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Is there any good argument that backward compatibility is what holds Windows back compared to other Microsoft faults? So there are a few variants of the Control
by yyyk 5y ago
Is there any good argument that backward compatibility is what holds Windows back compared to other Microsoft faults? So there are a few variants of the Control Panel. That should not have prevented MS from porting every setting that mattered to the new panel already at Windows 8 (while keeping the old panel for apps that used it), and it isn't clear why they did not.
- throwanem 5y agoNo, it shouldn't have. I don't have time to dig it back up right now, but not too long ago there was a fairly detailed discussion, either on or linked from HN, of what the build process and organizational structure around Windows development is actually like, and the astonishing degree of friction it imposes. The tl;dr: as I recall it is that full RC builds via their bespoke hierarchical build scheme take weeks from start to finish, and organizational incentives produce a hoarding of features and areas of responsibility that massively further complicate actually shipping even the smallest thing because of the enormous range of stakeholders whose buy-in you need to get and maintain for even the smallest thing to actually become doable. I regret I didn't save a link to that discussion, but I believe my summary here is accurate. If so, it's no surprise that nothing new and good seems ever to get done, because how can it? In that kind of environment it's such a Sisyphean misery to do anything that the only things worth doing are those you'll die if you don't.