Microsoft, APIs, and the Web
Bunches of other people are linking to this article, so I figured I would, too. Not because it’s the trendy thing to do, mind you, but simply because it’s actually a really interesting read. Specifically, Joel Spolsky has a great article talking about the Microsoft :API: and its future.
It’s a long read, so you need some time, but it’s certainly worth it. You’ll also learn quite a few interesting tidbits along the way that you probably never knew, either.
Posted Friday June 18, 2004 in Around the Internet by Chris Curtis
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Random comments on the article, don’t expect them to be strung together to make any specific point:
Oh man….talk about brute forcing to make sure things work: added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.
I’ve got to admire their determination, at least, to fix third-party app bugs. Any Windows users care to post their AppCompatibility section of the registry?
There are theorists that speculate that Microsoft watched OS X’s launch and adoption rate very very closely, and are preparing for something very similar with Longhorn. This article mentions that it’s not that big of an improvement over XP. I think that’s still TBD, especially with the pushback. OS X 10.0 was very much about changing the core, and trying to make things look pretty and kind of look like a Macintosh—and of course, breaking old applications, or running them in an emulated “Classic” mode. It didn’t really start to work until 10.1, almost a full year later.
But if MS is behaving like this article says: WinFS…ignores the fact that the real way to make searching work is by making searching work. Don’t make me type metadata for all my files that I can search using a query language. Just do me a favor and search the damned hard drive, quickly, for the string I typed, using full-text indexes and other technologies that were boring in 1973. Then they’re doomed, and didn’t watch Apple’s transition close enough.
Love the RSS analogy, btw.
LOL @ installing web applications: “Today I installed Google’s new email application by typing Alt+D, gmail, Ctrl+Enter.”
What I think is really interesting, is the claim he makes for the :IE: development team being MIA for over two years—internet based applications and web development do nothing for Microsoft’s profit, so it must be A Bad Thing. I mean, no wonder they don’t want :IE: to be able to do all of these nifty things. a) it’s free, and b) it would let you see cool and neat things that did not belong to Windows!
Still, if they make the dev tools for Avalon easily accessible, and more centralized, and free (ala the Apple Developer’s Kit), people will keep it alive. I for one have no doubt that we’ll see a Windows 2010 product box released sometime in the fall of 2011.
By Derek Jones on June 19, 2004 at 08:47am link