Yes. The article makes an incorrect assertion in the headline (GNOME needs a "recovery") and goes downhill from there.
GNOME is an open source project, folks. If you don't like where it's going, go work on a fork. Nobody cares about whiners thinking they are a valuable "user base".
The Java community is working around some of the design flaws in the language related to exceptions. As you probably know, RuntimeExceptions don't have to be declared or explicitly caught with try/catch, unless the developer wants to catch them. So I've seen tons of code in different open source libraries that wraps the core Java libraries with code that does try { doSomethingWithCoreJavaLibrary(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new RuntimeException(ex); }
It's actually a subject of a holy war between two camps in software design. The "conservatives", should I say, hold that exception types are an important part of an API, and checked exceptions should be exhaustively handled accordingly to their types, possibly by being rethrown as exceptions classified in a higher-level functional domain. Unfortunately, this approach is enforced as applies to the standard libraries, to great inconvenience of the "liberals".
A more balanced approach would have been to allow exception specifications in method signatures, but not to mandate the handling violations to be fatal: the compiler can still generate warnings, and the developers can decide how seriously do they want to treat them.
"Which thesis clearly explains why Boost has been used in approximately zero projects of consequence" FTFY
not to mention a dearth of creative ideas.
Just because one has a creative idea, doesn't mean it should be used in code serving real-world needs. Especially if the code in question is meant to be reusable in a shared library, with a stable ABI and all.
For the most part, handling a failed allocation (your "malloc() does't fail" argument unfortunately raises problems here...) is a matter of going, "Can't handle this. return ERROR." Then you have to naturally free up the partially allocated resource, if said exists; otherwise the logic to say, "Well that didn't work" is pretty straight forward (nothing allocated, just abort with an error and keep backing out until you get to the function that initiated the resource request anyway).
Right, so all this error handling adds something like 10-30% to the code size and correspondingly increases its complexity, and hence raises the potential for errors (adding new code always does this). And all this is completely useless in all but the most limited execution environments available today. It's no wonder that hardly anybody bothers about checking allocations in application code, outside of "embedded" systems that are equipped with something less than an ARM.
How is that not the case for _any_ modern language? Anyone write terrible code in any language. I've seen some Python that made me want to rip my eyeballs out (used tons of esoteric functionality... coupled with a design that made me question the person's sanity).
Coding guidelines are a good idea no matter the language. Keep everything consistent and make sure that the code remains maintainable into the future...
That's true, but I haven't seen guidelines for Python forbidding whole language features for being broken by design. With C++, it's a sad necessity.
It's a strange mindset to see run-time type information, available by standard in widespread languages such as Java and C#, as 'really crazy shit that you can do in C++'.
What, did you think the swap file made [ if ( ! (a = malloc(sizeof[int] * 1024))) return ENOMEM; ] unnecessary?
Swap itself didn't; virtual memory allocation techniques allowing overcommit did. It's practically useless to check the result of a malloc on a modern VM-equipped OS, except for very large buffers (where you typically also have an obvious failure path e.g. "screw it, this image is too big"). You program can get OOM-killed after all allocations have succeeded.
Even in environments with honest-to-god memory allocation, implementing proper OOM safety requires prohibitively thorough testing, where you need to simulate the failure of practically every memory allocation your program might have, and then have a way to ascertain that the failure handling is done correctly. If you want to bring up C++ exceptions as an easy solution, please be aware that each potential throw path also has to be tested individually; look for words "undefined behavior" in the C++ standard to understand why. And please, let's not discuss a hypothetical infallible C++ genius able to wrap everything into 100% correct RAII code; these do not exist in real life.
I too would have seen a move from C to C++ as progress...
in 1989.
It took me til about 1990 to realize that C++ was a fundamentally broken and overcomplicated attempt at an object oriented programming language. By attempting too much (OO + C backward compatibility) it achieved, to be kind, something other than safety and elegance.
Actually if it only had near-compatibility with C and OO, it would have been a very nice and useful language. But then things went south and they added too many overloadable operators, a nightmarish jumble of rules for typecasting/overload resolution, exceptions that can't be implemented properly in modern application software, but add a whole new dimension of concerns that the programmer should always be aware of... Then they topped it all off with hideously overcomplicated templates. The standard libraries mostly have crappy and/or misguided design: practically non-extensible, bloat-inducing iostream, the bloatware generation templates that used to be called STL, and so on.
So now, real-world projects that use C++ for the useful things it does provide have to maintain coding guidelines to avoid shooting themselves in the foot too often.
