And just to show some love and keep them from feeling left out this would be a GREAT time for Linux to offer people a "third way" since both Apple and MSFT are burning their hardcore markets to chase the retarded consumer market, but sadly they won't pull their heads out of their collective asses, send Torvalds off on an ice flow or whatever it is you do with a Finn that is past his prime, and finally join the rest of the planet in the 21st century by having a stable ABI like EVERYONE else (Solaris, BSD, OSX, Windows, OS/2) has had for fricking ages so that "update foo broke my driver" could finally be laid to rest and updating wouldn't be a "break Linux NOW" button.
Sometimes I swear it is like the whole world just decides to become ca ca flinging monkeys every so often, just for shits and giggles. How two of the biggest companies could be so fricking stupid and burn so many of the ones that make them money is beyond me, nor can I understand why everyone thinks having drivers shit themselves and die when you update the thing is a good idea in Linux. It is like when Alice says in Wonderland "But I don't want to go around any mad people!" and the cat says "Sorry but we're all mad here dear" as it seems like the whole tech world is off its nut ATM.
The only saving grace for us Windows users is that Windows 7 is supported until 2020, which hopefully by that time Ballmer will be given a mock turtleneck and a pink slip and we can get the office guys to make Windows 9 a decent OS. Of course by then maybe Torvalds will retire and with him his religious hatred of having an ABI, that or Google will just fork the thing away from him and we'll all be using Android/Chrome/whatever they call it this week on everything mobile so it won't matter anyway.
Oh one last thing, don't bother posting that link to the one kernel dev that rails against ABIs as I don't listen to religious nutjobs, and that is EXACTLY what he is. If you bother to read that post he goes so far as to call all like Nvidia who don't hand every scrap of driver code to the devs so that may bless it with their divine hand "leeches" and hopes that Torvalds trashes their driver the next time he goes Goatse on the kernel. Say what you want about MSFT, but my Win2K drivers work in XP SP3, that is 14 YEARS of driver support, and I have no doubt I'll see the same with Vista/7 drivers. In fact I'm using 5 year old Vista cap card drivers in Win 7 SP1, that is 5 years of support. Man if I could get that many years of driver support in Linux my shelves would be full of Linux machines right now.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I don't post anonymous coward. And it is not blackmail. It's a simple fact. If you don't think that human resources and other decision makers don't google your name before deciding to give you money for your work, you must have missed quite a few stories on the subject of this thing call "the internet" and the things like "social networks." And when you google yourself, you get a lot of things about APK and Alexander Peter Kowalski.
Slashdot and other forums are public and indexed extensively. With every single additional taunt, assault and claim of triumph you make, you are adding to the pile of crap for anyone to find. It was a single search on google which caught me up on your long history of this impressive behavior.
I don't expect you to read this and suddenly realize what you have done to yourself. You have demonstrated the inability to see anything resembling reality for a very long time. But I am always open to surprises. So if you decide to suddenly get sane, I'll be very surprised.
I can't help thinking that sponsoring a node.js port to Windows is part of the solution. It's V8 and has threading, if they can hook it into IE for the rendering it might make for a decent platform.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Microsoft has an established history of pushing things like this and then dropping them after creating a new bandwagon for everyone to jump on. If they let their stuff go stale, the competition will pass them by and push them from their own playground. And so what do they do? They create new product cycles just like hundreds of other businesses out there do. And it's not just developer tools, it's Windows and their Office suites too. They do everything they can to create new sales. Back in 2007, Microsoft realized they could double their sales for licensing Windows by making their volume license agreements "upgrade only" meaning before you can use it, you had to have a qualifying product which would be either OEM or retail Windows. (Ok, Mac OS is also a qualifying product I hear...) So practically speaking, you now have to buy Windows twice if you wish to use it in an enterprise setting. And in 2007, they saw a spike in sales... go figure!
So when you apply critical thinking as well as Microsoft's history, you will see how it works quite clearly. So even if they aren't dropping it immediately, it will definitely go away in favor of something else. And at the moment, this push for HTML5 and related things has Microsoft pretty busily working in that direction.
I guess like monitor tosser Steve they do notlike developers as well.
Well ain't that cute...
I don't listen to religious nutjobs
That's ok, no one listens to you either.
Say what you want about MSFT, but my Win2K drivers work in XP SP3, that is 14 YEARS of driver support
... huh? XP and 2k were released a little more than 14 months from each other. I still have a working HP Vectra N2, does that count as 22 years of Linux driver support?
