Vista, to the end user, will probably look a lot like Windows XP with a bit of a UI refresh, but there's a whole lot going on under the scenes that only developers will appreciate.
Win32 has been how you write Windows software since Windows 95 (and that was based on Win16) - from the very first version of Windows to today, you're creating HWNDs and sending messages to them, and calling CreateFile when you want a file and so on.
But now Vista is delivering on a whole lot of strategies at the same time.
Avalon / Xaml replaces how you create user interfaces.
Indigo replaces how you do communications.
WinFS (which will probably get rolled into Vista at some point, now that it's gone from vaporware to betaware) replaces a lot of how you manage your data.
The rest of the.NET Framework (which will finally come with the OS so you can depend on it being there, assuming you're targetting Vista) replaces just about everything else.
It probably won't be for another 5 years or so, when developers can start thinking about depending on this stuff, that things will really change, but for Windows developers, it is a pretty big change.
The Mac of course has made these kinds of "forget everything you know and start over with this new technology" changes many times. It's the courage to do this that has kept the Mac alive, and I think shows that Microsoft is on the right track.
The really annoying thing is that both companies are radically changing how you develop software for their platforms, and they're completely different.
As a developer, will I ever get to use Avalon in a real app? I'd guess not. Making a portability abstraction for Avalon and Xaml is a lot different than wrapping a button or a listbox with a generic API. Every platform has buttons and listboxes; no other platform has a Xaml equivalent yet (XUL is a bit of Xaml but they're not really directly comparable).
The claim that there are multiple incompatible versions of RSS is used as a way to try to make RSS look bad. I've written code to interpret an RSS feed, and I don't have any switching based on the version of RSS it is... I do have to figure out what to use as a unique identifier based on some heuristics, but that's not because there's multiple versions, it's because the spec intentionally allows you to include a minimum number of tags.
If you don't like something about a protocol, is the correct thing to do to revise the protocol? I think so... many of the Internet protocols we use have changed over the years, some of them in incompatible ways. Doesn't mean we have to toss them and make new ones.
For the most part it doesn't matter which you use because client software is going to have to work with both now that they've both been deployed (and for a while Google was only publishing Atom, I'm not sure if they still do that but it forced aggregator developers to get on board).
But because an Atom feed must include a guid element, the client has a way of uniquely identifying an item. This means that when you subscribe to an atom feed, you're not going to see duplicate articles the way you do with RSS when the RSS feed doesn't include a guid or any unique identifier (which is legal) and the client has to make one up by hashing the content.
Re:Weren't OEM's B*tching About This w/r/t Browser
on
Windows XP N a Bust
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Personally I'd rather have Microsoft's choice as my default than have the alternatives.
What are the alternatives? Companies are going to pay Dell to be the default media player. Because they're paying to be a free product, you know there's a hook.
Would you rather have a free Microsoft media player, or a free RealPlayer that's going to remind you what a better experience you could be getting with the upgrade player every time you want to play some media?
At least, thanks to the amount of scrutiny Microsoft stuff gets, we know what we're getting.
I'm waiting for the vulnerability alerts based on site content.
ALERT: All major browsers are affected by a critical issue whereby a site's claims of having the lowest price may not be true. Affected users may pay higher than market prices for goods.
What my cat did today might not be interesting to you, but maybe it's interesting to my Mom.
Most blogs have only a few readers, but the readers and the author know each other. It's a way for them to share experiences in a casual way (unlike email, which is more imperative).
Microsoft could announce that they're giving away all their products for free, donating all the patents they own to the FSF, and giving a free XBox to every Internet Explorer user, and folks would still find something to complain about.
Chances are if you're a software developer writing software for a Windows CE device, you're already going to buy a copy of Visual Studio.
If you're not, well, then the tool costs $299. Doesn't seem all that unreasonable. It's not like they're charging you a per-device licensing fee like some embedded tool vendors do.
If some of the security updates are related to compiling with different options (like the buffer overflow detection changes Visual C++ has been making), then every binary would be affected.
