Again, what's the deal with Microsoft and huge buttons and icons? Are they trying to cater to the bad eyesight but too cool to wear glasses crowd?
It seems to be a welcome appearance for people like my parents and uncles, who surf the Internet with absolutely huge fonts and low resolutions. My dad doesn't even have bad eyesight either; he doesn't wear glasses while I do. Large is easier to read and work with when all you're doing is surfing and emailing. Plus some of my relatives don't have really good control of the mouse, so largeness makes it easier to click buttons and other UI widgets.
That is why I blame MS for the registry. It would be a good idea if the user was consulted for every new key added. That can't be done because the user can't be bothered. Unfettered, unrestricted application access to a housekeeping system with as much clout as the registry should plain not be possible. Since it's impossible to secure the registry the registry never should have been implemented.
Actually, the registry can be secured. You can apply permissions to it just like you can with NTFS (Windows NT's file system). This lets you do stuff such as making the entire HKLM tree read-only to normal users and writable by only the system or Administrators, which I think this is the default setting. The only problem is that HKCU, the user-specific tree, is writable by the user, so programs can possibly insert themselves into the Run key to autostart, but again, you can probably deny yourself write permission to sensitive areas of the registry.
This also isn't dissimilar to security on Linux. AFAIK, you have complete read-write access to your home directory, and it's plausible a program could modify shell startup scripts to automatically start a program.
Of course, there are poorly-designed programs that insist on write permissions for HKLM, but then it's the program's fault, not Windows or the registry's fault.
after reading the article, no one suggests that it could be complete jibberish. How do they know it's not completely random? There's people out there like myself who enough of a bastard to do exactly that to baffle people for as long as the memorial exists...
That's such a cool idea. My tombstone will be the most cryptic ever, and most meaningless one at that.:D Centuries from now my descendents can spend their lives pouring over the meaning where meaning is nonexistent, and... I guess I'll be somehow laughing in my grave.
Am I the only one who thought e-mail for homies and not google mail upon first hearing the name "gmail"?
Actually, the first thing that popped in my mind was the Internet atrocity ending in.cx which shall remain nameless. Earlier while creating an account for my mom (they were giving out mother's day invites!) I paused momentarily after saying "GMail" because the thought flashed across my mind.
You make a good point. Has anyone filed a bug about this on bugzilla.mozilla.org? What are your recommendations for a solution?
Disallow automatic XPI installation dialog boxes. By this I mean disallow installation via onLoad, for example, or other paths that are automatically executed for a web page. Actually, I'd prefer it if XPI installation dialog boxes were ONLY displayed in response to a mouse click, and no other event.
Web pages that require XPI functionality can simply display a "You do not have this package installed, click here to install it." It'll still get gullible users, but at least I won't accidentally click Install or press Enter in response to a dialog box.
What about making those technologies available to other platforms with a no-royalties license instead?
An interesting side-effect is that Microsoft would most certainly have to port.NET. Mono shows that this is absolutely doable.
XAML itself is a pretty simple technology with a lot of power that could probably be easily ported. There might not be any actual porting at all; I don't see why XAML would rely on non-.NET code since it only deals with.NET objects.
I'm not sure how difficult it would be to port other technologies such as Avalon and WinFS. Porting Avalon seems to be comparable to porting the UI parts of Win32, and Wine shows that it can be done but not without significant effort. Depending on how it's designed, WinFS might be extremely simple to port if all it is is a layer above a database. But I'm entering unknown territory here, so I do not really know.
Could one not consider XAML just a re-implementation of the XML-based UI builder that the Mozilla guys developed?
There's one significant difference between XAML and XUL: XAML is fully integrated with.NET. In fact, XAML is more like a method for storing information about.NET objects than a UI building language. Element names and attributes correspond directly to.NET classes and properties. Add new properties or classes to a.NET project and they'll be instantly accessible from XAML without any changes since XAML directly uses.NET type information to instantiate objects and set properties.
XUL, on the other hand, does not integrate at all with.NET AFAIK. This isn't a bad thing, but it does differentiate XUL and XAML somewhat since XUL can't do what XAML does. Sure, you could probably build equivalent UIs using XUL and XAML, but if you're writing a C# program, why use XUL (assuming there is or will be a.NET port) and have to add a bunch of wrapper code to handle the UI when you can use XAML without any code modifications (or at most a few lines of modifications)?
