3 ms·

> If you don't have the talent to do the rewrite, consultants and remote developers in India are only going to make things worse. I don't think this is necessa

by eganist 11y ago

> If you don't have the talent to do the rewrite, consultants and remote developers in India are only going to make things worse. I don't think this is necessarily a given, but I see where you're coming from with the overall perspective. To get closer to the point of the post: unless there are truly solid and unavoidable blockers, e.g. substantial architectural defects that just can't be resolved without a major rework, a rewrite of any capacity should probably be off the table. Although I'm sure there are others that I have no insight into, the only "successful" commercial rewrite I can think of would be Windows Vista, and that only made that version of Windows somewhat releasable. Even then, that wasn't a total reboot even of the project; it was a partial rewrite off of a different codebase with as much code salvaged from the original project as possible (the initial Longhorn builds on top of the XP codebase were a total trainwreck, driving the partial reboot on top of Server 2003's codebase instead). They still needed two service packs to make Vista stable, and it took an entire subsequent major release (7) to right the ship, so to speak.

chris_wot 11y ago
There would be nothing preventing a rewrite of core subsystems. Vista, despite it being a disaster for Microsoft, was only problematic because of changes made to the UX. Actually Vista is interesting. For all its problems, it's actually an impressive upgrade - whilst there was development chaos due to a lack of focus, a new management team was able to significantly focus in on what needed to be done and hundred of improvements were made under the hood. Microsoft rewrote their TCP/IP stack from scratch and included important system administration tools like an improved logging system, performance and reliability tools, a vastly improved desktop window manager, a new graphics driver model called WDDM and a raft of new kernel security measures. These rewrites weren't rewrites of the entirety of Windows, but instead Windows was increasingly modularised and entire subsystems were rewritten. Whilst Vista was a disaster and had some real problems I don't think it was because of rewriting subsystems, I think it was due to UX changes. Interestingly, Windows 7 was an amazing success and in fact built on Windows Vista, but again focused on modularisation and leveraging the work done in Vista. My hypothesis that major UX changes caused Microsoft to stumble in Windows is born out by Windows 8 - which was even more stable and performed better than Windows 7, but was rejected in the market because of insane UX decisions. So a major rework can be done, but if you are going to do this then I suggest that major changes to UX should be done after the rework. I don't think you can avoid major rework though. Without some of the things I highlight above, there is no way Microsoft would be able to improve their code or implement features that actual make sense!
- douche 11y ago
  This is basically the story of each of the last few generations of Windows - the core of the operating system has gotten considerably more stable and better at each iteration, only to be stymied by the UX changes which are undesired and generate considerable hate. Worst of all is when those UX changes are spotty and inconsistent. Windows 10 is a fantastic upgrade, so far as the core operating system goes. But the UI is a complete trainwreck lava-layer, particularly in the control panel and settings dialogs. Bits of it are essentially unchanged from Window 2000, other parts are Vista-era, others from the Windows 7 generation, yet other in the Metro Windows 8 or whatever they are calling the Windows 10 style. Some things can only be managed through the older UI, some only through the new UI, some in both, and some in both, but with subtle and non-obvious differences.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    If you start from the desktop and go trough the graphic properties layer you basically traverse all generations of panels with more details each time, down to the windows 95 advanced appareance tool https://www.google.it/search?q=windows+advanced+appearance&rlz=1CDGOYI_enIE590IE590&hl=en-GB&prmd=ivsn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu4OGvkaTMAhXE2hoKHfDoD5UQ_AUICCgB&biw=320&bih=492 https://www.google.it/search?q=windows+advanced+appearance&r...
- peteri 11y ago
  The biggest problems with Vista were a) Lockdown of "Program Files" directory and UAC which meant existing applications had tricky to fix issues (sortable by IT folks not by end users). Microsoft had been saying for years that many of these practices weren't allowed as part of the windows certification program (I'm sure I did most of this work for Win2K certification) b) Requiring new drivers for things like printers / scanners. Hardware vendors didn't want to do rewrites for old hardware (there's no money in it for them) so peripherals that used to work got "broken" by Vista. Windows 7 was better because UAC was toned down and both software and hardware vendors had done the security work a few years earlier for Vista. Folks who did the XP->Win7 upgrade had a much easier time. From a security PoV Vista was needed.
- 11y ago

by eganist 11y ago

chris_wot 11y ago

There would be nothing preventing a rewrite of core subsystems. Vista, despite it being a disaster for Microsoft, was only problematic because of changes made to the UX. Actually Vista is interesting. For all its problems, it's actually an impressive upgrade - whilst there was development chaos due to a lack of focus, a new management team was able to significantly focus in on what needed to be done and hundred of improvements were made under the hood. Microsoft rewrote their TCP/IP stack from scratch and included important system administration tools like an improved logging system, performance and reliability tools, a vastly improved desktop window manager, a new graphics driver model called WDDM and a raft of new kernel security measures. These rewrites weren't rewrites of the entirety of Windows, but instead Windows was increasingly modularised and entire subsystems were rewritten. Whilst Vista was a disaster and had some real problems I don't think it was because of rewriting subsystems, I think it was due to UX changes. Interestingly, Windows 7 was an amazing success and in fact built on Windows Vista, but again focused on modularisation and leveraging the work done in Vista. My hypothesis that major UX changes caused Microsoft to stumble in Windows is born out by Windows 8 - which was even more stable and performed better than Windows 7, but was rejected in the market because of insane UX decisions. So a major rework can be done, but if you are going to do this then I suggest that major changes to UX should be done after the rework. I don't think you can avoid major rework though. Without some of the things I highlight above, there is no way Microsoft would be able to improve their code or implement features that actual make sense!

douche 11y ago
This is basically the story of each of the last few generations of Windows - the core of the operating system has gotten considerably more stable and better at each iteration, only to be stymied by the UX changes which are undesired and generate considerable hate. Worst of all is when those UX changes are spotty and inconsistent. Windows 10 is a fantastic upgrade, so far as the core operating system goes. But the UI is a complete trainwreck lava-layer, particularly in the control panel and settings dialogs. Bits of it are essentially unchanged from Window 2000, other parts are Vista-era, others from the Windows 7 generation, yet other in the Metro Windows 8 or whatever they are calling the Windows 10 style. Some things can only be managed through the older UI, some only through the new UI, some in both, and some in both, but with subtle and non-obvious differences.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  If you start from the desktop and go trough the graphic properties layer you basically traverse all generations of panels with more details each time, down to the windows 95 advanced appareance tool https://www.google.it/search?q=windows+advanced+appearance&rlz=1CDGOYI_enIE590IE590&hl=en-GB&prmd=ivsn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu4OGvkaTMAhXE2hoKHfDoD5UQ_AUICCgB&biw=320&bih=492 https://www.google.it/search?q=windows+advanced+appearance&r...
peteri 11y ago
The biggest problems with Vista were a) Lockdown of "Program Files" directory and UAC which meant existing applications had tricky to fix issues (sortable by IT folks not by end users). Microsoft had been saying for years that many of these practices weren't allowed as part of the windows certification program (I'm sure I did most of this work for Win2K certification) b) Requiring new drivers for things like printers / scanners. Hardware vendors didn't want to do rewrites for old hardware (there's no money in it for them) so peripherals that used to work got "broken" by Vista. Windows 7 was better because UAC was toned down and both software and hardware vendors had done the security work a few years earlier for Vista. Folks who did the XP->Win7 upgrade had a much easier time. From a security PoV Vista was needed.
11y ago