Brand new Powerbook G4 1.5ghz here too, about 2 weeks old.
Trackpad started sporadically losing its mind - it wouldn't let me move, would think I was trying to do two finger scrolling when I wasn't, would jump around... Took it in for service.
Now my two week old Powerbook is at the dealer, who won't have time to look at it for 7 to 10 days. Beauty.
Yeah, if only there was some alternative to Windows. But unfortunately, since they've been found to have a monopoly on the desktop OS market, this must mean there are no viable alternatives. Linux just won't cut it. At least, according to the government.
IBM committed to spend one billion dollars on Linux in 2002. If they spent all that already,
this new $100 million should last what, about four months?
Seriously, I've seen some awfully lame attempts at describing online chat slang.
"It's important to remember that the leetspeek community encourages new forms and awards individual creativity, resulting in a dynamic written language that eludes conformity or consistency."
Serialization, like any other technique, can be implemented badly... Doing an fwrite(my_global_data_structure) is going to break too when you patch the application.
When you serialize, usually the start of the stream has a version number. When you deserialize, you can decide based on the version of the stream you're reading, how to deserialize it.
So if you add a new field to an object, when you're deserializing it, if the data you're reading is from a version before that field was added, use a default value.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all of New Orleans is under water. Not every home is destroyed. But hey if millions makes you happy, millions it is.
Vista, to the end user, will probably look a lot like Windows XP with a bit of a UI refresh, but there's a whole lot going on under the scenes that only developers will appreciate.
.NET Framework (which will finally come with the OS so you can depend on it being there, assuming you're targetting Vista) replaces just about everything else.
Win32 has been how you write Windows software since Windows 95 (and that was based on Win16) - from the very first version of Windows to today, you're creating HWNDs and sending messages to them, and calling CreateFile when you want a file and so on.
But now Vista is delivering on a whole lot of strategies at the same time.
Avalon / Xaml replaces how you create user interfaces.
Indigo replaces how you do communications.
WinFS (which will probably get rolled into Vista at some point, now that it's gone from vaporware to betaware) replaces a lot of how you manage your data.
The rest of the
It probably won't be for another 5 years or so, when developers can start thinking about depending on this stuff, that things will really change, but for Windows developers, it is a pretty big change.
The Mac of course has made these kinds of "forget everything you know and start over with this new technology" changes many times. It's the courage to do this that has kept the Mac alive, and I think shows that Microsoft is on the right track.
The really annoying thing is that both companies are radically changing how you develop software for their platforms, and they're completely different.
As a developer, will I ever get to use Avalon in a real app? I'd guess not. Making a portability abstraction for Avalon and Xaml is a lot different than wrapping a button or a listbox with a generic API. Every platform has buttons and listboxes; no other platform has a Xaml equivalent yet (XUL is a bit of Xaml but they're not really directly comparable).
Literally millions are homeless? The total population of New Orleans is less than half a million people.
It's not the processor.
The claim that there are multiple incompatible versions of RSS is used as a way to try to make RSS look bad. I've written code to interpret an RSS feed, and I don't have any switching based on the version of RSS it is... I do have to figure out what to use as a unique identifier based on some heuristics, but that's not because there's multiple versions, it's because the spec intentionally allows you to include a minimum number of tags.
If you don't like something about a protocol, is the correct thing to do to revise the protocol? I think so... many of the Internet protocols we use have changed over the years, some of them in incompatible ways. Doesn't mean we have to toss them and make new ones.
But because an Atom feed must include a guid element, the client has a way of uniquely identifying an item. This means that when you subscribe to an atom feed, you're not going to see duplicate articles the way you do with RSS when the RSS feed doesn't include a guid or any unique identifier (which is legal) and the client has to make one up by hashing the content.
I wrote a bit about this here.
It's not a book, but it's a fairly technical podcast, something there don't seem to be a lot of. Geared to developers.
http://www.codesermon.org/
Personally I'd rather have Microsoft's choice as my default than have the alternatives.