One could argue that.NET integration can be added to XUL to eliminate the wrapper code, but then it'll be exactly like XAML with its one-to-one correspondence between XML elements and attributes and.NET classes and properties.
Well it could make an offline cached internet within the WinFS that could be searched much like the rest of the filesystem.
Not sure if this was meant to be funny, but you can imagine a Temporary Internet Files folder that is searchable like the rest of the file system via SQL queries.
Windows has the "Run As..." capability (right click any app, select Run As... and enter the administrator account), so that somewhat simulates doing a 'su' in linux.
This can also be accomplished via 'runas' at the command-line. Example: runas/user:Administrator cmd.exe
But I totally agree that many application developers don't understand the concept of running at the least priviledge necessary. So many apps write their config to C:\Program File\APP\ and HKLM, which requires elevated access, instead of writing to C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings and HKLU
I think I remember reading somewhere that Longhorn will transparently provide separate Program Files directories for such bad applications.
I always ask Bonzi Buddy to help solve my spyware problems. He is always so helpful!
The scary part is one of my uncles actually considered Bonzi Buddy helpful, and proceeded to install it on computers on my network. He finished one and was about to install on another when I intervened and warned him.
That purple monkey still scares me to this day. Seriously. I'd be filled with a mixture of anger and fear if I ever saw it pop up on my screen.
Permissions are your friend. We have a similar situation but we knew long ago that limited permissions was best for most users. They can download all the crap they want -- they just can't install it. Same goes for viruses. We haven't had a single virus or spyware problem since we instituted the policy.
This might not be feasible if the user has to run poorly-written programs that demand write-access to places that should be read-only. This includes Program Files, the entire HKLM registry tree, and the Windows directory. Note that Power Users gives users permissions to write to these directories, so try not to place users in the Power Users group.
However, if no such programs are used, this is a great way to prevent crap like this from spreading. It saved my ass recently when a piece of spyware tried to install via an IE exploit (for which no patch existed at the time, which is the reason why I use Firefox now). The program tried to copy files to Windows\System32, but it was read-only to me. I was running as a regular Users account.
About the poorly-written programs bit, I have yet to encounter a program like that without a clone that is as poorly written. In particular, Microsoft software is good at adhering to those guidelines (duh, since they were written by MS).
How do better graphics translate into better narratives, or immersive user experiences?
I totally agree. It might seem strange, but one of the most immersive games I've ever played has been Civilization 2. It has tile-based graphics, no lighting effects, no animation except for unit attacking, which consists of a sprite simply moving across the screen and an accompanying explosion animation, and had an odd limitation where the world leader portraits would be incorrect when playing scenarios with custom civilizations, so you'd get stuff like Queen Elizabeth representing Hawaiians.
And yet this game holds the most memories for me. Why? Great gameplay. I could play this game for hours on end, and days and days until I conquered the earth. I can't say the same about most current FPS games that require uber graphics cards to run. Honestly, I play them for half an hour and get bored.
Immersion may perhaps be helped by graphics as in the case of Alice, but graphics is not necessary for immersion. Great gameplay is augmented, not defined by graphics in the majority of cases.
Also another minor point since it's not mentioned often, but a predefined storyline isn't necessary for great gameplay as long as the user can dictate the course of events. In Civilization 2, I ruled the world, I conquered civilizations, I enslaved the mediocre French and Zulus under my Mongol empire. At least until the Spanish attacked and destroyed me.
Err, Startup Monitor does just that.
Well, it doesn't protect the registry, but it does pop up a dialog box whenever something tries to add itself to those registry entries..
I wonder, is it possible to restrict permissions to those startup registry keys and prevent all users, including Administrators, SYSTEM, and SERVICES from writing to keys? Granted, Administrators and SYSTEM could probably get around it by resetting permissions, but programs would have to specifically reset them to add themselves. This is something I doubt any current worm or spyware does.
Yeah, the mac version does that but on the PC, it is an MDI inteface which does not work well on multiple monitors since you can only move the toolbars to a different monitor.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't UltraMon enable MDI applications to use multiple monitors? IIRC, it can spread one application across two monitors, which can almost be done manually. The only bad part is that it costs money, and I believe such functionality should be built in to the OS.
