Ford - true. But the other question is.. Do you want to support an
application running on a million desktops or just one that runs in a
browser?
one well written piece of software running on a million desktops.
If people wrote software well there wouldn't be nearly this much trouble maintaining a lot of desktops.
And you STILL have browser versions and vendors to deal with so it's the same thing.
All the Win32 function calls are __stdcall. That is, every function
the windows api (3.1, sorry that's the only I know real well, maybe they changed it in win32) had the equivalent of vsprintf. I forget what it was called, but that must have been cdecl.
Yeah, all of those happy functions that took an argument signature that look slike this:
result_type fn( argtype arg, ... );
would require the __cdecl argument passing to work properly.
If it was vsprintf, it was probably part of the C runtime library, not part of the WIN16 API proper (i.e., it probably wasn't in KERNEL or USER.) Everything in crt.lib or whatever they called it would have been a cdecl.
In Win32, the closest thing I can think of is a kind of 'format message' api, but it doesn't require that '...' style argument passing, so it doesn't need to be a __cdecl.
I don't know enough about Windows 3.11 to know what their analogous function might have been.
Here it is for Win32:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms679351(v=vs.85).aspx
From the example they give, you can sorta see how they get around the calling convention such that they do not require __cdecl.
there is the __vsnprintf, whith the tiny difference that it won't terminate your string if you exceed the limit. suckers.
Ford, I think in-browser js stuff stucks if overdone, I already wrote about my hatred for googledocs in Google Overlords.
But concerning Win7, I really do like the gui. I am all for eyecandy, if it is the right amount. In WinXP, it just looked odd and they didnt improve much of the usability from Win2k. Win7 is far better usable for the not-so-geeky users (your average Joe at work or the usual Mom) than XP was, at least it is doing some basic things right. The new networking stuff is annoying me and they are still miles away from a real easy to understand and useable interface. Microsoft Bob was probably out on the market too early, but I think it is kind of the right direction for people who never ever used a computer before.
Btw, does anybody remember those fancy iconsets and windows themeing stuff, with the farming-style theme, the mansion background (with occasional thunder, iirc) and that swirly hippie screensafer? Was that still 3.1 or 95 already?
When you want to actually do things (even if it's only getting your mail and browsing and the occasional rooting of an android phone) all that shit just gets in the way.
Wait for it... here's the next full circle. Your PC will become a
server in the cloud from which you can point your browser to to run
Evidently you haven't yet heard the good news about "desktop virtualization"
And yes, there are organizations deploying this. It's a good problem to solve but it's totally the wrong solution. The pushers of virtual cloudiness are taking entire standalone fat client desktop operating systems, and aggregating them onto virtualization hosts.
Instead of deploying a proper multiuser operating system, they're taking all of the problems that come with the conventional desktop, and pushing them behind the glass.
The desktop virtualization thing works very poorly, too.
We tried it for a while. I tried doing no development in my own environment, strictly using the virtual environment, and it was rather painful (even when professionally maintained). We gave up on it, and just use local machines now.
Mind you, we're kind of an extreme example, as developers. We might push a machine beyond normal boundaries of use. But from what I saw, it wouldn't have worked well for normal word-processor use. It really sucked.
I'd rather use a browser-word-processor than a virtual desktop-word-processor.
Basically, the vision of Netscape (browser as OS) and the vision of Sun/Oracle (Network Computing) (funny how they're the same company now) are in fact combining into a realistic and usable client side operating environment. Network Computing was a good idea when it was proposed, but the computing world had not yet reached the point where it was reasonable to deploy in a big way.
I do think that in order to gain some really serious traction, the new vision of Network Computing will require things like a browser-based office suite that you can install on your organization's own servers (oh sorry -- I meant to say "in your organization's private cloud").
Us Java guys call the new entity "Snoracle."
[ http://goo.gl/iH6xo ]
They "accidentally" "leaked" public access to the social network they're building. It's called Tulalip and the screenshot of the login page looks like your typical Redmondian drek.
Give it up already, Microsoft. You're the Office-and-Windows company and you suck at everything else (actually, those products suck too but people buy them anyway).
Microsoft still thinks it can be all things to all people. They still think that their fair share of any market that they happen to enter is 100.0 percent.
And as Paul Graham pointed out a few years ago, they still don't realize how much they suck.
Their sideshows are an impressive insight on how they earn far too much money to fool around with these things. I mean, honestly, their mobile phone os, zune, xboxes all this crap they are pushing on the markets costs lots of money and doesnt pay (at least that is my uneducated guess). Techincally, this means that they could concentrate all this manpower into improving their main sellers (their os and office suite) to the point where it becomes bugfree, useful and a joy to work with. All this without charging a penny more than they already do. Hell, they might even beat apple in stylishness if they tried.
The problem is, the company needs to change direction and management styles, but they haven't figured it out yet.
They want to continue to grow. They can't. So they need to do something entirely different.
I think they're also very much afraid that they will be obscoleted by newer technologies. That's a valid concern, but one that I think they will not have much chance to combat, given how they suck at everything they do.
Either that, or maybe that strategy simply never worked at all and Netscape just sucked at competing. If the behavior of douchebags like Mike Shaver and Jamie Zawinski is any indication, maybe Netscape simply felt that their having created the mainstream Internet and owning it forever was fait accompli and they didn't have to work to fight off Microsoft.
On the other hand, maybe they are learning....
http://www.businessinsider.com/is-microsoft-about-to-drop-windows-2011-7
There are rumors of Apple making their desktop more phone-like as well, and I think it's a stupid thing for them to do as well.
I agree with that. The interface should make sense with the tool's form-factor and purpose. Using a phone's interface for a desktop doesn't make much sense.
If you want to take advantage of the spiffy nifty multi-touch screens coming out for desktop machines, you probably need to do something other than the phone interface, regardless of how successful that interface has been.
Honestly, you could do some very cool things with multi-touch desktop machines, if only someone had the imagination to make it happen. But, ultimately, you'd have to get passed the current keyboard-mouse paradigm... if you can make multi-touch desktop better to use than keyboard-mouse, people will go for it.