Making Sense of Snow versus Win7
People continuously say that Windows 7 (just out) is pretty good. But that, of course, is because their standard is Windows Vista. But how does Windows 7 stack up against the 1000-pound technological gorilla, Snow Leopard?
The question is this: how many years behind Snow Leopard is Windows 7?
The question is this: how many years behind Snow Leopard is Windows 7?
Comments
It comes down to user preference. What platform do you prefer to use?
Win 7 isn't 'behind' at all. Both are roughly equal.
I'm not sure that's accurate. Do Win 7 & .Net/C# offer anything like Grand Central Dispatch (as offered by OS X and Cocoa/Objective-C 2)?
I'm pretty sure they don't have OpenCL, and their 32 bit to 64 bit transition is not implemented anywhere near as elegantly.
From a technical perspective Win 7 is definitely behind the curve, but not massively so. I voted 0 - 2 years.
I'm not sure that's accurate. Do Win 7 & .Net/C# offer anything like Grand Central Dispatch (as offered by OS X and Cocoa/Objective-C 2)?
I'm pretty sure they don't have OpenCL, and their 32 bit to 64 bit transition is not implemented anywhere near as elegantly.
From a technical perspective Win 7 is definitely behind the curve, but not massively so. I voted 0 - 2 years.
Windows has thread pooling. I'm not sure its as elegant a solution as GCD but windows is capable of utilizing multi core processors.
BTW GCD and OCL are open sourced so Windows can adopt them whenever they please. Whether they will or not.....
windows is capable of utilizing multi core processors.
Sure, both OS X and Windows have been capable of utilising multi-core processors for a long time. The point of GCD is that it makes it easier for programmers to write multi-processor applications.
BTW GCD and OCL are open sourced so Windows can adopt them whenever they please. Whether they will or not.....
Indeed, but at the moment it doesn't have them so: behind the curve.
People continuously say that Windows 7 (just out) is pretty good.
That's not what I read at all! For a 'next generation operating system' touted to be a massive improvement on Vista and presented as the state-of-the-art in OSs Win7 is severely dissappointing in speed benchmark tests against its brethren: XP and Vista:
Win7 is actually slower than Vista in most tests!
Infoworld.com: Windows 7 on multicore: How much faster?
So it looks like Snow Leopard would probably totally smoke Win7 in a showdown on equal terms on speed: a benchmark test. But as Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan have painfully demonstrated: it is not wise to humiliate your opponent. So I don't think a benchmark test like that should be expected from the Apple camp. It'll probably take an 'independent' agent, like a rogue publication, to screw up the 'relationship' with M$...
That's not what I read at all! For a 'next generation operating system' touted to be a massive improvement on Vista and presented as the state-of-the-art in OSs Win7 is severely dissappointing in speed benchmark tests against its brethren: XP and Vista:
Win7 is actually slower than Vista in most tests!
Infoworld.com: Windows 7 on multicore: How much faster?
So it looks like Snow Leopard would probably totally smoke Win7 in a showdown on equal terms on speed: a benchmark test. But as Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan have painfully demonstrated: it is not wise to humiliate your opponent. So I don't think a benchmark test like that should be expected from the Apple camp. It'll probably take an 'independent' agent, like a rogue publication, to screw up the 'relationship' with M$...
Given that S Leopard smokes XP, as in many times faster, I would say the whole exercise of trying to compare them ridiculous.
64 bit kernel and applications
grand central dispatch
open CL
low level virtual machine
50-70% speed boosts across the board
seamless networking
cocoa finder
smaller disk footprint
core location
seamless network printing
more powerful developer tools
even better application integration
xgrid
etc
Windows 7 Technological Breakthroughs:
It doesn't suck ass like Vista
Congratulations Microsoft, you did it!!!
Snow Leopard Technological Breakthroughs:
64 bit kernel and applications
The real breakthrough is shipping a 32 bit and 64 bit OS in one (with Windows you must install one or the other), that the 32 bit kernel can run 64 bit applications and that the 64 bit kernel can run 32 bit applications.
grand central dispatch
open CL
low level virtual machine
At least you got some things right.