If it did, Gentoo could instantly be turned into the single most user-friendly distro on the planet. The primary problem with Linux (besides game support, etc.) is the ease of program installation. Imagine how easy it would be to code a pretty GUI to allow you to browse the Gentoo Portage Tree (which is already split up into intuitive categories) and install whatever you need.
That's a very interesting idea. Strangely enough, I never even considered a GUI for portage because the the emerge commands are so simple, and Gentoo's package page provides a sufficient method for me to find packages. However, a GUI will probably be helpful, especially for those intimidated by the CLI or those who hate mucking with switches.
A textmode GUI would also be helpful, since I don't have X installed on my server Gentoo box, although I just realized that I don't install packages that often anyway.
The catch with XAML is that if business buys into it in a big way, it's going to be a serious blow to any OS other than an MS produced one. Why? It's the ultimate embrace and extend of HTML to lock people in. It's an HTML extension that is intimately tied to copyrighted Windows code that MS has exclusive control over.
Microsoft isn't embracing and extending anything with XAML. XAML is an XML-based language completely independent from HTML. It is not an extension of HTML and never will be.
I dont get it, MS has failed numerous times before with "exciting" new technologies and i dont really understand why they are bound to success now.
And Microsoft has succeeded numerous times with technologies too, such as DirectX and I suppose COM considering its widespread usage throughout the Windows OS. They've failed in the past, they've succeeded in the past. XAML can do either.
XAML might as well just be a failiure. Is it really a threat to linux? Not today and not tomomorrow since its just wapourware on paper as of today.
There are a couple articles on MSDN that discuss XAML and provide sample code, such as this XAML RSS reader. Longhornblogs regularly has XAML-related entries, most of which link to code, a sample executable, and screenshots. XAML is definitely not vapourware. It exists and people are using it.
I wish I could get excited about XAML, because I like the idea of a complete overhaul of HTML
From what I've read, it's not an overhaul of HTML, but a markup language for.NET applications. HTML will probably stay with us for a lonnngg time because of it's widespread usage and relative efficiency..NET certainly won't appear on my NAT router anytime soon to provide a management interface, for example.
What bothers me about it is that if and when it becomes dominant it will stop evolving, just like IE and every other dominant MS product. Its goal is not to change the world or fix the web, but to capture market share and make competition more difficult.
What I've seen happen sometimes on the technology side of Microsoft is stuff like COM gets augmented with little features and cruft, and after a while gets replaced by something new, which is.NET in this case. The same thing has happened with Visual C++, which was replaced by the new Visual Studio.NET IDE. Longhorn's WinFX will replace the Win32 API. So yes, evolution for a particular technology or product stops, but in cases like these it's replaced by a new technology, usually because the old one is inadequate for current and future needs.
However, there are also products where they seem to stagnate. IE is one of them (although it's getting a minor upgrade with SP2), and Office seems to have reached a point where additional features doesn't matter anymore for the majority of users.
I think XAML falls in the first category, where it'll probably settle down after a while to be replaced by another technology. Stagnation seems to occur more on a product level than a technology level at Microsoft. Note that I'm not saying Microsoft innovates or makes new technology (I have no stance on this issue), but that they do a lot of new things on the technology side.
I'm not sure when Mozilla's and Microsoft's projects were started, but it does certainly appear that MS is "embracing and extending" XUL for Longhorn, by adding proprietary.NET integration
I actually find the integration of.NET into XAML fairly interesting; it certainly wouldn't be as appealing without it. There is a straightforward mapping between.NET objects and XAML elements, so properties such as Width and Height and be set in XAML by, surprise, Width and Height attributes in an XML element. Similarly, a Button object in.NET is specified by an XML element named Button. In fact, the XML names are ALWAYS the.NET names through the use of.NET reflection.
What I consider the best part about this is that your.NET UI objects written in C# can be used in XAML without any modifications or additional glue code in most cases (more complex types such as arrays and hash tables may need additional code; someone correct me here). The closest analogy I can come up with is that this functions similar to SWIG, but totally automated. Write C# code and it's accessible from XAML as well as other.NET languages without additional code or effort.
I'm unfamiliar with XUL so I don't know if it provides similar functionality. Does anyone here know both XAML and XUL and can provide some comparisons for us?