1: Windows doesn't sell on cheap phones. 2: Windows doesn't sell on expensive phones. 3: Microsoft does not profit.
I'm confused. We were talking about Nokia selling S40 on cheap phones, and Windows Phone on expensive phones, right? How did the goalposts move to WP throughout the whole price range and Microsoft's profits? BTW, Windows Phone does sell on (not too) expensive phones.
That's the whole point. You can see it aplenty on Slashdot these days, too: people uncritically swallow bite-sized factoids if these are accompanied with a hearty dose of emotionally charged rhetoric and/or carefully doctored graphs that play to readers' sympathies. It's considered good form to get up and running with an idea suggested in the first half-sentence of the title, forget about the details buried in the summary. Don't worry about the moderators: they don't read it, either.
One thing I can't understand though is why Nokia are even bothering with Series 40 at all when they could simply have used S60 (which is a proper smartphone OS) on these cheaper models.
Because S60 is a barely maintainable mountain of mostly crappy code? S40 is probably much easier to maintain and develop, because it did not have the "opportunity" to accrete frameworks upon frameworks of useless abstractions needed to work around somebody else's bad design.
At this point Windows phones are doomed no matter how good they are because the phone networks hate Microsoft with a passion. Microsoft now owns Skype which the networks see as robbing them of their birthright. Until that can be dealt with Windows phones will not be bundled with network deals
Err, what? There are operator-subsidized offers for Lumia phones on both sides of the pond. You don't think Nokia earns only $50 on each Lumia 900 sold by AT&T, do you? Operators seem to have no problem offering deals for iPhone and Android phones where Skype is available as an installable application, either.
and to this point they do not have enough features for people to want to buy them outright instead of on a plan.
You may need to look out beyond your geeky circle of friends. Maybe you'll see enough to stop making statements about people in general based on your limited experience. I remember people like you saying that iPhone "does not have enough features" back in 2007 and boasting the overwhelming market share of their then-favorite manufacturer, which ironically was Nokia.
It became a dead platform anyway once they bought Skype. Carriers hate Skype and now they hate Microsoft.
[Citation needed] If you mean to refer to Tomi Ahonen, don't: he basically lied about Elop's response on a shareholders' meeting.
Your whole premise is bogus, anyway. Carriers may hate Skype, but they can't get it out by now, because it's available on iOS and non-bastardized variants of Android.
So what's stupid? HD screens? I have to look at that screen everyday for the duration of my ownership of the phone and I want it to be a good one. And if you amortized the additional cost of the screen over the life of the contract it would be pennies a day. Of all the specs that you can't see that probably don't really matter that much, you bring up the one thing that makes a clear difference.
I can't see it. Literally. I have a good vision, but there's nothing that pops out on me as badly pixelated on 800x480 screens. Small fonts in the browser are sometimes difficult to see... because they are just rendered damn too small, physically. Use the zoom feature, your eyes will thank you for it whether you have a "stupid money" display or not.
It may never cross your mind, but there are people buying a phone that has everything to fulfill their current needs, that's it.
But that's a fallacy and a perfect example of your mind playing tricks on you. Human nature leads you to exaggerate the importance of the present over future utility. A phone can "fulfill your current needs" and still be a bad deal because you are stuck with the phone until your contract is up.
It's a fallacy to assume that I'm a prey of US mobile operators. I'm not tied to a contract, I can change my unsubsidised phone any day. If you buy into a two-year contract, you'd better make sure it has all you really need now, not expect it to gain utility because of somebody's unstated plans or the general feeling of "market momentum".
I doubt Nokia will be laughing all the way to the bank anytime soon but at any rate I don't care as that has nothing to do with what I was even talking about. And what do Nokia's apps have to do with wp7 losing dev support if wp8 takes off? You will have wp7 with minimal third party support and, oh yeah, some Nokia apps. yay
I will continue having such little things as free offline navigation in any part of the world I could expect to get to, public transport route finding, maps with Groupon deals, and Sports Tracker, all provided by Nokia. I actually feel well-stocked on the applications that I can make use of. Now personally, I would jump to WP8 if the new features such as the wallet are made useful enough in my country, but I don't see much loss in staying with WP7, at least for now.
Um, when many of those hundreds of millions of Gingerbread users bought their phone, it was the latest spec or very comparable. OEMs didn't really move to ICS en masse until very recently.
How is this different from people buying WP7 devices even though WP8 devices are already announced?