What are the alternatives? Companies are going to pay Dell to be the default media player. Because they're paying to be a free product, you know there's a hook.
Would you rather have a free Microsoft media player, or a free RealPlayer that's going to remind you what a better experience you could be getting with the upgrade player every time you want to play some media?
At least, thanks to the amount of scrutiny Microsoft stuff gets, we know what we're getting.
I'm waiting for the vulnerability alerts based on site content.
ALERT: All major browsers are affected by a critical issue whereby a site's claims of having the lowest price may not be true. Affected users may pay higher than market prices for goods.
Very cool shell; if you don't know anything about it, don't assume it's just a bash or ksh clone.. it's actually something fairly unique.
What my cat did today might not be interesting to you, but maybe it's interesting to my Mom.
Most blogs have only a few readers, but the readers and the author know each other. It's a way for them to share experiences in a casual way (unlike email, which is more imperative).
Microsoft could announce that they're giving away all their products for free, donating all the patents they own to the FSF, and giving a free XBox to every Internet Explorer user, and folks would still find something to complain about.
Chances are if you're a software developer writing software for a Windows CE device, you're already going to buy a copy of Visual Studio.
If you're not, well, then the tool costs $299. Doesn't seem all that unreasonable. It's not like they're charging you a per-device licensing fee like some embedded tool vendors do.
I backordered google.com; I should get it in 5 years when they're not around to renew it...
Anyone who's been around gaming a while will remember Jeff Minter and Gridrunner and Attack of the Mutant Camels... the guy's earned some respect.
Maybe not respect that's relevant these days (he was creating cool stuff on C64 era machines) but still, his stuff was always ahead of its time.
If some of the security updates are related to compiling with different options (like the buffer overflow detection changes Visual C++ has been making), then every binary would be affected.
Same way Microsoft is a monopoly. You're not forced to use it, but because everyone does, we call it a monopoly.
Brand new Powerbook G4 1.5ghz here too, about 2 weeks old.
Trackpad started sporadically losing its mind - it wouldn't let me move, would think I was trying to do two finger scrolling when I wasn't, would jump around... Took it in for service.
Now my two week old Powerbook is at the dealer, who won't have time to look at it for 7 to 10 days. Beauty.
No way.
That'd mean I can't pause the game to check my email, talk to people through IM, etc.
As an option that would be cool, but I'd hate to be required to do that.
Is having a website journalism? Is speaking through a microphone journalism?
Journalism is an activity that you can conduct, whose product can be published in any number of ways, including through blogs.
Some bloggers may be journalists. Some journalists may be bloggers.
Yeah, if only there was some alternative to Windows. But unfortunately, since they've been found to have a monopoly on the desktop OS market, this must mean there are no viable alternatives. Linux just won't cut it. At least, according to the government.
IBM committed to spend one billion dollars on Linux in 2002. If they spent all that already, this new $100 million should last what, about four months?
Seriously, I've seen some awfully lame attempts at describing online chat slang.
p g,2,00.asp, where they include 'kiss' as 'keep it simple stupid'. Have you ever seen anyone actually use that in chat?
"It's important to remember that the leetspeek community encourages new forms and awards individual creativity, resulting in a dynamic written language that eludes conformity or consistency."
It's like they actually kinda get it.
Compared to, say, http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,88686,
fysbigtbabn = Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night
Yeah right.
--
http://www.stevex.org/longtail
Serialization, like any other technique, can be implemented badly... Doing an fwrite(my_global_data_structure) is going to break too when you patch the application.
When you serialize, usually the start of the stream has a version number. When you deserialize, you can decide based on the version of the stream you're reading, how to deserialize it.
So if you add a new field to an object, when you're deserializing it, if the data you're reading is from a version before that field was added, use a default value.
It's called serialization, and most OO frameworks support it in some way or another.
Usually it's a way for an object to render itself to a stream, and reconstitute itself from a stream.
That way you can save the objects to disk, or send them over the network, or whatever else you need to do with them.
Every object serializes itself, and all of it's immediate children. Once every object does this, you can save the whole tree of objects with one call.