Can't he talk about anything other than Mono and Microsoft Technologies? I swear he must be an employee.
He's the most visible member of the Linux community who does stuff related to MS technologies. We need people like him, people who are aware of and can help plan counters to upcoming technology that has the potential to bring great change (great as in a large amount of change). Silencing him would be like silencing a sentinel. It's good to be aware of current and future Microsoft stuff, even if you don't like Microsoft.
If you have never tried Gentoo, you should give it a try. Contrary to popular belief, you can have the base installed and running in 15 minutes, and from then you just emerge the packages you want. gentoo-dev-sources, openssh, sysklogd, vixie-cron, at, ntp, whatever
I'd especially recommend it to Windows users like me who know a lot about computers in general but are unfamiliar with Linux. The installation process is a great learning experience since it explains all steps in detail and generally discusses what and why things happen. You also have complete control so you're not overwhelmed by installations with lots of cruft. I'm sure you can disable installing things in other distros, but with Gentoo, you know exactly what gets installed. No overwhelming feeling -> easier learning.
Sure, it may take slightly more effort to install than say Red Hat or Mandrake, but it's an interesting experience at least. Plus at the end you get a great sense of accomplishment and can pretend to be a Linux geek on Slashdot because you know how to edit config files;) Oh and config file editing isn't bad either, they'll tell you what you need to modify.
Why the hell would anyone need to reinstall an entire OS every month? I mean - I know Windows is bad, but come on - its ridiculous.
I totally agree. My brother and sister's computers both have Windows installed on them, and they've been using it for at least half a year now; I can't remember when I set them up so it's probably longer. They use their computers daily for all sorts of things, including school work, surfing, and chatting.
I've seen a handful of blue screens. All the BSODs on my sister's computer are because of her Creative Webcam drivers. I've seen one or two BSODs on my brother's computer, and I blame them on his motherboard. That thing simply has issues no matter what OS is installed.
If you take the time to lock things down and disable some "features", Windows should last for a long time.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, what's the deal with Microsoft and huge buttons and icons? Are they trying to cater to the bad eyesight but too cool to wear glasses crowd?
It seems to be a welcome appearance for people like my parents and uncles, who surf the Internet with absolutely huge fonts and low resolutions. My dad doesn't even have bad eyesight either; he doesn't wear glasses while I do. Large is easier to read and work with when all you're doing is surfing and emailing. Plus some of my relatives don't have really good control of the mouse, so largeness makes it easier to click buttons and other UI widgets.
That is why I blame MS for the registry. It would be a good idea if the user was consulted for every new key added. That can't be done because the user can't be bothered. Unfettered, unrestricted application access to a housekeeping system with as much clout as the registry should plain not be possible. Since it's impossible to secure the registry the registry never should have been implemented.
Actually, the registry can be secured. You can apply permissions to it just like you can with NTFS (Windows NT's file system). This lets you do stuff such as making the entire HKLM tree read-only to normal users and writable by only the system or Administrators, which I think this is the default setting. The only problem is that HKCU, the user-specific tree, is writable by the user, so programs can possibly insert themselves into the Run key to autostart, but again, you can probably deny yourself write permission to sensitive areas of the registry.
This also isn't dissimilar to security on Linux. AFAIK, you have complete read-write access to your home directory, and it's plausible a program could modify shell startup scripts to automatically start a program.
Of course, there are poorly-designed programs that insist on write permissions for HKLM, but then it's the program's fault, not Windows or the registry's fault.
after reading the article, no one suggests that it could be complete jibberish. How do they know it's not completely random? There's people out there like myself who enough of a bastard to do exactly that to baffle people for as long as the memorial exists...
That's such a cool idea. My tombstone will be the most cryptic ever, and most meaningless one at that. :D Centuries from now my descendents can spend their lives pouring over the meaning where meaning is nonexistent, and... I guess I'll be somehow laughing in my grave.
Am I the only one who thought e-mail for homies and not google mail upon first hearing the name "gmail"?
Actually, the first thing that popped in my mind was the Internet atrocity ending in .cx which shall remain nameless. Earlier while creating an account for my mom (they were giving out mother's day invites!) I paused momentarily after saying "GMail" because the thought flashed across my mind.
