Did you try setting the Windows Explorer options to show hidden folders? I assume you'd have a similar option on Mac (without it, what is the meaning of a "hidden" folder, anyway)?
A browser isn't really an application -- it is used all over the O/S to do everything from implementing dialog boxes to rendering rich text to providing the code to traverse XML.
When the o/s itself needs to parse, render, and interpret HTML (or XML, or protocols like HTTP and FTP) as part of its own basic operations, and also makes these services available to other applications through consistent, well-defined interfaces, is this really an "application"? I don't think so.
Windows also includes an Rich Text Format edit control -- WordPad is basically an MFC app wrapped around this RTF edit-control, and as such it's a sort of lame, but not too lame, word processor. This RTF editor is available for me to include in my own apps where appropriate. It's a real "system service" (to harken back to my days as a VMS programmer).
I think MS is right to say a browser -- and a set of HTTP services, and a set of XML services, and a set of file system services and a set of graphics primitives -- are all, in 2002, integral parts of any O/S.
If other O/S's don't integrate this functionality in very well, or don't expose it through a common set of interfaces, that's their problem, not Microsoft's. Does Mac OS/X include browsing components at the core OS level? Did BeOS? Does Linux?
Ok, what about HTTP protocol handling? Ok, what about sockets? Ok, what about TCP/IP? Raw IP? File systems? Where do you draw the line, and doesn't that line move over time? After all, TCP/IP stacks weren't part of most OS's fifteen years ago.
I've coded EXTENSIVELY in many environments, including Linux, Palm OS, VMS, Ultrix, BSD, Mac, Windows 3.1, 95, NT, and 2000, in C, C++, Java, Pascal (worked on DEC's compielr), X-Windows (wrote a GUI-based debugger), FORTRAN, Ada (worked on DEC's compiler), Turbo Pascal, Borland C++ (including OWL, the Object Windows Library), and used ATL, MFC, and straight Petzold C-style techniques for Windows. Not to mention TRS-DOS, CP/M, RT/11, RSX/11-M and -D, ELN, and RSTS. I am fluent in 80x86 assembly and conversational with the 68000 and Z-80 instruction sets (showing my age).
I think I'm qualfiied to form an unbiased opinion that is not tarnised by MS's marketing (or anyone else's).
MS has a great development environment, a consistent object model, excellent documentation, good technical support, and great compilers/linkers/debuggers and ancillary tools, and a good, stable, fully integrated IDE's.
Borland was nice, Mac (when I worked on it) wasn't so nice (I'm sure it's better by now), Palm was difficult (CodeWarrior crashes all the time), Java is slow and inappropriate to many/most tasks (write once, debug everywhere), Linux is extremely unfriendly... I would not consider anything but MS if I want to write something that a human being actually interacts with on a frquent basis.
Might use Linux if I had to write a high-performance Apache/Tomcat plugin... but otherwise I would view going to any of these systems a huge step backwards from where MS is.
These other guys need to catch up before the commercial world takes them seriously, and it's not going to be easy, as MS isn't standing still.
Instead of demanding that MS takes the browser out of its o/s, why not put browser-type services IN to other o/s's? Why should MS have to step backwards, instead of the rest of the world taking strides forward?// g//
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Did you try setting the Windows Explorer options to show hidden folders? I assume you'd have a similar option on Mac (without it, what is the meaning of a "hidden" folder, anyway)?
A browser isn't really an application -- it is used all over the O/S to do everything from implementing dialog boxes to rendering rich text to providing the code to traverse XML. When the o/s itself needs to parse, render, and interpret HTML (or XML, or protocols like HTTP and FTP) as part of its own basic operations, and also makes these services available to other applications through consistent, well-defined interfaces, is this really an "application"? I don't think so. Windows also includes an Rich Text Format edit control -- WordPad is basically an MFC app wrapped around this RTF edit-control, and as such it's a sort of lame, but not too lame, word processor. This RTF editor is available for me to include in my own apps where appropriate. It's a real "system service" (to harken back to my days as a VMS programmer). I think MS is right to say a browser -- and a set of HTTP services, and a set of XML services, and a set of file system services and a set of graphics primitives -- are all, in 2002, integral parts of any O/S. If other O/S's don't integrate this functionality in very well, or don't expose it through a common set of interfaces, that's their problem, not Microsoft's. Does Mac OS/X include browsing components at the core OS level? Did BeOS? Does Linux? Ok, what about HTTP protocol handling? Ok, what about sockets? Ok, what about TCP/IP? Raw IP? File systems? Where do you draw the line, and doesn't that line move over time? After all, TCP/IP stacks weren't part of most OS's fifteen years ago. I've coded EXTENSIVELY in many environments, including Linux, Palm OS, VMS, Ultrix, BSD, Mac, Windows 3.1, 95, NT, and 2000, in C, C++, Java, Pascal (worked on DEC's compielr), X-Windows (wrote a GUI-based debugger), FORTRAN, Ada (worked on DEC's compiler), Turbo Pascal, Borland C++ (including OWL, the Object Windows Library), and used ATL, MFC, and straight Petzold C-style techniques for Windows. Not to mention TRS-DOS, CP/M, RT/11, RSX/11-M and -D, ELN, and RSTS. I am fluent in 80x86 assembly and conversational with the 68000 and Z-80 instruction sets (showing my age). I think I'm qualfiied to form an unbiased opinion that is not tarnised by MS's marketing (or anyone else's). MS has a great development environment, a consistent object model, excellent documentation, good technical support, and great compilers/linkers/debuggers and ancillary tools, and a good, stable, fully integrated IDE's. Borland was nice, Mac (when I worked on it) wasn't so nice (I'm sure it's better by now), Palm was difficult (CodeWarrior crashes all the time), Java is slow and inappropriate to many/most tasks (write once, debug everywhere), Linux is extremely unfriendly... I would not consider anything but MS if I want to write something that a human being actually interacts with on a frquent basis. Might use Linux if I had to write a high-performance Apache/Tomcat plugin... but otherwise I would view going to any of these systems a huge step backwards from where MS is. These other guys need to catch up before the commercial world takes them seriously, and it's not going to be easy, as MS isn't standing still. Instead of demanding that MS takes the browser out of its o/s, why not put browser-type services IN to other o/s's? Why should MS have to step backwards, instead of the rest of the world taking strides forward? // g //