Something you need to keep in mind is while normal people might not know what "dual core" means or "1 GB RAM" or any of the specifics, most people have sense enough to recognize "faster" vs. "slower" and "bigger" vs "smaller" and "more" vs "less" and people respond to those things because it makes decisions easier. People love turning off their brains and when one number is higher than the other it "must" be better. The fact is most people don't have the patience for a more nuanced argument over a smartphone so rejecting the windows phone is an easy decision to make.
Are you saying that top-priced Android phones sell well not because of superior user experience, but because of specs overdriven to impress the people with stupid money to burn? There are a few more dimensions: "drains battery faster" and "crashes often" vs "no problems at all". Unfortunately, those can only be evaluated after some usage; for many people changing their smartphones, their experience with Android phones will make them look out for alternatives.
He's saying Nokia essentially stopped dead in its tracks with windows phone. The GP is talking about decades of Nokia building great hardware [that continually push the boundaries of what is possible].
Um, your reading between the lines of the GP is a bit too rosy. I don't remember Nokia ever creating anything exceptional, just many things that were damn good for their day. Like Lumia 900, for example.
They have been stuck with variations of the same windows phone specced shit since they delivered the first Lumia. And since "there is no plan B", they weren't about to just put Symbian or Meego on some real high spec stuff.
Right, because high specs is the only thing that sells, who needs software that doesn't make you furious while using it?
All the while the rest of the industry has moved forward with HD screens, dual-sim handsets, and with native coding and high performance GPUs the ability to play honest to goodness real 3D games.
I'll give you that: with Windows Phone, Nokia is not yet in a position to collect the stupid money spent on unnecessary things (dual SIM works fine on S40 at the price points where it really matters). It's getting there, though.
First of all, obviously they won't be getting the wp8 upgrade they'll have to make do with the window dressing wp7.8 shit sandwich. Do you think at&t is telling them that? Ha! Secondly, they are getting screwed because when windows phone 8 drops it has a lot of new features that developers have been asking for like native code. Native code on a phone is good for amongst others, 2 main things: 1) some code runs much faster in optimized native form rather than jitted managed code and 2) porting software from one platform to another. The next time you talk to one of your betters, ask to see his Android phone and install an app called Addons Detector. Run it and marvel at how many apps use the NDK for native code. Guess what? Many of those apps will be the ones getting ported to wp8. Practically none will ever see the light of day on wp7. So while your wp8 wielding peers are rocking out on Shadowgun and Deadspace, you will have to console yourself with yet another playthrough of Angry Birds (that is on your market right? Ha ha).
I hear an obnoxious spoiled kid who buys a phone to engage in dick-waving contests with his peers about who has the coolest lastest apps. It may never cross your mind, but there are people buying a phone that has everything to fulfill their current needs, that's it. But hey, doesn't it start bothering you that your Android phone is so five months old? It no longer has the greatest number of (PenTile) pixels per square nanometer, and lack of an octocore CPU will soon make you a social outcast. The aging GPU no longer delivers the best "instant gratification victim playing an immersive 3D game on a phone" experience. Time to upgrade?:-)
And if miracle of miracles wp8 actually takes off and gets a sizable number of users, guess what happens to wp7 dev support? Go bye bye.
Which will mean little to Nokia who will be laughing all the way to the bank counting money from new WP8 sales? Anyway, what various WP software vendors will do is still hypothetical. Nokia already has a sizable set of applications written for WP7, I guess not every one of them will need to lose backwards compatibility to the point that it cannot be maintained even as a trimmed down variant.
Ask the users of all the dirt-cheap Gingerbread phones that are pumping up Android sales statistics.
Oh this trolling again? You think you have an actual point with this?
I'll write it down here, too: not everybody needs to chase the absolutely latest and greatest device. Hundreds of millions of Android users to attest.
They lacked people with enough vision and sufficiently empowered to make something unique. Maemo/MeeGo sunk into a morass, Elop just delivered a coup de grace.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. The article makes an incorrect assertion in the headline (GNOME needs a "recovery") and goes downhill from there.
GNOME is an open source project, folks. If you don't like where it's going, go work on a fork. Nobody cares about whiners thinking they are a valuable "user base".
The Java community is working around some of the design flaws in the language related to exceptions. As you probably know, RuntimeExceptions don't have to be declared or explicitly caught with try/catch, unless the developer wants to catch them. So I've seen tons of code in different open source libraries that wraps the core Java libraries with code that does try { doSomethingWithCoreJavaLibrary(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new RuntimeException(ex); }
It's actually a subject of a holy war between two camps in software design. The "conservatives", should I say, hold that exception types are an important part of an API, and checked exceptions should be exhaustively handled accordingly to their types, possibly by being rethrown as exceptions classified in a higher-level functional domain. Unfortunately, this approach is enforced as applies to the standard libraries, to great inconvenience of the "liberals".