I would be very happy if you could paste links to pages on 2ch containing pictures of said cute Japanese girls, as I cannot read Japanese.
You make a good point. Has anyone filed a bug about this on bugzilla.mozilla.org? What are your recommendations for a solution?
Disallow automatic XPI installation dialog boxes. By this I mean disallow installation via onLoad, for example, or other paths that are automatically executed for a web page. Actually, I'd prefer it if XPI installation dialog boxes were ONLY displayed in response to a mouse click, and no other event.
Web pages that require XPI functionality can simply display a "You do not have this package installed, click here to install it." It'll still get gullible users, but at least I won't accidentally click Install or press Enter in response to a dialog box.
What about making those technologies available to other platforms with a no-royalties license instead?
An interesting side-effect is that Microsoft would most certainly have to port .NET. Mono shows that this is absolutely doable.
XAML itself is a pretty simple technology with a lot of power that could probably be easily ported. There might not be any actual porting at all; I don't see why XAML would rely on non-.NET code since it only deals with .NET objects.
I'm not sure how difficult it would be to port other technologies such as Avalon and WinFS. Porting Avalon seems to be comparable to porting the UI parts of Win32, and Wine shows that it can be done but not without significant effort. Depending on how it's designed, WinFS might be extremely simple to port if all it is is a layer above a database. But I'm entering unknown territory here, so I do not really know.
Could one not consider XAML just a re-implementation of the XML-based UI builder that the Mozilla guys developed?
There's one significant difference between XAML and XUL: XAML is fully integrated with .NET. In fact, XAML is more like a method for storing information about .NET objects than a UI building language. Element names and attributes correspond directly to .NET classes and properties. Add new properties or classes to a .NET project and they'll be instantly accessible from XAML without any changes since XAML directly uses .NET type information to instantiate objects and set properties.
XUL, on the other hand, does not integrate at all with .NET AFAIK. This isn't a bad thing, but it does differentiate XUL and XAML somewhat since XUL can't do what XAML does. Sure, you could probably build equivalent UIs using XUL and XAML, but if you're writing a C# program, why use XUL (assuming there is or will be a .NET port) and have to add a bunch of wrapper code to handle the UI when you can use XAML without any code modifications (or at most a few lines of modifications)?
One could argue that .NET integration can be added to XUL to eliminate the wrapper code, but then it'll be exactly like XAML with its one-to-one correspondence between XML elements and attributes and .NET classes and properties.
Well it could make an offline cached internet within the WinFS that could be searched much like the rest of the filesystem.
Not sure if this was meant to be funny, but you can imagine a Temporary Internet Files folder that is searchable like the rest of the file system via SQL queries.
Windows has the "Run As..." capability (right click any app, select Run As... and enter the administrator account), so that somewhat simulates doing a 'su' in linux.
This can also be accomplished via 'runas' at the command-line. Example: runas /user:Administrator cmd.exe
But I totally agree that many application developers don't understand the concept of running at the least priviledge necessary. So many apps write their config to C:\Program File\APP\ and HKLM, which requires elevated access, instead of writing to C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings and HKLU
I think I remember reading somewhere that Longhorn will transparently provide separate Program Files directories for such bad applications.
I always ask Bonzi Buddy to help solve my spyware problems. He is always so helpful!
The scary part is one of my uncles actually considered Bonzi Buddy helpful, and proceeded to install it on computers on my network. He finished one and was about to install on another when I intervened and warned him.
That purple monkey still scares me to this day. Seriously. I'd be filled with a mixture of anger and fear if I ever saw it pop up on my screen.
Permissions are your friend. We have a similar situation but we knew long ago that limited permissions was best for most users. They can download all the crap they want -- they just can't install it. Same goes for viruses. We haven't had a single virus or spyware problem since we instituted the policy.
This might not be feasible if the user has to run poorly-written programs that demand write-access to places that should be read-only. This includes Program Files, the entire HKLM registry tree, and the Windows directory. Note that Power Users gives users permissions to write to these directories, so try not to place users in the Power Users group.
However, if no such programs are used, this is a great way to prevent crap like this from spreading. It saved my ass recently when a piece of spyware tried to install via an IE exploit (for which no patch existed at the time, which is the reason why I use Firefox now). The program tried to copy files to Windows\System32, but it was read-only to me. I was running as a regular Users account.
