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Few data points from someone who actually worked in the latest iteration of unified storage, WinFS (2004-2006). The first problem was the lack of clear vision,
by amaks 13y ago
Few data points from someone who actually worked in the latest iteration of unified storage, WinFS (2004-2006).
The first problem was the lack of clear vision, contradictory requirements (AKA solving all world problems). For example, the data model had to be changed very late in the game. The previous data model was incredibly complex. It had entities of different types, links between them (of different types IIRC), it allowed multiple entities to be a parent of another entity, and from security stand point this was not solvable in any meaningful way. Shame that hundreds of people written tons of code for the flawed model without even realizing that it won't work, despite all high level architects involved into the project. At the end they realized that they couldn't possibly ship that, and decided to do a micro reset of WinFS' data model (around mid of 2005).
Second problem was SQL Server (actually a fork of what became SQL Server 2005) which was optimized to work as a dedicated service on a server machine and required lots of effort to massage it to work relatively well with other resource consumers on an average consumer grade machine.
Third, WinFS APIs were all managed and Longhorn Explorer was written in managed code as well. The whole thing was slow as hell and extremely unstable.
By the end the teams working on WinFS and related projects were fairly motivated though, we could see the light and the decision to kill WinFS (and do Longhorn reset) was simply a matter of time.
Ironically, the news of cancelling the project came the next day after the team declared WinFS Beta 2 ready. Now I think it was the right decision.
- frik 13y agoWinFS teaser video was so cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhWCH8ebShY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhWCH8ebShY Watching various Channel9 videos with the cool demo apps, and then trying WinFS beta 2 on WinXP, I was shocked how alpha quality it still was. It was clear for me that it wouldn't ship with Whistler/Vista. Sadly, all cool WinFS demo apps like the "Life Journal" timeline app (where you could zoom in and see all photos and videos on a vertical timeline) were missing in WinFS beta 2. All related videos got removed from Channel9 :/ Life Journal Timeline app screenshot: http://siliconvalleysleuth.co.uk/photos/uncategorized/img_6110.jpg http://siliconvalleysleuth.co.uk/photos/uncategorized/img_61... The WinFS "store" was actually a sub-folder of the "System Volume Information" directory (a hidden dir on C: partition). You could access the WinFS using an UNC path and some .Net based utilities.
- yuhong 13y ago>Longhorn Explorer was written in managed code as well. So can support for managed shell extensions (which is currently not supported) be added without porting the entire Explorer to managed code?
- ygra 13y agoVisual Studio, SQL Server, and Office support that already and I doubt they are completely managed code.
- yuhong 13y ago>Well one of the applications that used a highly idiosyncratic feature that was impossible to emulate was Microsoft Word. Do you know which feature that was?
- eonil 13y agoMaybe this also can explain why MS want to go back to C++ with abandoning 10 years old .NET strategy.