Longhorn = vapourware?
Apparently Longhorn, the next version of Windows, is now unlikely to see the light of day till 2006 at the earliest 
WTF? How can it possibly take that long? I know Monopolysoft has to account for a much wider range of hardware, but don't they employ thousands of programmers to work on Winblows? Why do they need three years plus? Apple churns out major system updates every year with a fraction of the resources. I'm more interested in a serious look at the glacial pace of Windows development than rar-rah-go-Apple-go responses 8)
Is it just lack of motivation - MS has the market mostly sewn up, so why bother getting their finger out? Can MS afford to be slack?
WTF? How can it possibly take that long? I know Monopolysoft has to account for a much wider range of hardware, but don't they employ thousands of programmers to work on Winblows? Why do they need three years plus? Apple churns out major system updates every year with a fraction of the resources. I'm more interested in a serious look at the glacial pace of Windows development than rar-rah-go-Apple-go responses 8) Is it just lack of motivation - MS has the market mostly sewn up, so why bother getting their finger out? Can MS afford to be slack?
Comments
that takes TIME, my man!
Originally posted by The Blue Meanie
WTF? How can it possibly take that long?
Hmm how long did it take Apple to move to the next-gen operating system from 7.1?
Whenever you try to redo the system from the ground up, you seem to run into some very unpleasant surprises.
[/B]Why do they need three years plus? Apple churns out major system updates every year with a fraction of the resources. [..]
Is it just lack of motivation - MS has the market mostly sewn up, so why bother getting their finger out? Can MS afford to be slack? [/B]
MS has set up quite an ambitious to-do list:
- Next gen graphics engine using DirectX to offload rendering to the 3D engine of the GPU. Likely include a compositor so you have a truely layered windowing system. Sounds familiar? Right, this is what Quartz Extreme is. And it did take Apple quite some years (5 if I am not mistaken) to arrive there.
- A filesystem that includes some, maybe even a lot, help from a database engine.
- Rewrite huge portions to base them on .NET/C#. Apple is still in the process of rewriting old NexSTep and System 7 code and will likely continue to do so for at least two years (QuickTime comes to mind).
- Get Palladium in Place and make it hackproof.
- Do 64 Bit and do it right. Apple will spend the better part of the next two years to get 64 Bit not only in but make it fly.
It just could be that they were a bit overambitious, but I'd refrain from gloating for some time..
Originally posted by Smircle
Hmm how long did it take Apple to move to the next-gen operating system from 7.1?
Whenever you try to redo the system from the ground up, you seem to run into some very unpleasant surprises.
MS has set up quite an ambitious to-do list:
- Next gen graphics engine using DirectX to offload rendering to the 3D engine of the GPU. Likely include a compositor so you have a truely layered windowing system. Sounds familiar? Right, this is what Quartz Extreme is. And it did take Apple quite some years (5 if I am not mistaken) to arrive there.
- A filesystem that includes some, maybe even a lot, help from a database engine.
- Rewrite huge portions to base them on .NET/C#. Apple is still in the process of rewriting old NexSTep and System 7 code and will likely continue to do so for at least two years (QuickTime comes to mind).
- Get Palladium in Place and make it hackproof.
- Do 64 Bit and do it right. Apple will spend the better part of the next two years to get 64 Bit not only in but make it fly.
It just could be that they were a bit overambitious, but I'd refrain from gloating for some time..
Guess I hadn't realised Longhorn was quite that significant an upgrade.
So does Quicktime still contain System 7 and Nextstep code?
Originally posted by The Blue Meanie
Guess I hadn't realised Longhorn was quite that significant an upgrade.
Yes it is, and I think that Palladium is one of the most (if not the most) hard parts of the story.
Originally posted by The Blue Meanie
So does Quicktime still contain System 7 and Nextstep code?
QT doesn't really have any NeXTstep code, though it has been updated a bunch in OS X, so I suppose you might consider that NeXTstep code in a way.
Originally posted by PB
Yes it is, and I think that Palladium is one of the most (if not the most) hard parts of the story.
It's also the part I most hope they fail miserably at creating, and miserably at selling. What I hope they succeed in doing is driving customers in droves to OS X, Linux, and Unix with this crap.
Originally posted by shetline
It's also the part I most hope they fail miserably at creating, and miserably at selling. What I hope they succeed in doing is driving customers in droves to OS X, Linux, and Unix with this crap.
Sadly, most users of Windows probably aren't smart enough to switch over to the Mac. Most users of Windows don't even know about the Mac.
2000, v10.0: slow as shite (unusable).
2001, v10.1: Finally ready for everyday use.
2002, v10.2: Over 150 new features!
2003, 10.3DP: What is it? Close to 200 new features, now?
Allow me to check crystal ball for a second?
2004, v10.4 "Lynx": Metal is finally consistent! OVER 300 NEW FEATURES!
2005, v10.5 "Tiger": Ripple effects implemented with much less z00tiness than Longhorn! iGame program to bring all computer games to Mac successful!
