5 ms·

Can’t imagine how these Windows engineers feel about the enshitification of their baby. So much time invested into it - must be hard to see it taking this curre

Can’t imagine how these Windows engineers feel about the enshitification of their baby. So much time invested into it - must be hard to see it taking this current trajectory.

muricula 3y ago
A few years ago when I was there, there were still remnants of that same Dave Cutler NT culture, especially around the folks who worked on minkernel/. I agree there are definitely shitty chunks Windows, but there are still some very solid foundations there to this day.
- ForOldHack 3y ago
  I switched from 98 to ME for a week before 2k, and it (2k) was rock solid for years.
- sanxiyn 3y ago
  For example, Windows kernel's write watch feature is useful for writing a GC. Linux lacked (and as far as I know, still lacks) this feature, so Microsoft had to rewrite .NET runtime. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/working-through-things-on-other-oss/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/working-through-things...
  - kouteiheika 3y ago
    > Linux lacked (and as far as I know, still lacks) this feature AFAIK it is possible to do this on Linux (either through mprotect + SIGSEGV or userfaultfd) but it's slow. But there's a work-in-progress patch that the Collabora folks (probably on a contract from Valve if I'd had to guess, as some games do use this) are working on which will add a new fast way of doing this.
    - sanxiyn 3y ago
      userfaultfd was ~2015 (https://lwn.net/Articles/636226/ https://lwn.net/Articles/636226/), so Microsoft couldn't use it at the time. It could be better, but yes, Linux is making progress. Even in current form, userfaultfd is useful for GC, so Linux's lack of the feature in 2015 was unfortunate. Android 13 added a new GC taking advantage of userfaultfd: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/08/android-13-is-in-aosp.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/08/android-13.... > A new garbage collector based on the Linux kernel feature userfaultfd is coming to ART on Android 13... The new garbage collector... leading to as much as ~10% reduction in compiled code size.
- junon 3y ago
  A lot of the original designs of Windows were elegant in theory but never simplified and unified. COM objects are a good example, they were just a pain to deal with from languages at the time (and arguably still are).
  - speed_spread 3y ago
    Delphi and VB made COM relatively painless.
  - dblohm7 3y ago
    That’s indicative of poor bindings for those other languages. The nice thing about COM is that it provides a well-defined, C-based ABI for calling object-oriented interfaces; if your language has a FFI that supports C, then you can call COM objects. I’m a big believer that COM bindings for any language with automatic memory management should not expose refcounts directly to the programmer (at least in 90% of cases). It’s not far fetched — the original, pre-.NET Visual Basic did a very good job of this.
    - mike_hearn 3y ago
      COM was still a pain even when using MS languages. The WinRT era COM is a bit better but WinNT era was just needlessly elaborate. Everything was done with giant 128-bit GUIDs that were impossible to recognize or memorize, so they added a naming layer on top but it wasn't used consistently. COM servers had to be registered before they could be used, and that was the _only_ way to use them, so you couldn't just export some objects from a DLL and load them directly from that DLL (or at least it wasn't well documented, my memory is getting fuzzy about this stuff). Then you had the obscure thread safety approach in which instantiating some kinds of COM objects would create an invisible window that you were just expected to know about and then you had to write the boilerplate to pump the message loop, if you weren't doing the COM call on the UI thread. Etc. The goals were good, and other platforms haven't really tried to achieve them (KParts and Bonobo were the closest equivalents but both were abandoned a long time ago, DBUS isn't quite the same thing). But COM was fiddly.
lozenge 3y ago
The kernel is better than ever. As for the shell, it's always had junk on it for commercial reasons - remember MSN and baking IE into the OS, or how the system requirements were ridiculously low for the reasons of marketing and to placate OEM manufacturers? And how OEMs were allowed to add loads of junk software on computers wearing their "Designed for Windows" stickers? I'm pretty sure XP came with a digital app store right at the top of the redesigned Start menu, Windows Media Player had ten music stores integrated all selling DRM'd WMA files... The system requirements especially, must have created a lot of work right down into the kernel team.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  > Remember MSN and baking IE into the OS Yeat another thing where Microsoft was ahead of the curve, nowadays we get Electron (aka Chrome) all over the place. People even buy laptops where the browser turned into the OS!
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    Some of us wipe that and install Linux because the hardware is cheap.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      And just like with Windows, contribute to the sales number.
- blkhawk 3y ago
