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> The GUI system, especially with the "Gadgets" subsystem, is mind-blowing. It would take too long to go over it at the moment, but there are features there tha

> The GUI system, especially with the "Gadgets" subsystem, is mind-blowing. It would take too long to go over it at the moment, but there are features there that still haven't made it into mainstream GUI systems. Have you seen Delphi?

carapace 5y ago
Yes. Oberon with Gadgets was like having the capabilities of Delphi live in the GUI. You could literally select widgets and open an inspector tool and edit them. It also had a facility similar to OLE ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Linking_and_Embedding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Linking_and_Embedding ) implemented with message passing. When I said these features still haven't made it into mainstream GUI systems I didn't mean that they weren't represented at all. But Delphi is an app rather than a built-in part of the OS/GUI. OLE was in Windows, but it didn't really take off AFAIK. Smalltalk integrated GUIs (Pharo, Squeak, etc.) are very similar, albeit with a very different language and runtime architecture, but again, Smalltalk didn't break into widespread mainstream adoption.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  COM is everywhere on Windows, OLE is just a specific set of COM interfaces. After the Windows team successfully sabotaged Longhorn efforts, they went on replicating the .NET designs for Longhorn in COM instead. So since Vista all major Windows APIs are COM, and WinRT is basically a marketing name for COM 2.0.
  - zmix 5y ago
    > After the Windows team successfully sabotaged Longhorn efforts Why did they do that?
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Politics, .NET has always been part of DevTools business unit, while C++ and Windows were under WinDev roof. Longhorn's goals was to rebuild Windows on top of .NET, naturally there were performance issues with the state of .NET 2.0 capabilities. However instead of working together , while improving the whole stack (languages and runtime) to make it possible, like Google teams have later done with Android and ChromeOS, they just deemed it impossible and started pushing for a reboot. When Sinfosky of the Office team took charge (another C++ holdout at MS), they picked up all the Longhorn's ideas redoing them in COM. It is no surprise how WinRT turned out to be COM 2.0 with him in charge of Windows 8. https://hackernoon.com/what-really-happened-with-vista-4ca7ffb5a1a https://hackernoon.com/what-really-happened-with-vista-4ca7f... "Turning to the past to power Windows’ future: An in-depth look at WinRT" https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt-everything-old-is-new-again/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt...
  - carapace 5y ago
    Ah, I stand corrected. Cheers! BTW your article you link to above is awesome!

carapace 5y ago

Yes. Oberon with Gadgets was like having the capabilities of Delphi live in the GUI. You could literally select widgets and open an inspector tool and edit them. It also had a facility similar to OLE ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Linking_and_Embedding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Linking_and_Embedding ) implemented with message passing. When I said these features still haven't made it into mainstream GUI systems I didn't mean that they weren't represented at all. But Delphi is an app rather than a built-in part of the OS/GUI. OLE was in Windows, but it didn't really take off AFAIK. Smalltalk integrated GUIs (Pharo, Squeak, etc.) are very similar, albeit with a very different language and runtime architecture, but again, Smalltalk didn't break into widespread mainstream adoption.

pjmlp 5y ago
COM is everywhere on Windows, OLE is just a specific set of COM interfaces. After the Windows team successfully sabotaged Longhorn efforts, they went on replicating the .NET designs for Longhorn in COM instead. So since Vista all major Windows APIs are COM, and WinRT is basically a marketing name for COM 2.0.
- zmix 5y ago
  > After the Windows team successfully sabotaged Longhorn efforts Why did they do that?
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Politics, .NET has always been part of DevTools business unit, while C++ and Windows were under WinDev roof. Longhorn's goals was to rebuild Windows on top of .NET, naturally there were performance issues with the state of .NET 2.0 capabilities. However instead of working together , while improving the whole stack (languages and runtime) to make it possible, like Google teams have later done with Android and ChromeOS, they just deemed it impossible and started pushing for a reboot. When Sinfosky of the Office team took charge (another C++ holdout at MS), they picked up all the Longhorn's ideas redoing them in COM. It is no surprise how WinRT turned out to be COM 2.0 with him in charge of Windows 8. https://hackernoon.com/what-really-happened-with-vista-4ca7ffb5a1a https://hackernoon.com/what-really-happened-with-vista-4ca7f... "Turning to the past to power Windows’ future: An in-depth look at WinRT" https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt-everything-old-is-new-again/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt...
- carapace 5y ago
  Ah, I stand corrected. Cheers! BTW your article you link to above is awesome!