About the poorly-written programs bit, I have yet to encounter a program like that without a clone that is as poorly written. In particular, Microsoft software is good at adhering to those guidelines (duh, since they were written by MS).
How do better graphics translate into better narratives, or immersive user experiences?
I totally agree. It might seem strange, but one of the most immersive games I've ever played has been Civilization 2. It has tile-based graphics, no lighting effects, no animation except for unit attacking, which consists of a sprite simply moving across the screen and an accompanying explosion animation, and had an odd limitation where the world leader portraits would be incorrect when playing scenarios with custom civilizations, so you'd get stuff like Queen Elizabeth representing Hawaiians.
And yet this game holds the most memories for me. Why? Great gameplay. I could play this game for hours on end, and days and days until I conquered the earth. I can't say the same about most current FPS games that require uber graphics cards to run. Honestly, I play them for half an hour and get bored.
Immersion may perhaps be helped by graphics as in the case of Alice, but graphics is not necessary for immersion. Great gameplay is augmented, not defined by graphics in the majority of cases.
Also another minor point since it's not mentioned often, but a predefined storyline isn't necessary for great gameplay as long as the user can dictate the course of events. In Civilization 2, I ruled the world, I conquered civilizations, I enslaved the mediocre French and Zulus under my Mongol empire. At least until the Spanish attacked and destroyed me.
Err, Startup Monitor does just that. Well, it doesn't protect the registry, but it does pop up a dialog box whenever something tries to add itself to those registry entries..
I wonder, is it possible to restrict permissions to those startup registry keys and prevent all users, including Administrators, SYSTEM, and SERVICES from writing to keys? Granted, Administrators and SYSTEM could probably get around it by resetting permissions, but programs would have to specifically reset them to add themselves. This is something I doubt any current worm or spyware does.
Yeah, the mac version does that but on the PC, it is an MDI inteface which does not work well on multiple monitors since you can only move the toolbars to a different monitor.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't UltraMon enable MDI applications to use multiple monitors? IIRC, it can spread one application across two monitors, which can almost be done manually. The only bad part is that it costs money, and I believe such functionality should be built in to the OS.
If it did, Gentoo could instantly be turned into the single most user-friendly distro on the planet. The primary problem with Linux (besides game support, etc.) is the ease of program installation. Imagine how easy it would be to code a pretty GUI to allow you to browse the Gentoo Portage Tree (which is already split up into intuitive categories) and install whatever you need.
That's a very interesting idea. Strangely enough, I never even considered a GUI for portage because the the emerge commands are so simple, and Gentoo's package page provides a sufficient method for me to find packages. However, a GUI will probably be helpful, especially for those intimidated by the CLI or those who hate mucking with switches.
A textmode GUI would also be helpful, since I don't have X installed on my server Gentoo box, although I just realized that I don't install packages that often anyway.
The catch with XAML is that if business buys into it in a big way, it's going to be a serious blow to any OS other than an MS produced one. Why? It's the ultimate embrace and extend of HTML to lock people in. It's an HTML extension that is intimately tied to copyrighted Windows code that MS has exclusive control over.
Microsoft isn't embracing and extending anything with XAML. XAML is an XML-based language completely independent from HTML. It is not an extension of HTML and never will be.
I dont get it, MS has failed numerous times before with "exciting" new technologies and i dont really understand why they are bound to success now.
And Microsoft has succeeded numerous times with technologies too, such as DirectX and I suppose COM considering its widespread usage throughout the Windows OS. They've failed in the past, they've succeeded in the past. XAML can do either.
XAML might as well just be a failiure. Is it really a threat to linux? Not today and not tomomorrow since its just wapourware on paper as of today.
There are a couple articles on MSDN that discuss XAML and provide sample code, such as this XAML RSS reader. Longhornblogs regularly has XAML-related entries, most of which link to code, a sample executable, and screenshots. XAML is definitely not vapourware. It exists and people are using it.
I wish I could get excited about XAML, because I like the idea of a complete overhaul of HTML
From what I've read, it's not an overhaul of HTML, but a markup language for .NET applications. HTML will probably stay with us for a lonnngg time because of it's widespread usage and relative efficiency. .NET certainly won't appear on my NAT router anytime soon to provide a management interface, for example.