  Well they got slapped for including IE forcible by the EU and there was never an App Store like that over XPs lifetime to my knowledge? Also you could quite easily replace the whole Shell. Sadly not anymore if you do that now stuff you need access to will just stop working because everything "metro" will need the explorer shell actively running in the background.
  - lozenge 3y ago
    http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/winxpnew.htm http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/winxpnew.htm "MSN Explorer"/"Windows Catalog" https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/windows-xp-professional/059600348X/ch02s06.html https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/windows-xp-professional... "Windows Catalog"
distcs 3y ago
> Can’t imagine how these Windows engineers feel about the enshitification of their baby. I think people are forgetting how unreliable Windows was in its early days. If you were doing anything complex (programming, editing pictures, ...) Windows couldn't run for 2 hours without crashing every so often. If anything, the core of the Windows operating system has only gotten better with time. Yes, they keep adding fluff to the desktop environment but that doesn't take away the progress they have made in stablizing their core operating system.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  > I think people are forgetting how unreliable Windows was in its early days. Not to mention being as easy to attack as a house made of butter.
  - deelly 3y ago
    And some people still use WinXP, Win 7, Win 8 etc...
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Later Windowses are full blown spyware with ads. If I had to use Windows for some reason it would be 7.
      - AussieWog93 3y ago
        It's not difficult to de-shittify 10/11. There's a tool that automatically does it call ShutUp10. It's arguably a bit shit from a business perspective, but has no real impact on power-users day to day.
        rightbyte 3y ago
        Does it work without a Enterprise install?
anaisbetts 3y ago
A core piece of enshitification though is that a product becomes Less Useful over time - Reddit and Twitter lose third party apps, Apple is making its desktop OS more "secure" (read: convoluted and does less stuff) every release. The things you Liked about it, goes away. Windows, despite its legitimately annoying monetization strategy, has absolutely done the opposite - it does More Stuff every release, and the stuff it did before largely still works.
- AussieWog93 3y ago
  That's a really interesting take. Thanks!
- ghosty141 3y ago
  > is that a product becomes Less Useful over time > it does More Stuff every release I wouldn't say "doing more" is better. I'd be happy if it did a lot less. I don't care about most of the big new features in windows. I'd be a lot more happy they'd rework their old antiquated stuff that keeps making problems (drivers, registry, focus handling, etc. etc.). > Apple is making its desktop OS more "secure" (read: convoluted and does less stuff) What is apple really making less useful with time? For me I really like many of the new features. The only reason I stick to windows is that gamging is still horrible on macOS.
  - anaisbetts 3y ago
    Here's a few examples - software requires signing and App Store accounts (literally called "Gatekeeper") which causes problems with OSS, you can no longer write kernel drivers on Arm64, many apps now require an avalanche of Vista-style "Do you want to allow this Thing Y/n" prompts, many other apps have to walk users through clicking into security settings to e.g. enable screensharing or productivity tools that use a11y hooks, the list goes on and on. Software on the Apple platform is becoming Less Useful over time and the list of things you can Do keeps getting smaller.
  - II2II 3y ago
    > I wouldn't say "doing more" is better. I'd be happy if it did a lot less. I don't care about most of the big new features in windows. There are two levels of features here (maybe three) that we should consider: - There are consumer facing features, the stuff pushed by marketing departments since it will grab the attention of customers and (perhaps) make it more desirable for customers. A lot of this is targeted towards specific groups of users, while being less useful to others, and goes out of fashion very quickly (assuming it ever went into fashion). - There is the infrastructure. This stuff is harder to sell users on because relatively few people care about the details. It includes everything from exposing functionality to developers to improving performance and security. Sometimes it turns out this functionality is only of interested to a limited subset of developers. Sometimes it retrospectively seen as a problem that needs to be addressed. Either way it is very difficult to alter or remove because other software depends upon it. (Heck, even internal software depends upon it. While they may have the means to update internal software, that doesn't mean they have the resources to.) I'm tempted to split the second category into two, but the net effect is the same so we may as well keep it simple. As for the Apple thing, well, Apple has a more focused market. Choosing Apple also tends to be a conscious decision, while choosing Windows tends to be more a default position. For those reasons, I have no doubt that macOS is a better OS in the eyes of its users than Windows is in the eyes of its users.