A more balanced approach would have been to allow exception specifications in method signatures, but not to mandate the handling violations to be fatal: the compiler can still generate warnings, and the developers can decide how seriously do they want to treat them.
You can't "don't use them", the C++ itself uses them.
Ah, but there's the ultimate exception-safety flag: -fno-exceptions
No std::bad_alloc, no other invisible shit, no problem.
The "potential for errors" typically comes from ... not putting in the correct code to handle exotic events.
There should be emphasis is on "correct". If your code for handling exotic events is not properly tested, it adds to the potential for errors.
"Which thesis clearly explains why Boost has been used in approximately zero projects of consequence"
FTFY
not to mention a dearth of creative ideas.
Just because one has a creative idea, doesn't mean it should be used in code serving real-world needs. Especially if the code in question is meant to be reusable in a shared library, with a stable ABI and all.
For the most part, handling a failed allocation (your "malloc() does't fail" argument unfortunately raises problems here...) is a matter of going, "Can't handle this. return ERROR." Then you have to naturally free up the partially allocated resource, if said exists; otherwise the logic to say, "Well that didn't work" is pretty straight forward (nothing allocated, just abort with an error and keep backing out until you get to the function that initiated the resource request anyway).
Right, so all this error handling adds something like 10-30% to the code size and correspondingly increases its complexity, and hence raises the potential for errors (adding new code always does this). And all this is completely useless in all but the most limited execution environments available today. It's no wonder that hardly anybody bothers about checking allocations in application code, outside of "embedded" systems that are equipped with something less than an ARM.
How is that not the case for _any_ modern language? Anyone write terrible code in any language. I've seen some Python that made me want to rip my eyeballs out (used tons of esoteric functionality... coupled with a design that made me question the person's sanity).
Coding guidelines are a good idea no matter the language. Keep everything consistent and make sure that the code remains maintainable into the future...
That's true, but I haven't seen guidelines for Python forbidding whole language features for being broken by design. With C++, it's a sad necessity.
It's a strange mindset to see run-time type information, available by standard in widespread languages such as Java and C#, as 'really crazy shit that you can do in C++'.
Because it can either work correctly, or be fast. Pick one.
I've gone the opposite direction. Moving more of my C++ code into C by using my own OOP system. Before you say "That's crazy talk",
I say "that's like GObject".
Works wonders, has dynamic typing and introspection, and it's even got a real high-level language these days.
Can't tell if troll... or stupid.
My bet is, a C++ programmer with some experience on real-world projects.
It's true: C++ exceptions are broken. Don't use them.
What, did you think the swap file made [ if ( ! (a = malloc(sizeof[int] * 1024))) return ENOMEM; ] unnecessary?
Swap itself didn't; virtual memory allocation techniques allowing overcommit did.
It's practically useless to check the result of a malloc on a modern VM-equipped OS, except for very large buffers (where you typically also have an obvious failure path e.g. "screw it, this image is too big"). You program can get OOM-killed after all allocations have succeeded.
Even in environments with honest-to-god memory allocation, implementing proper OOM safety requires prohibitively thorough testing, where you need to simulate the failure of practically every memory allocation your program might have, and then have a way to ascertain that the failure handling is done correctly. If you want to bring up C++ exceptions as an easy solution, please be aware that each potential throw path also has to be tested individually; look for words "undefined behavior" in the C++ standard to understand why. And please, let's not discuss a hypothetical infallible C++ genius able to wrap everything into 100% correct RAII code; these do not exist in real life.
Hah, Boost is a manifestation of all things that are wrong with C++.
I too would have seen a move from C to C++ as progress...
in 1989.
It took me til about 1990 to realize that C++ was a fundamentally broken and overcomplicated attempt at an object oriented programming language. By attempting too much (OO + C backward compatibility) it achieved, to be kind, something other than safety and elegance.
Actually if it only had near-compatibility with C and OO, it would have been a very nice and useful language. But then things went south and they added too many overloadable operators, a nightmarish jumble of rules for typecasting/overload resolution, exceptions that can't be implemented properly in modern application software, but add a whole new dimension of concerns that the programmer should always be aware of... Then they topped it all off with hideously overcomplicated templates. The standard libraries mostly have crappy and/or misguided design: practically non-extensible, bloat-inducing iostream, the bloatware generation templates that used to be called STL, and so on.
