3 ms·

I don't know about that. I mean, look at Longhorn. And Microsoft was unbeatable back then. Being huge and powerful is no guarantee of success when it comes to

I don't know about that. I mean, look at Longhorn. And Microsoft was unbeatable back then. Being huge and powerful is no guarantee of success when it comes to shipping software. Size can often be a hinderance.

pjmlp 5y ago
Exactly because Microsoft was unbeatable, Longhorn UI ideas survived as WPF, while the OS components were rescued into C++ and COM, clunky as Windows Vista, and refined into Windows 7, including a kernel rewrite via the MinWin project. They are on a similar position nowadays, trying to fix the UWP disaster, maybe by a future Windows 12 we get what Windows 8 should have been all along. Likewise, starting from the same premise that Apple wouldn't be bleeding money, they would been able to keep up with their roadmap with System 8 and integration of Copland technologies.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  Copland UI ideas and code survived and shipped in Mac OS 8. Multithreaded Finder, Platinum Theme (multiple themes in fact, though killed at the last moment), windows as tabs at the bottom of the screen. However the main challenge, memory protection, didn't. Much like Longhorn's file system.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    So now only if 100% of the features got migrated, does it count. In any case this is playing guessing games, what would have happened if Apple wasn't begging for money. So who knows how System 9, 10… would have turned out. As for the Longhorn example, part of it did ship, as SQL Server features and some ideas on ReFS.
    - tambourine_man 5y ago
      Sure, the whole point of the thread was a guessing game. I'm speculating that Apple, had it not been worried with going bankrupt, could have tried to fix code that had grown organically and incoherently over decades. And that this was a missed opportunity for the whole industry as it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

3 ms·

I don't know about that. I mean, look at Longhorn. And Microsoft was unbeatable back then. Being huge and powerful is no guarantee of success when it comes to

by tambourine_man 5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago
Exactly because Microsoft was unbeatable, Longhorn UI ideas survived as WPF, while the OS components were rescued into C++ and COM, clunky as Windows Vista, and refined into Windows 7, including a kernel rewrite via the MinWin project. They are on a similar position nowadays, trying to fix the UWP disaster, maybe by a future Windows 12 we get what Windows 8 should have been all along. Likewise, starting from the same premise that Apple wouldn't be bleeding money, they would been able to keep up with their roadmap with System 8 and integration of Copland technologies.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  Copland UI ideas and code survived and shipped in Mac OS 8. Multithreaded Finder, Platinum Theme (multiple themes in fact, though killed at the last moment), windows as tabs at the bottom of the screen. However the main challenge, memory protection, didn't. Much like Longhorn's file system.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    So now only if 100% of the features got migrated, does it count. In any case this is playing guessing games, what would have happened if Apple wasn't begging for money. So who knows how System 9, 10… would have turned out. As for the Longhorn example, part of it did ship, as SQL Server features and some ideas on ReFS.
    - tambourine_man 5y ago
      Sure, the whole point of the thread was a guessing game. I'm speculating that Apple, had it not been worried with going bankrupt, could have tried to fix code that had grown organically and incoherently over decades. And that this was a missed opportunity for the whole industry as it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.