Can’t imagine how these Windows engineers feel about the enshitification of their baby. So much time invested into it - must be hard to see it taking this current trajectory.

muricula 3y ago

A few years ago when I was there, there were still remnants of that same Dave Cutler NT culture, especially around the folks who worked on minkernel/. I agree there are definitely shitty chunks Windows, but there are still some very solid foundations there to this day.

ForOldHack 3y ago
I switched from 98 to ME for a week before 2k, and it (2k) was rock solid for years.
sanxiyn 3y ago
For example, Windows kernel's write watch feature is useful for writing a GC. Linux lacked (and as far as I know, still lacks) this feature, so Microsoft had to rewrite .NET runtime. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/working-through-things-on-other-oss/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/working-through-things...
- kouteiheika 3y ago
  > Linux lacked (and as far as I know, still lacks) this feature AFAIK it is possible to do this on Linux (either through mprotect + SIGSEGV or userfaultfd) but it's slow. But there's a work-in-progress patch that the Collabora folks (probably on a contract from Valve if I'd had to guess, as some games do use this) are working on which will add a new fast way of doing this.
  - sanxiyn 3y ago
    userfaultfd was ~2015 (https://lwn.net/Articles/636226/ https://lwn.net/Articles/636226/), so Microsoft couldn't use it at the time. It could be better, but yes, Linux is making progress. Even in current form, userfaultfd is useful for GC, so Linux's lack of the feature in 2015 was unfortunate. Android 13 added a new GC taking advantage of userfaultfd: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/08/android-13-is-in-aosp.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/08/android-13.... > A new garbage collector based on the Linux kernel feature userfaultfd is coming to ART on Android 13... The new garbage collector... leading to as much as ~10% reduction in compiled code size.
junon 3y ago
A lot of the original designs of Windows were elegant in theory but never simplified and unified. COM objects are a good example, they were just a pain to deal with from languages at the time (and arguably still are).
- speed_spread 3y ago
  Delphi and VB made COM relatively painless.
- dblohm7 3y ago
  That’s indicative of poor bindings for those other languages. The nice thing about COM is that it provides a well-defined, C-based ABI for calling object-oriented interfaces; if your language has a FFI that supports C, then you can call COM objects. I’m a big believer that COM bindings for any language with automatic memory management should not expose refcounts directly to the programmer (at least in 90% of cases). It’s not far fetched — the original, pre-.NET Visual Basic did a very good job of this.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    COM was still a pain even when using MS languages. The WinRT era COM is a bit better but WinNT era was just needlessly elaborate. Everything was done with giant 128-bit GUIDs that were impossible to recognize or memorize, so they added a naming layer on top but it wasn't used consistently. COM servers had to be registered before they could be used, and that was the _only_ way to use them, so you couldn't just export some objects from a DLL and load them directly from that DLL (or at least it wasn't well documented, my memory is getting fuzzy about this stuff). Then you had the obscure thread safety approach in which instantiating some kinds of COM objects would create an invisible window that you were just expected to know about and then you had to write the boilerplate to pump the message loop, if you weren't doing the COM call on the UI thread. Etc. The goals were good, and other platforms haven't really tried to achieve them (KParts and Bonobo were the closest equivalents but both were abandoned a long time ago, DBUS isn't quite the same thing). But COM was fiddly.

lozenge 3y ago

The kernel is better than ever. As for the shell, it's always had junk on it for commercial reasons - remember MSN and baking IE into the OS, or how the system requirements were ridiculously low for the reasons of marketing and to placate OEM manufacturers? And how OEMs were allowed to add loads of junk software on computers wearing their "Designed for Windows" stickers? I'm pretty sure XP came with a digital app store right at the top of the redesigned Start menu, Windows Media Player had ten music stores integrated all selling DRM'd WMA files... The system requirements especially, must have created a lot of work right down into the kernel team.