50-70% speed boosts across the board
Yeah, right. Source?
seamless networking
What does this even mean?
cocoa finder
Yeah, it took Apple about a decade to FTFF. Quite the breakthrough
more powerful developer tools
Microsoft's developer tools have been better than Apple's for a long time. Apple are just about catching up.
The real breakthrough is shipping a 32 bit and 64 bit OS in one (with Windows you must install one or the other), that the 32 bit kernel can run 64 bit applications and that the 64 bit kernel can run 32 bit applications.
At least you got some things right.
Yeah, right. Source?
What does this even mean?
Yeah, it took Apple about a decade to FTFF. Quite the breakthrough
Microsoft's developer tools have been better than Apple's for a long time. Apple are just about catching up.
Incorrect.
Incorrect.
I am bowled over by your reasoning. Well argued.
Incorrect.
Put the kool aid down. You've had too much.
No: in 2002...
But nobody knew what to do with it. Back then it was a solution looking for a problem.
No: in 2002...
But nobody knew what to do with it. Back then it was a solution looking for a problem.
Indeed. The 2002 version was for the car-crash that was the insanely priced and dreadful performance-per-watt itanium processor. The 2005 version I was talking about was the x86-64 version. But yeah, I guess the platform doesn't matter, the one that came out in 2002 was a top-to-bottom 64-bit OS.
Windows has thread pooling. I'm not sure its as elegant a solution as GCD but windows is capable of utilizing multi core processors.
.NET thread pools are not at the OS level. The GCD thread pool is in a background daemon rather than your app. This allows better system level optimization of the pools rather than each app trying to figure out good pool sizes, etc. .NET has closures since .NET 2.0 and anonymous methods in C#.
.NET thread pools are not at the OS level. The GCD thread pool is in a background daemon rather than your app. This allows better system level optimization of the pools rather than each app trying to figure out good pool sizes, etc. .NET has closures since .NET 2.0 and anonymous methods in C#.
There's a pretty vigorous debate at Ars amongst programmers as to whether GCD is that much better than windows at programming apps to utilize multi-core cpus (more than 2 cores). I'm not a programmer so I can't say which argument holds the most merit. GCD seems more elegant and sophisticated to me looking in from the outside.
There's a pretty vigorous debate at Ars amongst programmers as to whether GCD is that much better than windows at programming apps to utilize multi-core cpus (more than 2 cores). I'm not a programmer so I can't say which argument holds the most merit. GCD seems more elegant and sophisticated to me looking in from the outside.
Well if snow leopard does not have much better technology then how come my mac is now much much faster than with Leopard?
Well if snow leopard does not have much better technology then how come my mac is now much much faster than with Leopard?
It does have better technology than Leopard and I think that SL is better than Leopard.
But wasn't the original comparison between SL and Win 7 (the title of the thread is'Making Sense of Snow versus Win7')? Those are roughly equal IMO. I still would much rather work with Macs and I am switching my office over to Macs. But Win 7 doesn't look bad at all.
In fact I agree with Vinea, Vista isn't that bad. I bought my parents an inexpensive machine with Vista and they've had no problems at all. No BSDs or hardware issues. Its still a confusing mess for me to work with, but it is stable.
Well if snow leopard does not have much better technology then how come my mac is now much much faster than with Leopard?
Getting rid of the 800lbs Gorilla that was the PowerPC. Snow Leopard got rid of the junk that isn't needed going forward. Could also be perception.
1. Ability to switch graphic cards on the fly without logging off
2. Ability to use homogeneous (Windows Vista/7) and heterogeneous (Windows 7 only) graphic cards
3. Concurrency Runtime for .NET 2.0
4. Native concurrency runtime for C++
5. Closure (block) for .NET and C++
6. Removal of dispatcher spin lock on Windows 7 kernel to allow scaling to 256 processor cores
7. Implementation of ASLR that 10.6 is still behind
8. DirectX 11 (Direct3D11) vs. OpenGL 3.0?
9. It can run thousands of different combination of hardware even on a Pentium II 266MHz (although you can sleep through the installation)
You can find many things SL is behind Windows 7 and the converse is true.