5 ms·

To an extent, they've removed things like Carbon (the Classic Mac OS descended API) and 32 bit support in general, but they don't go out of their way to gratuit

To an extent, they've removed things like Carbon (the Classic Mac OS descended API) and 32 bit support in general, but they don't go out of their way to gratuitously break the Cocoa API or libc. But they aren't Microsoft with the whole "Win32 must never break compatibility" mantra, so randomly stuff kinda breaks between versions more though neglect than intention?

pjmlp 4y ago
Microsoft has long forgotten that mantra. See .NET Core migration, Windows Runtime tooling, Xamarin/MAUI, UWP/WinUI 3.0,... The folks that were responsible for that kind of backwards compatibility apparently are no longer there, replaced by younger blood without any knowledge of Windows development history. Nowadays we even get CLI stuff instead of nice VS wizards.
- badsectoracula 4y ago
  Well, regardless of the newer stuff, at least they still stick with the "must never break Win32 compatibility".
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    See UDK 1.0 versus 2.0. The first version used COM, while the second uses plain C API.
- guessbest 4y ago
  Windows has a Compatibility Mode with is unmatched by any Operating System maker. I've got Windows 10 running Visual FoxPro 3.0 from 1995 and Visual Basic 5. Try that on macOS or any linux system with any application with a GUI from source or binaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_mode
  - anthk 4y ago
    You mean running Mosaic from 1995 with libc5? Done. OSS Audio? OSSPD, AOSS>
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Indeed, pity that the newer generations of Microsoft employees don't seem to care as much as their predecessors used to. I doubt this will be something still going forward, now that Azure OS is what mostly matters, as proven by anything post Windows 8. Try to run anything from Windows Runtime tooling introduced alongside Windows 8 on latest Windows 11. Or better yet, Windows Phone 7.
  - garbagecoder 4y ago
    To the extent running 30 year old software is a feature at all, it can easily be done with an emulator.

pjmlp 4y ago

Microsoft has long forgotten that mantra. See .NET Core migration, Windows Runtime tooling, Xamarin/MAUI, UWP/WinUI 3.0,... The folks that were responsible for that kind of backwards compatibility apparently are no longer there, replaced by younger blood without any knowledge of Windows development history. Nowadays we even get CLI stuff instead of nice VS wizards.

badsectoracula 4y ago
Well, regardless of the newer stuff, at least they still stick with the "must never break Win32 compatibility".
- pjmlp 4y ago
  See UDK 1.0 versus 2.0. The first version used COM, while the second uses plain C API.
guessbest 4y ago
Windows has a Compatibility Mode with is unmatched by any Operating System maker. I've got Windows 10 running Visual FoxPro 3.0 from 1995 and Visual Basic 5. Try that on macOS or any linux system with any application with a GUI from source or binaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_mode
- anthk 4y ago
  You mean running Mosaic from 1995 with libc5? Done. OSS Audio? OSSPD, AOSS>
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Indeed, pity that the newer generations of Microsoft employees don't seem to care as much as their predecessors used to. I doubt this will be something still going forward, now that Azure OS is what mostly matters, as proven by anything post Windows 8. Try to run anything from Windows Runtime tooling introduced alongside Windows 8 on latest Windows 11. Or better yet, Windows Phone 7.
- garbagecoder 4y ago
  To the extent running 30 year old software is a feature at all, it can easily be done with an emulator.