No employer's going to hire you for blackmailing people on forums with threats like this http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261720&cid=36545928
yeah, but C# is. I guess that 'promise not to fork it'' line already got broken :)
Nobody sane wants to develop large applications in fucking native JS and HTML5
this is the bit I don't get. Nobody woudl write any system in HTML5+js. It would be the presentation layer only, and be accessed via nice, easy-to-use APIs that bring the barrier of GUI development down. The meat of the app would be written in C++ or C#.
The only reason I can think of that people think that HTML+js is the language to use for the entire system is because that's the way they code everything else - traditional Windows developers in other words, who create huge, bloated, monolithic desktop apps. the kind of guys who'd write everything in VB rather than write the GUI in one system and the rest of the business-layer code in another, more suitable one.
Microsoft knows people want much easier GUI development systems, that non-developers can write. So far that's HTML5+js, and perhaps that's what's scaring the .NET devs - they see their 'tech expert' position being undermined as it is opened up and made easier.
Why not? Most "large applications" simply have lots and lots and lots of features. They are not processor-intensive; the code paths aren't long, but there are a lot of them. You'd think that a high-level managed language coupled with a layout engine would be exactly the right tool for writing them.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I think the server processes will be in HTML and Javascript, and the frontend GUI will be done in SQL.
If you actually read the article, you will see that .NET isn't being dropped.
It is proposed that there will be three ways to develop, first with the native C++ using and updated form of the Win32 API, .NET development, with some access to this variation on Win32 and a combination of HTML5 and Javascript. Nowhere does it say that .NET is being dropped.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You are ignoring the fact that the Win32 API started life in the early nineties (Win32s and Windows NT 3.x), and has been maintained and updated ever since. And Win32 itself is just an extension of Win16, dating back to at least Windows 3.0 (I don't know whether the API for 1.x and 2.x were the same). The products are updated and support is dropped. The development environments, not so much. Witness the continued support for Windows XP, the extended support FoxPro and the like. Microsoft provides support for well over a decade, if such is mandated by its customers.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261720&cid=36545928 Is it because you trolled someone http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=36521452 and they shot you down on every so called point you tried to make and they did it with documented facts anyone could see? I saw you run like a whipped dog 10 times there in fact, and for your starting trouble with others you threaten to blackmail? Very intelligent (not).
I see they are the #1 most used computing platform on earth. If they do what you said erroneus, it must be a formula for success then. Argue with the numbers and reality.
See subject above, small edit/correction for clarity/accuracy.
Java is related Javascript, as much related is.
Carol vs. Ghost
Of getting his ass kicked about Microsoft when he rants vs. they:
E.G. #1: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1681772&cid=32556164
On Windows Server & SQLServer Uptime ( @ NASDAQ 24x7 too, with Windows working as the "official trade data dissemination system" where it's been up, solid, 24x7 for YEARS now (almost a decade via clustering))
(Which ErroneOus couldn't disprove!)
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E.G. #2 - http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1681772&cid=32525656
On Windows 7 having less known unpatched bugs than Linux kernel 2.6x AND, your inability to show workarounds as apk had, for Windows 7 2 bugs @ that time no less vs. more in Linux again, kernel only, NOT AN ENTIRE DISTRO EVEN (vs. Windows 7, a complete OS 'distro').
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I wouldn't use history were I you, erroneOus, yours in your rants about Microsoft don't look very successful up there...
Does it still get UPDATES, you know, those things Linux users are afraid to implement for fear Linus' latest Goatse on the kernel will cause their installation to fall like a house of cards? if so then it counts but I doubt it.
Meanwhile you get on average a DECADE of updates with Windows, which means the machine will be practically ancient before you go out of support which in a dead economy is a GOOD thing people!
The sad part is I'm looking at 4 1.4GHz PCs that would be just perfect for Linux, yet I'm gonna have to use the XP Home key on the sides and reinstall Windows even though it will be slow as shit with just 1.4GHz of CPU and 512Mb of SDRAM, why?
Because in this age of zero days having an unpatched OS is frankly insane, yet that is EXACTLY what I was told to do, time and time again, even here on /. if I want to run Linux on them, why? Because unless you are a geek and have time to waste on "forum hunts" Linux distros (So far I've tried Ubuntu, PCLOS, and Mepis, the results are the same) will shit themselves when you update them!
There is NO easy way that I've found to apply JUST the security updates, and since third party software is often tied to which kernel you run LTS is a codeword for "really old outdated software" that may/may not have exploits out.
