Phil Scadden asked:
> Is there now a proposal that .NET replaces win32 eventually??
Short answer: YES!
My take on this situation is as follows:
1. Microsoft has already been bitten once having to support multiple
architectures (see Alpha and MIPS), and to avoid this problem in the future
(see x86-64 and IA-64) they hace created .NET as a platform neutral
environment.
2. .NET will become a native personality on the NT platform, just like OS/2
and Posix now. As .NET is platform neutral it can be implemented as a native
platform on as many architectures as Windows ships on, thus providing a
rapid method for Microsoft to deploy Office etc with minimal redeveloment
cost.
3. The Win32 API will relegated to the same status that Win16 is now on new
architectures. Evidence for this is in examining how the 64-bit Windows for
the AMD chips works, that is using a WOW (Window on windows) technique. What
is not know is if MS will be providing a full Win64 API implementation to
develop to. My guess will be yes, as SQL Server et al will be required on
the platform real soon now.
4. Speculatively I see think over time, as the 32bit x86 platform becomes
more and more obsolete, and hardware that has it as the native CPU core
language, Win32 will be replaced by Microsoft with .NET simply by not
providing a native CPU personality on NT. So the only way to develop for NT
on platforms like IA-64 will be to build against .NET.
Cheers, Max.
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