>
> Thanks, Mike,
>
> I found it interesting, and also the thread that developed gave me a bit
> of education. Here is the response of a friend who I forwarded to,
> describing a day to look forward to:
>
> "mark my words: microsoft is dead as the dominant force. *nix will rise,
> gov'ts will go there and build their OWN OS, just as corporate america
> is starting to do. screw the consumer OS, we want a tailor made OS,
> *nix offers that. by april 20th, 2009; it will be as told"
>
> Bruce
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: K <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Only posted it because I thought it was interesting..
> Regards,
> Mike K
It IS an interesting snippet of Microsoft-Think, but the general problem
referred to is nonetheless, pretty common.
It is exactly the problem of API dependence that sparked the development
of platform independent languages like Java. But ultimately, even Java
imposes it's one set of restrictions...you are, after all dependent on the
Java API's when you write a Java program, whether or not it runs unchanged
on Linux, Windows or OS X...
The thing is, these system specific API's (of which the Mac Toolbox is
one) dramatically advanced the state of the art of programming. I don't
know how many of you ever worked in the Dark Ages of computing, where
*every* programmer had to continuously re-invent the wheel, and so *every*
program did it's own thing. Imagine a world where you used five programs
and had to remember five *different* ways to quit the programs!
It was one of the great breakthroughs of Xerox PARC, and later the Mac OS
team, that prgrammers were no longer shackled by having to invent *every*
bit of their programs, every time. (Others had invented the techniques,
but it was the people at PARC who applied it to the user-interface,
centering the system around the user, not the programmer for the first
time in history)
They could write a much smaller bit of code that said, "put a menu with
the items ('Open','Save','Print Setup' Print','Quit') here in the menu
bar."
This grants the huge advantage to the user because for each new program,
you only need learn the parts unique to that program (You can be pretty
certain that Command-Q will quit a Mac program.)
It also leads directly to the situation described in the MS memo, whereby
everyone gets trapped into a non-optimal system, because there's a huge
hump of 'change' to alter direction. We see it in a myriad of ways,
switching platforms requires all new copies of the programs...why? because
the computers and underlying API's are different.
Why was Word 6 on the Mac such a gigantic flop, and Word 98 so much
better? Because Word 6 was written to the Windows API's which where pretty
crudely prted to the Mac. Word 98 was a complete rewrite of Word for the
Mac platform.
--
Bruce Johnson
U of A College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
--
G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and...
Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives |
-- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! |
Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html>
G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html>
--> AOL users, remove "mailto:";
Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/>
---------------------------------------------------------------
>The Think Different Store
http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com
---------------------------------------------------------------