What bothers me about it is that if and when it becomes dominant it will stop evolving, just like IE and every other dominant MS product. Its goal is not to change the world or fix the web, but to capture market share and make competition more difficult.
What I've seen happen sometimes on the technology side of Microsoft is stuff like COM gets augmented with little features and cruft, and after a while gets replaced by something new, which is .NET in this case. The same thing has happened with Visual C++, which was replaced by the new Visual Studio.NET IDE. Longhorn's WinFX will replace the Win32 API. So yes, evolution for a particular technology or product stops, but in cases like these it's replaced by a new technology, usually because the old one is inadequate for current and future needs.
However, there are also products where they seem to stagnate. IE is one of them (although it's getting a minor upgrade with SP2), and Office seems to have reached a point where additional features doesn't matter anymore for the majority of users.
I think XAML falls in the first category, where it'll probably settle down after a while to be replaced by another technology. Stagnation seems to occur more on a product level than a technology level at Microsoft. Note that I'm not saying Microsoft innovates or makes new technology (I have no stance on this issue), but that they do a lot of new things on the technology side.
I'm not sure when Mozilla's and Microsoft's projects were started, but it does certainly appear that MS is "embracing and extending" XUL for Longhorn, by adding proprietary .NET integration
I actually find the integration of .NET into XAML fairly interesting; it certainly wouldn't be as appealing without it. There is a straightforward mapping between .NET objects and XAML elements, so properties such as Width and Height and be set in XAML by, surprise, Width and Height attributes in an XML element. Similarly, a Button object in .NET is specified by an XML element named Button. In fact, the XML names are ALWAYS the .NET names through the use of .NET reflection.
What I consider the best part about this is that your .NET UI objects written in C# can be used in XAML without any modifications or additional glue code in most cases (more complex types such as arrays and hash tables may need additional code; someone correct me here). The closest analogy I can come up with is that this functions similar to SWIG, but totally automated. Write C# code and it's accessible from XAML as well as other .NET languages without additional code or effort.
I'm unfamiliar with XUL so I don't know if it provides similar functionality. Does anyone here know both XAML and XUL and can provide some comparisons for us?
Can't he talk about anything other than Mono and Microsoft Technologies? I swear he must be an employee.
He's the most visible member of the Linux community who does stuff related to MS technologies. We need people like him, people who are aware of and can help plan counters to upcoming technology that has the potential to bring great change (great as in a large amount of change). Silencing him would be like silencing a sentinel. It's good to be aware of current and future Microsoft stuff, even if you don't like Microsoft.
How the hell do you pronounce "XAML"?
It's pronounced like "Zammel".
If you have never tried Gentoo, you should give it a try. Contrary to popular belief, you can have the base installed and running in 15 minutes, and from then you just emerge the packages you want. gentoo-dev-sources, openssh, sysklogd, vixie-cron, at, ntp, whatever
I'd especially recommend it to Windows users like me who know a lot about computers in general but are unfamiliar with Linux. The installation process is a great learning experience since it explains all steps in detail and generally discusses what and why things happen. You also have complete control so you're not overwhelmed by installations with lots of cruft. I'm sure you can disable installing things in other distros, but with Gentoo, you know exactly what gets installed. No overwhelming feeling -> easier learning.
Sure, it may take slightly more effort to install than say Red Hat or Mandrake, but it's an interesting experience at least. Plus at the end you get a great sense of accomplishment and can pretend to be a Linux geek on Slashdot because you know how to edit config files ;) Oh and config file editing isn't bad either, they'll tell you what you need to modify.
I believe we were talking about Word here.
The same applies to Word. Someone out there probably embeds videos or other objects in Word too.
Why the hell would anyone need to reinstall an entire OS every month? I mean - I know Windows is bad, but come on - its ridiculous.
I totally agree. My brother and sister's computers both have Windows installed on them, and they've been using it for at least half a year now; I can't remember when I set them up so it's probably longer. They use their computers daily for all sorts of things, including school work, surfing, and chatting.
I've seen a handful of blue screens. All the BSODs on my sister's computer are because of her Creative Webcam drivers. I've seen one or two BSODs on my brother's computer, and I blame them on his motherboard. That thing simply has issues no matter what OS is installed.
If you take the time to lock things down and disable some "features", Windows should last for a long time.