So now, real-world projects that use C++ for the useful things it does provide have to maintain coding guidelines to avoid shooting themselves in the foot too often.
Aye. Imagine, being able to shave microseconds off your fr0st p1sst response times...
1: Windows doesn't sell on cheap phones.
2: Windows doesn't sell on expensive phones.
3: Microsoft does not profit.
I'm confused. We were talking about Nokia selling S40 on cheap phones, and Windows Phone on expensive phones, right? How did the goalposts move to WP throughout the whole price range and Microsoft's profits?
BTW, Windows Phone does sell on (not too) expensive phones.
Harman is actually up to speed with touch interface development.
That's the whole point. You can see it aplenty on Slashdot these days, too: people uncritically swallow bite-sized factoids if these are accompanied with a hearty dose of emotionally charged rhetoric and/or carefully doctored graphs that play to readers' sympathies. It's considered good form to get up and running with an idea suggested in the first half-sentence of the title, forget about the details buried in the summary. Don't worry about the moderators: they don't read it, either.
One thing I can't understand though is why Nokia are even bothering with Series 40 at all when they could simply have used S60 (which is a proper smartphone OS) on these cheaper models.
Because S60 is a barely maintainable mountain of mostly crappy code? S40 is probably much easier to maintain and develop, because it did not have the "opportunity" to accrete frameworks upon frameworks of useless abstractions needed to work around somebody else's bad design.
Needless to say, these are outselling Lumia/Windows phones by a fat country mile.
Similarly, dirt-cheap Android phones outsell high-end Android models. Your point being?
At this point Windows phones are doomed no matter how good they are because the phone networks hate Microsoft with a passion. Microsoft now owns Skype which the networks see as robbing them of their birthright. Until that can be dealt with Windows phones will not be bundled with network deals
Err, what?
There are operator-subsidized offers for Lumia phones on both sides of the pond. You don't think Nokia earns only $50 on each Lumia 900 sold by AT&T, do you?
Operators seem to have no problem offering deals for iPhone and Android phones where Skype is available as an installable application, either.
and to this point they do not have enough features for people to want to buy them outright instead of on a plan.
You may need to look out beyond your geeky circle of friends. Maybe you'll see enough to stop making statements about people in general based on your limited experience. I remember people like you saying that iPhone "does not have enough features" back in 2007 and boasting the overwhelming market share of their then-favorite manufacturer, which ironically was Nokia.
It became a dead platform anyway once they bought Skype. Carriers hate Skype and now they hate Microsoft.
[Citation needed]
If you mean to refer to Tomi Ahonen, don't: he basically lied about Elop's response on a shareholders' meeting.
Your whole premise is bogus, anyway. Carriers may hate Skype, but they can't get it out by now, because it's available on iOS and non-bastardized variants of Android.
So what's stupid? HD screens? I have to look at that screen everyday for the duration of my ownership of the phone and I want it to be a good one. And if you amortized the additional cost of the screen over the life of the contract it would be pennies a day. Of all the specs that you can't see that probably don't really matter that much, you bring up the one thing that makes a clear difference.
I can't see it. Literally. I have a good vision, but there's nothing that pops out on me as badly pixelated on 800x480 screens. Small fonts in the browser are sometimes difficult to see... because they are just rendered damn too small, physically. Use the zoom feature, your eyes will thank you for it whether you have a "stupid money" display or not.
It may never cross your mind, but there are people buying a phone that has everything to fulfill their current needs, that's it.
But that's a fallacy and a perfect example of your mind playing tricks on you. Human nature leads you to exaggerate the importance of the present over future utility. A phone can "fulfill your current needs" and still be a bad deal because you are stuck with the phone until your contract is up.
It's a fallacy to assume that I'm a prey of US mobile operators. I'm not tied to a contract, I can change my unsubsidised phone any day. If you buy into a two-year contract, you'd better make sure it has all you really need now, not expect it to gain utility because of somebody's unstated plans or the general feeling of "market momentum".
I doubt Nokia will be laughing all the way to the bank anytime soon but at any rate I don't care as that has nothing to do with what I was even talking about. And what do Nokia's apps have to do with wp7 losing dev support if wp8 takes off? You will have wp7 with minimal third party support and, oh yeah, some Nokia apps. yay
I will continue having such little things as free offline navigation in any part of the world I could expect to get to, public transport route finding, maps with Groupon deals, and Sports Tracker, all provided by Nokia. I actually feel well-stocked on the applications that I can make use of. Now personally, I would jump to WP8 if the new features such as the wallet are made useful enough in my country, but I don't see much loss in staying with WP7, at least for now.