Don't you just find it damned sad, doesn't it bother anyone here, just a little, that there is NO reason why Linux couldn't be on these PCs and on store shelves on nice new boxes, if it weren't for the incredible ego of just one man? In 1993 Torlvalds decided he don't like ABIs, since he couldn't just take a dump on the kernel structure if there was an ABI since he would totally break it. This was in 1993, times were different then, and maybe the memory saved was worth it. BUT IT AIN'T 1993 ANYMORE!
IS there anyone, anyone at all, that truly believes that Torvalds is smarter than the ENTIRE computer industry? Because everyone, and I do mean everyone, has an ABI EXCEPT Linux. OSX, BSD, Solaris, Windows, OS/2, and you know what they have in common? They can apply updates without drivers shitting themselves! Now I have had people here tell me with a straight face I should tell Joe average to learn to do forum hunts, or even learn to recompile fricking drivers, but you know what? he shouldn't have to!
Call me crazy but I still hope that one day I'll be able to walk into Walmart and see Linux laptops right next to Windows, and buying devices will be as simple as "look for the penguin on the box". it COULD be that way you know, if it weren't for a single douchebag, one single asshole holding back the entire ecosystem...Linus Torvalds. So maybe one day we'll get lucky and he'll retire, after which an ABI will quietly be added and people will go "Wow, everything just works!" and shelves will have Linux and all will be good. But as long as pouring a bunch of Bash commands after a multi-hour forum hunt is still considered an acceptable way to deal with drivers? Well that day will never come.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Am I ignoring it? Can you really run things written for Windows NT 3.5 on a Windows 2008 box? Perhaps some, but I'll bet the apps written for NT 3.5 will refuse to run on 2008 and if they did run, it wouldn't likely run well or 100%. Likewise, apps written for a 2008 environment isn't likely to work for NT 3.5. There is certainly a progression, but what you confuse as being a stable and consistent platform, I see as a developing and changing migration path... migration path... hrm... sounds familiar. I think I heard some Microsoft people describe upgrading from one version of Windows to the next as just that. They encourage and eventually require moving to new versions of Windows just as they do everything else.
In any case, you can't seriously be suggesting that the Win32 of the 1990s is 100% compatible with the Win32 of today can you? I know Microsoft does maintain a lot of backward compatible code in their kernels but it is my understanding that they have rightfully been cleaning a lot of that out which has resulted in faster and more efficient kernels. And besides that, it's more than the core kernel API we are talking about... in fact, that's what this discussion is about -- Microsoft dropping an API for which developers have been trained and encouraged to write.
So let's ask some true or false questions:
1. Microsoft pushed a programming technology only to have it discontinued later.
2. Microsoft's business model is about selling the same "new thing" with changes and updates to the same customers repeatedly.
3. Microsoft discourages the use of older products in favor of their newer products.
4. VB6 still encouraged and supported for developing applications for current generations of Windows.
5. Microsoft has supported and encouraged 64bit computing while refusing to support a 64bit version of Silverlight.
(Yes, I know Microsoft has recently changed this position, but what does that say about their commitment history with regards to silverlight?)
this is the bit I don't get. Nobody would write any system in HTML5+js. It would be the presentation layer only, and be accessed via nice, easy-to-use APIs that bring the barrier of GUI development down. The meat of the app would be written in C++ or C#.
For apps that have very little meat you can. There seem to be a lot of apps like this in business(glorified spreadsheets and specialized calculators).
I'm always amazed by how many companies don't leverage these free (included w/ windows) tools. And pay someone to run around like a chicken with their head cut off, fixing symptoms here and there.
Cheap storage VM.
I have tried Ubuntu, but none of the others you mentioned. I switched to OpenSUSE because they have the best hardware support. For an old machine like that you should look at Linux mint xfce edition, or possbily something like puppy linux, run it off a CD to test.
Cheap storage VM.
Which U ran from in subsequent posts beneath yours here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=36521452
As well as your blackmail threat here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261720&cid=36545928
are both libel and blackmail. Threats to someone's employment possibilities definitely is. No questions asked. Defamation of character as well.
Then, since it's false, it is blackmail AND libel.
(And, that 2nd link is a clear threat to someone, no questions asked).
You started it, and you can't handle it and try BLACKMAIL?
Clue/new NEWS/NewsFlash: Attempted threats to people regarding their livelyhood IS BLACKMAIL!
You are a very foolish person!
(You start trouble, & you choose to troll others and lie about them as well as try to blackmail them after you had every falsehood you post about others disproven (and you could not argue vs. documented proofs in links which you ran from)).
No shit. For fucks sake, how hard is it to make a stable driver interface? We've invented pretty much every stream and message-driven class of hardware imaginable...
No, it's the damn architecture wonks who want purity of essence. If the GCC and libc guys can get it straight, why not the kernel devs?
