4 ms·

The Microsoft's insistence on maintaining native backwards compatibility with software some of which is as old as me is so perplexing. I saw what the API of th

The Microsoft's insistence on maintaining native backwards compatibility with software some of which is as old as me is so perplexing. I saw what the API of the classic Mac OS looked like[1] the other day, and it does resemble WinAPI very much. It's procedural, many functions take descriptors, many other functions take structs you allocate and fill in, there's a DIY event loop, and so on. It even has a windows.h (lol). Apple got rid of this in 2000. It then provided a VM-style "classic environment" backwards compatibility layer in OS X for ~5 years, and Carbon library for source-level compatibility for even longer. Apple did manage to pull this off. Why can't Microsoft do the same? Why can't they put a seamlessly integrated 95/XP/whatever VM into their system that would launch when you run a win32 application, and finally give themselves the freedom to rewrite everything from scratch, with more sensible APIs and in a more memory-safe language? [1] https://github.com/cy384/ssheven/blob/master/ssheven.c https://github.com/cy384/ssheven/blob/master/ssheven.c

webmobdev 5y ago
Microsoft's insistence on maintaining native backwards compatibility with software some of which is as old as me is so perplexing. This is why Microsoft has such a huge presence in corporate - unlike you or me, most corporates do not immediately update to latest, hi tech flashy tool of the month. If something works really well, they'll keep using it, sometimes for decades. And demand that Microsoft don't break it on their OS. Microsoft will happily support them as they earn a lot from corporate licenses and support. Apple doesn't have the kind of importance that Microsoft does in corporate. Nor does Apple have to support the kind of hardware and software that Microsoft does, and so Apple's monoculture helps them makes changes to their platform faster than Microsoft can.
- grishka 5y ago
  > If something works really well, they'll keep using it, sometimes for decades. But why does it apparently not apply to the operating systems themselves? And how would running win32 apps in a seamless VM (a-la Apple's classic environment) break that?
  - hnick 5y ago
    Yes the 2 different flavours of Control Panel for example are jarring. If MS seems to think that the new UI style is not fit for purpose or worth the effort for more rarely used or technical settings, why should I?
    - grishka 5y ago
      Also 2 different flavors of the open/save file dialog, the one from Windows 95 and the newer one from vista/7. From looking at the evolution of Windows, it feels like they're only capable of writing new code, but not deleting or rewriting anything existing unless absolutely necessary to support new code. Those shiny UWP apps? Yeah, they still have that win32 message loop deep inside them.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    It does apply to the OS too - that is why Microsoft (and others) offer LTS (long-term-support) for their OS and pubilicise an end-of-life date for every version they release. (And sometimes some businesses continue using it even after Microsoft stops LTS - it's only a recent trend that everyone is now forced to upgrade OSes over fears of security / lack of security updates). This is also why Microsoft Windows can get away with forced updates for home users but the business versions offer more fine-grained control over Windows update. As for running Win32 apps on different setups, it makes the system more complicated. When more vendors are involved, it also makes fixing things difficult - In case something breaks, Microsoft can say it is Apple's fault, and Apple will say we don't support Win32 apps, contact your developer. (Not to mention that Apple is not as corporate friendly as many others, like Microsoft, or IBM, as they are largely a business-to-consumer company and not a business-to-business company).
    - grishka 5y ago
      No, I didn't mean to say to run win32 apps on OS X. I was comparing my idea to the thing[1] Apple actually made in the early 00s to ease the transition from classic Mac OS to OS X. My idea is that Microsoft would build a special version of Windows that supports all kinds of legacy apps, and put it into a VM. And probably not update it much if ever. That would allow them to deprecate, and then remove, older APIs in the main system, which would in turn allow rewriting the internals to be less vulnerable. They totally have the resources needed to do this. And there's no technical innovation needed to do this, either. As far as the end user is concerned, old apps still run. Except now they run in a sandboxed environment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Class...

webmobdev 5y ago

Microsoft's insistence on maintaining native backwards compatibility with software some of which is as old as me is so perplexing. This is why Microsoft has such a huge presence in corporate - unlike you or me, most corporates do not immediately update to latest, hi tech flashy tool of the month. If something works really well, they'll keep using it, sometimes for decades. And demand that Microsoft don't break it on their OS. Microsoft will happily support them as they earn a lot from corporate licenses and support. Apple doesn't have the kind of importance that Microsoft does in corporate. Nor does Apple have to support the kind of hardware and software that Microsoft does, and so Apple's monoculture helps them makes changes to their platform faster than Microsoft can.

grishka 5y ago
> If something works really well, they'll keep using it, sometimes for decades. But why does it apparently not apply to the operating systems themselves? And how would running win32 apps in a seamless VM (a-la Apple's classic environment) break that?
- hnick 5y ago
  Yes the 2 different flavours of Control Panel for example are jarring. If MS seems to think that the new UI style is not fit for purpose or worth the effort for more rarely used or technical settings, why should I?
  - grishka 5y ago
    Also 2 different flavors of the open/save file dialog, the one from Windows 95 and the newer one from vista/7. From looking at the evolution of Windows, it feels like they're only capable of writing new code, but not deleting or rewriting anything existing unless absolutely necessary to support new code. Those shiny UWP apps? Yeah, they still have that win32 message loop deep inside them.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  It does apply to the OS too - that is why Microsoft (and others) offer LTS (long-term-support) for their OS and pubilicise an end-of-life date for every version they release. (And sometimes some businesses continue using it even after Microsoft stops LTS - it's only a recent trend that everyone is now forced to upgrade OSes over fears of security / lack of security updates). This is also why Microsoft Windows can get away with forced updates for home users but the business versions offer more fine-grained control over Windows update. As for running Win32 apps on different setups, it makes the system more complicated. When more vendors are involved, it also makes fixing things difficult - In case something breaks, Microsoft can say it is Apple's fault, and Apple will say we don't support Win32 apps, contact your developer. (Not to mention that Apple is not as corporate friendly as many others, like Microsoft, or IBM, as they are largely a business-to-consumer company and not a business-to-business company).
  - grishka 5y ago
    No, I didn't mean to say to run win32 apps on OS X. I was comparing my idea to the thing[1] Apple actually made in the early 00s to ease the transition from classic Mac OS to OS X. My idea is that Microsoft would build a special version of Windows that supports all kinds of legacy apps, and put it into a VM. And probably not update it much if ever. That would allow them to deprecate, and then remove, older APIs in the main system, which would in turn allow rewriting the internals to be less vulnerable. They totally have the resources needed to do this. And there's no technical innovation needed to do this, either. As far as the end user is concerned, old apps still run. Except now they run in a sandboxed environment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Class...