__/ [ Roy Culley ] on Thursday 04 May 2006 01:00 \__
> begin risky.vbs
> <1146689635.968861.232450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> "nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ca8ac2da-d862-11da-9715-0000779e2340.html
>>
>> "Wall Street is wondering: is Microsoft on the defensive, rushing to
>> shore up a dominant desktop software business that is in danger of
>> being eroded faster than expected?"
>
> MS are crapping themselves. Vista will be nothing more, feature wise,
> than an XP service pack. There's no doubt oodles of new code with
> oodles of new security bugs. Windows is insecure by design. It is also
> insecure because of bloat and massive interdependencies in the 'OS'.
I imagine that the 60% re-write is intended to improve modularity. But you
can't write *that* much code overnight. Moreover, a radical redesign of the
O/S needs to be backward compatible as to properly inter-operate with
packages like Office and VS. Let us not forget services and drivers, e.g.
OpenGL/DirectX and TCP stacks respectively. The amount of testing it entails
is vast.
Vista and its successors (if any, e.g. codename "Fiji" and "Vienna") will be
some of these case studies where the underlying code changes but the UI
improvement, user experience and innovative features are nowhere to be
found. Think, for instance, about Gallery 2.0 where they undertook a major
overhaul to use design patterns. The front end was merely unaffected, but
the code was more manageable, easily extensible, and modular.
The bottom line is this: Windows XP and its endless trouble (notably
security, but not only security) made it evident that it will never work
unless all return to ground 0. The building was symbolically demolished to
the ground in September 2005
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112743680328349448,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
,----[ Quote ]
| REDMOND, Wash. ? Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive,
| walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver
| a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows.
|
| "It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft
| chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its
| writers would never be able to make it run properly.
|
| The news got even worse: Longhorn was irredeemable because
| Microsoft engineers were building it just as they had always built
| software. Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of
| programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then
| stitched it together into one sprawling program. Now, Mr. Allchin
| argued, the jig was up. Microsoft needed to start over.
`----
As a consequence, Windows Vista will be extremely similar to Windows XP, but
it will wear a different gown.
http://www.schestowitz.com/Amusement/vista-upgrade/ (satire warning)
More sadly (not to me), due to the former factor, no progress in terms of
re-design has been made. It has been 5-6 years down the sewage,
progress-wise. The competition has meanwhile gathered momentum and left
Windows behind, though a misjudged look at userbase will be deceiving --
owing to shrewdly-prepared lockins, endless FUD, and nepotism at some high
levels.
> It is in their interest to delay its release because it will be torn
> to shreds by the PC press if it ever does hit the shelves. Who in
> their right mind will fork out the money to buy a high end PC just to
> run an OS that offers nothing substantial over what they have today?
The "Vista will fix everything^tm" (thanks, Ghost) legend will be broken once
Vista hits the shelves and people can judge the fallacies for themselves. No
shelf, legend lingers on. Shelf is death.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Signature pending approval"
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