Steven D'Aprano wrote:
In my opinion, a better explanation for the
difficulty faced by Windows users is that this is a side-effect of
Windows starting life as a single-user operating system.
Yes, that is my opinion as well.
Windows for better or worse is plagued by "cruft" that dates back to the
CP/M 80 and DOS days. Not just single user systems, but also
single-threaded (or single process) systems.
When I speak of Windows design, its really a tongue in cheek thing...
its really a matter of non-design in my view. Over the years it
[windows] has crofted into the technical mess it is today.
In retrospect, in many ways this is why I am relatively patient with the
Python3 development direction. While I think its non-compatibility may
hurt in the short term, the long term goal of stream-lining the language
will make for a much better Python future. Essentially, the python team
said, "Look, python2 sucks... ," and then they went about figuring out
what Python would look like had it been "designed" right in the first
place. Whalla, Python3. So after years and years of practical experience
with the language Python is getting the face lift it deserves, and is
going to be one gorgeous lady when finished.
Windows, on the other hand, never had the humility of the Python team in
the respect of willingness to change in the face of bloat, or cruft.
Windows stuck it out with ultimate backward compatibility issues and a
plethora of CP/M DOS carry-overs that are just not helpful... not to
mention not realizing that a desk machine can *also* be a server--! In
their insane attack on third party browsers their ultimate and
quintessential design error was integrating the browser/desktop while
designing networking as an application (needing protection from third
parties). They should have taken the *nix approach of integrating the
network (no third party access to the kernel) and making the desktop an
application. In this, gnulinux is the correct design choice (OSX does
this as well... based on FreeBSD). Windows may come around in the
future; if they survive.
There are many reasons for how and why Windows has usability and
extensibility issues. At some point I expect to see Microsoft realizing
these errors and correcting by completely redesigning their OS. This
time around making it open and configurable. They might even get some of
the love back... who knows.
kind regards,
m harris
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