Um, when many of those hundreds of millions of Gingerbread users bought their phone, it was the latest spec or very comparable. OEMs didn't really move to ICS en masse until very recently.
How is this different from people buying WP7 devices even though WP8 devices are already announced?
Something you need to keep in mind is while normal people might not know what "dual core" means or "1 GB RAM" or any of the specifics, most people have sense enough to recognize "faster" vs. "slower" and "bigger" vs "smaller" and "more" vs "less" and people respond to those things because it makes decisions easier. People love turning off their brains and when one number is higher than the other it "must" be better. The fact is most people don't have the patience for a more nuanced argument over a smartphone so rejecting the windows phone is an easy decision to make.
Are you saying that top-priced Android phones sell well not because of superior user experience, but because of specs overdriven to impress the people with stupid money to burn? There are a few more dimensions: "drains battery faster" and "crashes often" vs "no problems at all". Unfortunately, those can only be evaluated after some usage; for many people changing their smartphones, their experience with Android phones will make them look out for alternatives.
He's saying Nokia essentially stopped dead in its tracks with windows phone. The GP is talking about decades of Nokia building great hardware [that continually push the boundaries of what is possible].
Um, your reading between the lines of the GP is a bit too rosy. I don't remember Nokia ever creating anything exceptional, just many things that were damn good for their day. Like Lumia 900, for example.
They have been stuck with variations of the same windows phone specced shit since they delivered the first Lumia. And since "there is no plan B", they weren't about to just put Symbian or Meego on some real high spec stuff.
Right, because high specs is the only thing that sells, who needs software that doesn't make you furious while using it?
All the while the rest of the industry has moved forward with HD screens, dual-sim handsets, and with native coding and high performance GPUs the ability to play honest to goodness real 3D games.
I'll give you that: with Windows Phone, Nokia is not yet in a position to collect the stupid money spent on unnecessary things (dual SIM works fine on S40 at the price points where it really matters). It's getting there, though.
First of all, obviously they won't be getting the wp8 upgrade they'll have to make do with the window dressing wp7.8 shit sandwich. Do you think at&t is telling them that? Ha! Secondly, they are getting screwed because when windows phone 8 drops it has a lot of new features that developers have been asking for like native code. Native code on a phone is good for amongst others, 2 main things: 1) some code runs much faster in optimized native form rather than jitted managed code and 2) porting software from one platform to another. The next time you talk to one of your betters, ask to see his Android phone and install an app called Addons Detector. Run it and marvel at how many apps use the NDK for native code. Guess what? Many of those apps will be the ones getting ported to wp8. Practically none will ever see the light of day on wp7. So while your wp8 wielding peers are rocking out on Shadowgun and Deadspace, you will have to console yourself with yet another playthrough of Angry Birds (that is on your market right? Ha ha).
I hear an obnoxious spoiled kid who buys a phone to engage in dick-waving contests with his peers about who has the coolest lastest apps. It may never cross your mind, but there are people buying a phone that has everything to fulfill their current needs, that's it. :-)
But hey, doesn't it start bothering you that your Android phone is so five months old? It no longer has the greatest number of (PenTile) pixels per square nanometer, and lack of an octocore CPU will soon make you a social outcast. The aging GPU no longer delivers the best "instant gratification victim playing an immersive 3D game on a phone" experience. Time to upgrade?
And if miracle of miracles wp8 actually takes off and gets a sizable number of users, guess what happens to wp7 dev support? Go bye bye.
Which will mean little to Nokia who will be laughing all the way to the bank counting money from new WP8 sales? Anyway, what various WP software vendors will do is still hypothetical. Nokia already has a sizable set of applications written for WP7, I guess not every one of them will need to lose backwards compatibility to the point that it cannot be maintained even as a trimmed down variant.
Ask the users of all the dirt-cheap Gingerbread phones that are pumping up Android sales statistics.
Oh this trolling again? You think you have an actual point with this?
I'll write it down here, too: not everybody needs to chase the absolutely latest and greatest device. Hundreds of millions of Android users to attest.
You're right (about Windows
They lacked people with enough vision and sufficiently empowered to make something unique. Maemo/MeeGo sunk into a morass, Elop just delivered a coup de grace.
Unfortunately for Gtk+, vanilla C is not good enough.
That's why we have both it and Vala.