Re: Microsoft throws in the towel on Vista

Daniel Johnson wrote:

<snip>

But "64-bit top to bottom" was in there, and 64-bit Carbon was explicitly part of that. That got canned.


Not according to the ADC (Apple Develper Connection).


Well, you asked what The Steve promised, not what ADC promised. :D


I think it is already there in Leopard. That's what I was referring to.

(I imagine he was just lying when he said "... to bottom", and Apple never meant to ship a 64-bit kernel. But clearly he really intended full 64-bit user space.)


Yes he intended that, and also for those that use the Intel processors will appreciate it very much.


They would have, had he shipped it. But what he shipped, while more than useless, was rather a lot less than "64-bit top to bottom".

I can't find anywhere where you can't develop a 64-bit app for the Intel based macs. All the tools are there and so are the libs.

<snip>

The similarity is striking, which is just the problem for Vista-bashing.

But there are differences. Leopard actually goes *farther* overboard than Vista in a few places- sure, they both have silly translucency effects, but only Leopard has The Galaxy That Time Remembered.


That's part of the glitz that marketing loves.


Perhaps. But Leopard's glitz didn't go over all that well. Some of it seems disturbingly Vista-derivative, for an audience that wants to stand out from the crowd. Some of it just wasn't attractive.


That always is a subjective argument. To me it looks ok and really don't care.

<snip>

Anyway, my real point is that it's hard to damn Vista for its real compatibility woes when Leopard is doing this.


Well, lets face it, he ditched OS 9 for OS X rather than change the internals of OS 9 to make it more stable.


It's easier to forgive this; fixing OS 9 was plainly hugely difficult, and time was limited. 'Classic' and 'Carbon' seemed like a reasonable effort under the circumstances.

M$ has been around too long and has too many users to keep in mind. Doubt he'd bite the hand that keeps feeding him.
At least not directly anyways.


I don't follow this.

Too many installed bases of windows and a huge investment in software.
If he screwed them bad, he'd lose a lot of customers.


[snip]

There are always a few of those. Vista can be faster than XP on the same hardware too; you just need some pretty generous hardware. I imagine this is true of Leopard as well.


But you need more memory for Vista and a better GPU. But that is part of progress anyways.


Well, if you don't already have fairly good hardware, you do.

Vista is a larger jump in requirements over XP than Leopard is over Tiger, without question. But XP's requirements were very low by modern standards; the big jump has put Vista's requirements near OS X's- at least if you want all the features turned on.

Vista needs 2Gb and OS X needs 1Gb. Not that big of a deal, but it looks like Vista loads more into memory at boot than OS X does.
Or it could be that OS X is that more efficient.


Had OS X got a lot faster in Leopard, then the tables might well have turned. But actually it is slightly slower.


Well, not according to those that reportedly upgraded.
I haven't upgraded yet, so can't tell.

[snip- upgrading apps]

Sure. But Microsoft's users just *hate* that. Hate Hate Hate.


I know, but they'll find that the newer version will only be better... usually. It all depends on whether the vendor wants to hang in there and support his product.


The new version may be better, but it may also be strange and unfamiliar- many Windows users have a hard time with UI change.

True. It reminds me of my old neighbor... XP came out and he bought a new computer... didn't understand XP so he kept the machine but wanted Win98 put on it. :-\


[snip]

I dunno. MFC is not really competitive with .NET anyway. It's not like they want to encourage further adoption of it.


I'll have to look into that part. Which book would you recommend that is equivalent to the old Petzold book on windows programming? It is a confusing issue here.


I can't really make a recommendation; I haven't looked. I learn this stuff from first-party reference documentation mostly.

Well, it is hard to ferret out any real documentation at M$ website.
Even M$ press doesn't have any new titles for Vista yet.


[snip]

It's trivial next to the amount you have to pay to get a programmer to use the thing.


That part I wouldn't know about. Are you saying that commercial programmers don't like to program for windows?


No. Commercial programmers are quite expensive, however. Compared to the tools.


Of course. But for the homebody, the tools costs can be a make or break situation chosing between different platforms.
The Standard edition fits in with a modest budget.
For the enterprise area or WAN or large LAN, you have to hire them and pay for the better tools.

[snip]

I can honestly say that I've never seen any references to Fluffy in any Microsoft documentation.


No, but the interjection of side street editorials in their documentation has no place in any technical documentation. I've seen plenty of it.


I've never seen anything that struck me as a "side street editorial" in MS documentation. Can you give me an example? Or a link?


Have you ever downloaded the Express editions? Then read the docs.
Those are terrible and should be drastically swept clean and just put in the technical only docs.
You'll find plenty of references to the MSDN pages, which are mostly what I said they were... editorial experiences. These don't point to the meat of the subject one would be looking for.

But it is true that the deluge of new APIs over the last few years seems to have left the MS documentation guys behind. They just haven't kept up, and the documentation is too often quite sketchy.


Must be why they want you to subscribe to the MSDN. Not my cup of tea there.


MSDN subscription does not include any documentation you can't get for free, as far as I can tell.

Oh, you get tips and tricks and more editorials. :-))
And where the next Palm Springs developer convention will be for those that like to golf.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Microsoft throws in the towel on Vista
    ... Of course, it will be nice to have everything delivered in one easy lump via Windows Update, instead of having to find and download fixes for bugs that trouble you. ... Leopard actually goes *farther* overboard than Vista in a few places- sure, they both have silly translucency effects, but only Leopard has The Galaxy That Time Remembered. ... from first-party reference documentation mostly. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: My Leopard impressions
    ... That would explain a lot about your opinions of Vista, ... the menu bar is stupid in Leopard, but it's a far cry from the UI ... It's a problem when the backup drive is too small. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Microsoft throws in the towel on Vista
    ... Of course I also tried Vista on a laptop as well and found that to be rather good as well. ... Leopard actually goes *farther* overboard than Vista in a few places- sure, they both have silly translucency effects, but only Leopard has The Galaxy That Time Remembered. ... But Microsoft's users just *hate* that. ... I can honestly say that I've never seen any references to Fluffy in any Microsoft documentation. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Microsoft throws in the towel on Vista
    ... Leopard actually goes *farther* overboard than Vista in a few places- sure, they both have silly translucency effects, but only Leopard has The Galaxy That Time Remembered. ... my real point is that it's hard to damn Vista for its real compatibility woes when Leopard is doing this. ... I can honestly say that I've never seen any references to Fluffy in any Microsoft documentation. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Apple - Slashing Features from Leopard Left, Right and Center!
    ... But had everything gone well with Leopard and this ... feature, you'd be getting ZFS, I think. ... It isn't as late as Vista, but only by a few months ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
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