5 ms·

you also have largely the same OS and hardware architecture that you did in 1999

foepys 6y ago
You make it sound like it's a bad thing. My company can build and maintain a really big program with a minimal number of developers because Windows is so backwards-compatible. No need to rebuild everything every 3 years because APIs changed or some framework got deprecated. It's just running and running and running on our customer's hardware.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
Modern Linux kernels can also run binaries compiled in the 90s. Apple just doesn't care.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Sure, if they're statically compiled with no non-kernel dependencies whatsoever. Once Linux userspace gets involved it is a shitshow.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    Right. Most Linux user space software actually subscribes to the Apple philosophy of breaking everything in the name of progress. From what I've read, even GNU rejects binary compatibility concerns because to do otherwise would help proprietary software, sometimes resulting in breakages in vital stuff like glibc. > statically compiled with no non-kernel dependencies whatsoever I'd love that. Would be great if we could even get rid of the C library. Compilers should emit Linux system call code directly.
    - fooker 6y ago
      This makes fixable library bugs more or less impossible to fix. Look at how many DLLs get updated in a typical windows security update. Most of those would have been permanent security vulnerabilities if everything was statically linked.
      - matheusmoreira 6y ago
        That shouldn't happen assuming the Linux distribution maintainers update everything whenever a library gets fixed. I agree that dynamic linking produces significantly less work for maintainers.
sangnoir 6y ago
Microsoft takes backward-compatibility as seriously as Apple takes product aesthetics.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  I wish there was a bit more of that on the Win32/UWP reboot (Project Reunion, WinUI 3), .NET unification, C++/CX replacement.
  - foepys 6y ago
    I think Microsoft is at the point we're the old guard is leaving and the new hip kids take over who mostly only plugged libraries together because they never needed to write assembly. Maybe the knowledge of how to make backwards compatible systems is even slowly leaving with the old guard and they just will never know how to make it work ever again. A colleague of mine is very active in Microsoft's GitHub repos and is complaining daily that no employee there seems to know how their own software works. He routinely needs to explain Microsoft employees that their ideas will not work because of $generic_windows_api_behavior.
    - stjohnswarts 6y ago
      Yeah these whipper snappers can't possibly pick up c and assembly. Only boomers and gen x can do that.
      - foepys 6y ago
        Knowledge can be lost. There is a stark difference between using a tool and mastering a tool. It's even harder for theoretical knowledge. Don't use it, lose it. Look at the US space program for example. It took them 12 years from the first man in space to go to the moon. Nowadays Space X, Blue Origin etc. seem to have to re-learn everthing and edge themselves slowly towards launching manned missions. They very likely have the books about space flight but not much experience. I'm not saying that young people don't know assembly and C. What I'm saying is that most younger people don't need assembly and C, so they are a lot less proficient in it. Hardware has become so fast, it doesn't matter that JavaScript is 20x times slower, so people nowadays write entire desktop programs in JavaScript that are slow on not-cutting-edge hardware and have bad OS integration.
UnpossibleJim 6y ago
No offense, but I can still "roll my own" desktop with Linux and Windows, replacing components out as needed. I understand that this sounds like some technical hurdle to many, but it also feels like a cause to the rising hardware illiteracy of the average citizen. I might be conflating causation and correlation, admittedly. I've always enjoyed the hardware aspect of computers, so it's hard to look at this sort of thing completely objectively.
m463 6y ago
You know, apple did a really good job on this in the past - with rosetta to emulate PPC when the first intel macs came out. It's too bad they just don't make VM stuff available, and make it available for a long time. Yes it might be only nostalgia, but why don't they have something simple like dosbox for macos that would run mac classic apps or recent stuff. I guess you just have to keep your old systems around
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Lol what hardware do you think apple uses? ARM and Intel/AMD are all ancient designs with improvements bolted on.

You make it sound like it's a bad thing. My company can build and maintain a really big program with a minimal number of developers because Windows is so backwards-compatible. No need to rebuild everything every 3 years because APIs changed or some framework got deprecated. It's just running and running and running on our customer's hardware.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

Modern Linux kernels can also run binaries compiled in the 90s. Apple just doesn't care.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Sure, if they're statically compiled with no non-kernel dependencies whatsoever. Once Linux userspace gets involved it is a shitshow.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  Right. Most Linux user space software actually subscribes to the Apple philosophy of breaking everything in the name of progress. From what I've read, even GNU rejects binary compatibility concerns because to do otherwise would help proprietary software, sometimes resulting in breakages in vital stuff like glibc. > statically compiled with no non-kernel dependencies whatsoever I'd love that. Would be great if we could even get rid of the C library. Compilers should emit Linux system call code directly.
  - fooker 6y ago
    This makes fixable library bugs more or less impossible to fix. Look at how many DLLs get updated in a typical windows security update. Most of those would have been permanent security vulnerabilities if everything was statically linked.
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      That shouldn't happen assuming the Linux distribution maintainers update everything whenever a library gets fixed. I agree that dynamic linking produces significantly less work for maintainers.

sangnoir 6y ago

Microsoft takes backward-compatibility as seriously as Apple takes product aesthetics.

pjmlp 6y ago
I wish there was a bit more of that on the Win32/UWP reboot (Project Reunion, WinUI 3), .NET unification, C++/CX replacement.
- foepys 6y ago
  I think Microsoft is at the point we're the old guard is leaving and the new hip kids take over who mostly only plugged libraries together because they never needed to write assembly. Maybe the knowledge of how to make backwards compatible systems is even slowly leaving with the old guard and they just will never know how to make it work ever again. A colleague of mine is very active in Microsoft's GitHub repos and is complaining daily that no employee there seems to know how their own software works. He routinely needs to explain Microsoft employees that their ideas will not work because of $generic_windows_api_behavior.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    Yeah these whipper snappers can't possibly pick up c and assembly. Only boomers and gen x can do that.
    - foepys 6y ago
      Knowledge can be lost. There is a stark difference between using a tool and mastering a tool. It's even harder for theoretical knowledge. Don't use it, lose it. Look at the US space program for example. It took them 12 years from the first man in space to go to the moon. Nowadays Space X, Blue Origin etc. seem to have to re-learn everthing and edge themselves slowly towards launching manned missions. They very likely have the books about space flight but not much experience. I'm not saying that young people don't know assembly and C. What I'm saying is that most younger people don't need assembly and C, so they are a lot less proficient in it. Hardware has become so fast, it doesn't matter that JavaScript is 20x times slower, so people nowadays write entire desktop programs in JavaScript that are slow on not-cutting-edge hardware and have bad OS integration.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago

No offense, but I can still "roll my own" desktop with Linux and Windows, replacing components out as needed. I understand that this sounds like some technical hurdle to many, but it also feels like a cause to the rising hardware illiteracy of the average citizen. I might be conflating causation and correlation, admittedly. I've always enjoyed the hardware aspect of computers, so it's hard to look at this sort of thing completely objectively.

m463 6y ago

You know, apple did a really good job on this in the past - with rosetta to emulate PPC when the first intel macs came out. It's too bad they just don't make VM stuff available, and make it available for a long time. Yes it might be only nostalgia, but why don't they have something simple like dosbox for macos that would run mac classic apps or recent stuff. I guess you just have to keep your old systems around

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Lol what hardware do you think apple uses? ARM and Intel/AMD are all ancient designs with improvements bolted on.