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I guess Windows doesn't break their compatibility almost ever. Linux doesn't break user-space, but of course the libraries you depend on might change in a few d
by pimeys 6y ago
I guess Windows doesn't break their compatibility almost ever. Linux doesn't break user-space, but of course the libraries you depend on might change in a few decades.
- uncledave 6y agoI've actually spent about 25 years writing software on Windows, mostly desktop. Stuff breaks all the time and getting it fixed is nigh on impossible even if you happen to be a partner with contract. What is claimed to be backwards compatibility is only partially true; reality is that bugs and their workarounds will exist forever. As for Linux and breaking userspace, that's the kernel interface which is stable, not the whole distribution. I really wish people would report that honestly. NT's API is stable too. It doesn't mean Gtk and ComCtl32 doesn't have abhorrent stability problems and bugs in them. The issue is, on all platforms, the thousands of libraries each containing hundreds of calls and data structures.
- rcoveson 6y agoThere are some old games I can't get to work on Windows 10 which worked fine on Windows XP. Amusingly, what usually ends up working best is wine.
- gnubison 6y agoThere's a 2004 article about this by Joel Spolsky that can be found here[0]. Obviously it is a "tad" out of date (and I don't work on Windows so I can't comment on the situation right now), but it seems that at some point Windows cared deeply about backwards-compatibility. [0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...