pjmlp 3y ago
> Remember MSN and baking IE into the OS Yeat another thing where Microsoft was ahead of the curve, nowadays we get Electron (aka Chrome) all over the place. People even buy laptops where the browser turned into the OS!
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  Some of us wipe that and install Linux because the hardware is cheap.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    And just like with Windows, contribute to the sales number.
blkhawk 3y ago
Well they got slapped for including IE forcible by the EU and there was never an App Store like that over XPs lifetime to my knowledge? Also you could quite easily replace the whole Shell. Sadly not anymore if you do that now stuff you need access to will just stop working because everything "metro" will need the explorer shell actively running in the background.
- lozenge 3y ago
  http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/winxpnew.htm http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/winxpnew.htm "MSN Explorer"/"Windows Catalog" https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/windows-xp-professional/059600348X/ch02s06.html https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/windows-xp-professional... "Windows Catalog"

distcs 3y ago

> Can’t imagine how these Windows engineers feel about the enshitification of their baby. I think people are forgetting how unreliable Windows was in its early days. If you were doing anything complex (programming, editing pictures, ...) Windows couldn't run for 2 hours without crashing every so often. If anything, the core of the Windows operating system has only gotten better with time. Yes, they keep adding fluff to the desktop environment but that doesn't take away the progress they have made in stablizing their core operating system.

dreamcompiler 3y ago
> I think people are forgetting how unreliable Windows was in its early days. Not to mention being as easy to attack as a house made of butter.
- deelly 3y ago
  And some people still use WinXP, Win 7, Win 8 etc...
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Later Windowses are full blown spyware with ads. If I had to use Windows for some reason it would be 7.
    - AussieWog93 3y ago
      It's not difficult to de-shittify 10/11. There's a tool that automatically does it call ShutUp10. It's arguably a bit shit from a business perspective, but has no real impact on power-users day to day.
      - rightbyte 3y ago
        Does it work without a Enterprise install?

anaisbetts 3y ago

A core piece of enshitification though is that a product becomes Less Useful over time - Reddit and Twitter lose third party apps, Apple is making its desktop OS more "secure" (read: convoluted and does less stuff) every release. The things you Liked about it, goes away. Windows, despite its legitimately annoying monetization strategy, has absolutely done the opposite - it does More Stuff every release, and the stuff it did before largely still works.

AussieWog93 3y ago
That's a really interesting take. Thanks!
ghosty141 3y ago
> is that a product becomes Less Useful over time > it does More Stuff every release I wouldn't say "doing more" is better. I'd be happy if it did a lot less. I don't care about most of the big new features in windows. I'd be a lot more happy they'd rework their old antiquated stuff that keeps making problems (drivers, registry, focus handling, etc. etc.). > Apple is making its desktop OS more "secure" (read: convoluted and does less stuff) What is apple really making less useful with time? For me I really like many of the new features. The only reason I stick to windows is that gamging is still horrible on macOS.
- anaisbetts 3y ago
  Here's a few examples - software requires signing and App Store accounts (literally called "Gatekeeper") which causes problems with OSS, you can no longer write kernel drivers on Arm64, many apps now require an avalanche of Vista-style "Do you want to allow this Thing Y/n" prompts, many other apps have to walk users through clicking into security settings to e.g. enable screensharing or productivity tools that use a11y hooks, the list goes on and on. Software on the Apple platform is becoming Less Useful over time and the list of things you can Do keeps getting smaller.
- II2II 3y ago
  > I wouldn't say "doing more" is better. I'd be happy if it did a lot less. I don't care about most of the big new features in windows. There are two levels of features here (maybe three) that we should consider: - There are consumer facing features, the stuff pushed by marketing departments since it will grab the attention of customers and (perhaps) make it more desirable for customers. A lot of this is targeted towards specific groups of users, while being less useful to others, and goes out of fashion very quickly (assuming it ever went into fashion). - There is the infrastructure. This stuff is harder to sell users on because relatively few people care about the details. It includes everything from exposing functionality to developers to improving performance and security. Sometimes it turns out this functionality is only of interested to a limited subset of developers. Sometimes it retrospectively seen as a problem that needs to be addressed. Either way it is very difficult to alter or remove because other software depends upon it. (Heck, even internal software depends upon it. While they may have the means to update internal software, that doesn't mean they have the resources to.) I'm tempted to split the second category into two, but the net effect is the same so we may as well keep it simple. As for the Apple thing, well, Apple has a more focused market. Choosing Apple also tends to be a conscious decision, while choosing Windows tends to be more a default position. For those reasons, I have no doubt that macOS is a better OS in the eyes of its users than Windows is in the eyes of its users.