Re: Vista Myths

In article <us1sq1lfphd2taoiuqlg0p1uh5ojbtvn1m@xxxxxxx>,
foo <foo@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 11:41:40 -0500, ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >In article <AJ4qf.78600$Nl6.1135756@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > NRen2k5 <napsterneorenegade@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> ZnU wrote:
> >> > In article <1135093151.942303.255820@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> >> > "Martin Kess" <MartinKess@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >>>They've screwed this up. Badly.
> >> >>
> >> >>We'll see. They could suprise us.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > No, even if they ship the greatest OS ever next year, this huge gap --
> >> > which was *not* intentional -- was still a major screw-up.
> >>
> >> Sure, why doesn't Microsoft just make some incremental upgrades that
> >> really aren't worth ***, give the OS a whole new name/number and charge
> >> money for it?
> >>
> >> Because that's Apple's business model.
> >
> >I can't recall a (paid) OS X update that didn't have several seriously
> >useful new features.
> >
> >Anyway, it's essentially a universal truth in the software industry that
> >smaller, more regular updates are better than larger, less regular
> >updates:
> >
> >- It's much easier for users to follow your upgrade path in smaller
> > increments.
> >- It lets you get more user feedback on the direction you're heading in,
> > and address user concerns more quickly.
> >- It lets you react faster to market forces. If some interesting new
> > technology comes along, you can ship it in your OS sooner, because
> > you're next release, on average, is due out sooner.
> >- It lets you fix bugs that might only show up in the real world (rather
> > than in testing) as you go, instead of fixing 6 years worth of them
> > all at once.
> >- Setting specific, short-term targets for individual releases helps
> > prevent schedule slipping and feature-creep.
>
> - It's far more fun for IT to play "Does it work in this version?" as
> they're now forced to test applications/etc. against all four of the
> operating systems released, rather than targeting just one. Yeah,
> that's fun, ZnU.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Most institutional deployments
will roll out updates all at once, rather than having mixed
environments. For developers, they just have to decide how far back they
want to support, and test on the appropriate systems.

Honestly, the multiple version problem seems like a bigger issue on
Wintel, where Microsoft ships many different variants of Windows
*concurrently* (possibly as many as 6 or 7 for Vista!).

> >Look, one of the major reasons OS X is so much better than XP is that
> >the latest version of OS X is 6 months old, while XP hasn't changed much
> >since 2001.
>
> Sorry, but that's not a reason - not even close. By that logic a
> brand new Pinto is better than a four-year old BMW (XP).

Uh, you're not making any sense. I didn't claim any newer operating
system is better than any older operating system. I gave a specific
example where this is true, and pointed out that the age of the
operating systems is a contributing factor.

> >This is why XP doesn't have desktop-search, or a
>
> Search works fine. And if I wanted more (I don't, nor do most people
> I know, even those familiar with it) I could get Google's search on my
> desktop.
>
> >hardware-accelerated compositing graphics engine, or a whole bunch of
>
> Given how slow graphics are in OS X, I'm not convinced this is a good
> thing. We'll see.

Yeah, so 2002 called. They want their complaint back.

> >other stuff that's important now, but that wasn't on the radar in 2001.
>
> >Defending the huge gap that Microsoft has allowed between updates is
> >particularly silly because it's not as if this is a cause of Microsoft
> >just pursuing a somewhat misguided strategy. Longhorn was supposed to
> >ship in 2004. The gap wasn't supposed to be nearly this large; this is
> >simply a result of a series of major screw-ups.
>
> We'll have better comparisons when Vista ships. Until then I'm
> perfectly happy comparing 10.4.3 and XP SP2.

--
"Those who enter the country illegally violate the law."
-- George W. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005
.

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