2006, v10.6 "Leopard": 95% of the world have switched to Mac, FINALLY. Longhorn is released to remaining Microsoft zealots, who maintain it is "still" good.
Originally posted by LoCash
Actually, there's quite a difference between Windows 95 and XP besides the interface...
Haha, I have not noticed it. And there are some instances where the interface remains barely changed. It has just not evolved a whole lot. Granted, the only difference between OS 8.6 and 9 were the bugs. What I am saying is Mac OS X now will be very differet from Mac OS X from the future. We will debate then. Join me, in 2006!
Originally posted by LoCash
Actually, there's quite a difference between Windows 95 and XP besides the interface...
Yes, but not between 95 and Me (5 years, 3 upgrades uncluding 98SE), and NT 5 and NT 5.2 (Windows Server 2003, 3 years.)
Originally posted by Dog Almighty
2006, v10.6 "Leopard": 95% of the world have switched to Mac, FINALLY. Longhorn is released to remaining Microsoft zealots, who maintain it is "still" good.
I guess you are in for a nasty surprise, once Longhorn sees the day of light. You may be living in a fairy-tale where the other 95% are simply waiting to discover how much better Apple is, but let me tell you, this is just not true. Most of the Windows users are happy with what they have and in the end the difference between MacOS and Windows XP (if you look beyond the eye candy) is not so large.
Windows 95 was a single-user OS much like MacOS 9, XP is a multi-user OS like MacOS X. Actually the graphics layer is much faster in XP than in X, partly owing to the more demanding architecture in X.
Longhorn will bring a host of changes - quite likely implementing a compositor graphics layer like OS X has, only based on DirectX. And Longhorn will be built on .NET/C# which is a vastly more modern developer environment than Apple Cocoa/obj-C.
Mostly owing to them stick graphics routines in the kernal, unavoidably leading to greater instability than X.
Originally posted by Smircle
.NET/C# which is a vastly more modern developer environment than Apple Cocoa/obj-C.
Sorry. Wrong. I worked with "Cocoa" (when it was NEXTSTEP/OpenStep) and Objective-C. Much of the Java and C# worlds are still behind what NeXT was doing 10 years ago.
C# is warmed over Java. Arguably better, but Java nonetheless. .NET might be interesting once everyone figures out what it is. But so far it is largely warmed over MS technologies like COM/DCOM/ActiveX/etc. wrapped in a new moniker.
Originally posted by the cool gut
Microsoft will not be able to compete with Linux, let alone OSX by 2006.
Um, yeah.
I don't mean to slam Linux. Viva Le Underdog and all that but that platform is going through some serious growing pains (aside from the SCO farce). The X Windows layer is creaking old and the team overseeing it is so ivory-towerish that it has spawned rebellion.
Also Linux on the desktop has seen little progress (oh sure, some governments are casting Microsoft aside... but not the US, look at the Homeland Security Department's big deal). Linux may turn out to be a success only in server solutions and embedded devices.
A lot of large companies are using OSS but it just does not feel like the tide is turning for the desktop. More like Microsoft having to actually work for the last 5% of the market, of all the markets...
Screed
Originally posted by Smircle
Windows 95 was a single-user OS much like MacOS 9, XP is a multi-user OS like MacOS X. Actually the graphics layer is much faster in XP than in X, partly owing to the more demanding architecture in X.
Could you be any more wrong? It has nothing to do with the "intensiveness" of the GUI, per se. It's got everything to do with the graphical routines being implemented in the kernel. And that's ALL KINDS OF BAD. For stability, in a benign sense and for security in a malignant sense.
From a post I made in another thread (which was copied from another post at MacCentral)
Windows has incorporated graphics routines into its kernel. Hence, a "buffer overflow" in one of the graphics routines causes the kernel to respond with a handler. If you write your virus properly, the handler will execute *virus code* as the handler... and the virus has now attained system-level capabilities. The Windows kernel thinks it is running legitimate code, but it is running the virus' code -- which just happens to now be running as the system-level error handler. And, without user-level privilege protections, you can do.... anything.
Graphics in the kernel makes things appear to move faster, but it's bad programming. Apple got it right because they were willing to sacrifice some speed (now a non-issue with Panther on the way) for security. MS didn't and I suspect they won't any time soon.
Originally posted by torifile
Could you be any more wrong? It has nothing to do with the "intensiveness" of the GUI, per se. It's got everything to do with the graphical routines being implemented in the kernel. And that's ALL KINDS OF BAD. For stability, in a benign sense and for security in a malignant sense.
Whoa, I think you missed something torifile. Smircle is actually right. One reason Mac OS X's GUI is generally slower than Windows XP's *is* because Mac OS X's GUI has a lot more work to do. Do full window buffering and live multiple-layer compositing ring a bell? Of course, Quartz Extreme speeds this up a bit, but your accusation is still way off-base.