The problem is NOT getting it to work initially, that part is fine. Sure I often have to "tweak" or play forum hunts but you know what? I've been building PCs since the early 90s so that isn't a problem FOR ME.
What IS a problem, and which makes me want to fly all the way to Finland to shake that little twerp Linus until he makes sounds like the Swedish chef, is that I can't give Linux to a customer because my choices are 1.-Disable ALL updates and hope they NEVER need any software that I didn't already install (because many apps are tied to which kernel you are using) and worse leave them with outdated flash and hope some zero day doesn't bite them in the ass, or 2.- take a fricking bath on the machine as I will have to provide lifetime support as the first time they allow it to update it WILL shit itself and die with regards to at LEAST one driver if not more.
Now that is just completely unacceptable. I have Windows boxes in the field for over 8 years now, fully patched, with NO problems (because honestly keeping a Windows box clean only takes a teeny amount of common sense which isn't hard for me to teach) and which will continue to run right up to the XP EOL.
Now so far I've tried Ubuntu (both regular AND Mint) PCLinuxOS, and Simply Mepis and ALL OF THEM have yet to survive a single update with 100% working hardware. Not a single one. it is ALWAYS something, sound, graphics, wireless, NIC, it is always something. What am I supposed to tell my customers? Tough shit I hope you don't need sound? You better learn the make/model/rev of EVERY piece of hardware in this box and become a wizard at forum hunts and tweaking bash commands? Tell them to learn to rebuild and recompile drivers? I expect a machine to last at LEAST 7 years, so if OpenSUSE has good support try this: download the version from 7 years ago (or the oldest version there is, whichever is newer) and then try to update it to current. i bet at least one if not several drivers WILL break!
The problem with the community is this: Linux is built BY geeks FOR geeks and geeks think anything that is easy FOR THEM must be easy for everyone else, and honestly nothing could be further from the truth. Hell my clueless dad installed Windows 7 when he got impatient and wouldn't wait for me to come do it. Know how many things were broken? NONE. Zip zero zilch nada squat. hell it downloaded all the drivers, did all the work, even pointed him to a free AV at first boot. The only thing I had to do was show him how to get Firefox and later how to get Comodo Dragon. that's it.
And THAT my friend is what Linux is competing against. Folks aren't gonna go from 'clicky clicky" to learning bash, or memorizing hardware lists, and they sure as hell aren't gonna learn how to rebuild drivers! No my friend the problem isn't the initial install, it is the fact that in a year or less when the latest updates roll around the machine will either be an unpatched zombie waiting to get pwned or it will shit itself and die. And it takes just three hours of my time for the cost of a forum hunt to be greater than the cost of a Windows license, and that is of course if there is even a fix out there! Some things I've seen not get fixed for weeks, weeks I tell you!
So I'm glad it works for you, I'm glad you are able to waste time with forum hunts and fixing broken drivers, or have the brass balls to run all over the net with a badly out of date pile of software. But I deal with normal folks 6 days a week, the average Joe that you see in line at the bank. And he isn't gonna jump through those hoops or take CS courses just to run Linux. When I can take Linux OS 12 and update it to Linux OS 13 and NOT have a single broken driver? Then and ONLY then will it be ready for my customers. But sadly as long as Linus is there to Goatse the kernel I doubt that day will ever come, sorry.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
for all apps, I worked at a company (a few years back) that embraced the HTA technology MS touted. That was basically web client to back-end processes. It was sold for millions to banks and mortgage brokers and the like, and was scalable and fast. You can't describe it as a 'little meat' product.
I think the most likely candidates not to use this approach are the tiny ones where the overhead in developing a gui and a back-end process shows up, for all others its not a problem.
Actually many (most?) applications written for NT 3.5 will still run on Windows 7. Some set of applications need to have compatibility shims added (most of which come with the OS) but yes, they'll still run.
There's certainly a set of applications written for NT 3.5 that won't work on Win7. But that set is vanishingly small.
Every distribution you list is based on debian or worse (ubuntu). I have OpenSUSE machines that have run for 5 years with no problems, I update them and they work. My time is also pretty valuable, and not only my paid time. I have 3 children under the age of 9 on Linux, plus my wife. It just works for them and they don't get viruses. Any problems I have ever encountered ar during the initial build. Once it works, it works.
Ubunti is know for screwing things up with updates. There are plenty of more conservative distributions. OpenSUSE and Fedora are more cutting edge, but OpenSUSE provides a reasonable support timeframe for their releases. Puppy linux is a great one for long term support of older hardware.
Cheap storage VM.