Former Windows 95 Architect Now Developing for iPhone (PhotoShare)

This says volumes about MS's employees' true opinion of the quality of MS's products, software, design, and continuous lack of innovation.

Once you go mac you never go back :D

After constructing Windows 95, I can understand why he couldn't be happier with Mac & iPhone.

I think that Windows 95, and all Windows OSs since, have suffered from a significant lack of organizational structure. Mac OS X, on the other hand, has superb structure (as far as I can tell).

One example of this organizational structure can be found by simply opening Finder. Go to the root of your hard drive, and take a look. A few, main, folders are present.

There's System, which has basic, system-wide frameworks and components. These frameworks are very low-level, for sound, etc. They are frameworks provided with the operating system.

There's Library, which has less-basic, system-wide frameworks and settings, different from the ones in System in that they all tend to be created/modified by the user, yet apply to the entire system.

Look under your user home folder. There is, again, a folder called Library, and its contents do exactly the same things as the other Library folder except that it applies ONLY to you, not any other users of the machine.


Windows, on the other hand, is anything but organized. The Windows folder, and System32 folder, are filled with DLLs (pieces of programs). These DLLs may belong to one program, all programs, or the operating system itself. No telling. Programmers sometimes refer to this mess as DLL Hell (especially since these DLLs are often inadvertently overwritten with older or newer, incompatible, versions).


Besides making for a much more stable base upon which to build an operating system, the organizational structure also allows for neat features such as Archive & Install. Archive & Install works by renaming the System folder to something like "Old System", and then creating a new System folder with the new operating system. It would also, then, update the Applications folder, but that would be about it.

If Windows attempted the same thing, all of the DLLs upon which many installed programs rely would be removed, as they would be in the Windows or System32 folders which would be backed up and replaced; the new versions would be incompatible, or much more likely, nonexistent.


This is why Mac OS X is a better OS than Windows. Programs like Windows (for operating systems are merely very advanced programs) cannot survive. I know. I've written such spaghetti-systems before, and it quickly becomes unmaintainable, unmanageable.

Microsoft's strategy is to attempt to rewrite Windows piece-by-piece, but each rewritten piece causes large incompatibilities, and a great deal of pain for developers and end-users. The smart solution would be more painful in the short term, but much more beneficial in the long term: to make a new, optimal, operating system, to add a compatibility layer for the current operating system, and to begin a transition period.

In the meantime, they can't truly innovate. Apple, meanwhile, having a very well put-together OS (and becoming more refined and perfected with Snow Leopard), is and will be in a perfect position to do absolutely anything they want with their operating system.

Let's hope they don't mess it up.

...
In the meantime, they can't truly innovate. Apple, meanwhile, having a very well put-together OS (and becoming more refined and perfected with Snow Leopard), is and will be in a perfect position to do absolutely anything they want with their operating system.

Let's hope they don't mess it up.

QFT. I wish Windows 7 was actually just Windows Singularity. Let's hope Microsoft takes the Snow Leopard approach (don't promise anything, and really deliver) with Windows 7, not another Vista style promise.

Rock on!

Oh yeah by the way, I dont think MS will be refining Vista, it will sort of be like another brand new dock and something like that but will it be refined? maybe. Early pictures of Windows 7 show a cover flow like interface except that its arranged in circles.

And it also has an Apple dock like start menu. I remember reading an article where a guy say Steve Jobs will be proud that MS if MS decide to implement a similar dock like interface in Windows 7.

I used to like Windows 98.... although I was 8 when it came out. I didn't know better =)

...I think that Windows 95, and all Windows OSs since, have suffered from a significant lack of organizational structure. Mac OS X, on the other hand, has superb structure (as far as I can tell)...

I'm glad you're happy with the unix operating system and it's file structure. Apple didn't invent it. Perfected it maybe.

One example of this organizational structure can be found by simply opening Finder. Go to the root of your hard drive, and take a look. A few, main, folders are present.

OSX can't hide that it's Unix/BSD under the hood. By opening Finder you only see what Apple wants you to see there. A quick look in the terminal "ls /" will show you that there is more than you might think there is. Now as a terminal and unix guy I'm glad there is but I'm also glad that there is another level of abstraction with Finder and a neat desktop.

OSX can't hide that it's Unix/BSD under the hood. By opening Finder you only see what Apple wants you to see there. A quick look in the terminal "ls /" will show you that there is more than you might think there is. Now as a terminal and unix guy I'm glad there is but I'm also glad that there is another level of abstraction with Finder and a neat desktop.

I'm aware. The folders I listed are, from what I'm aware, OS X specific. The ones visible if you view hidden folders are, as you said, hidden under another level of abstraction.

Which really proves my point, actually.

Personnally the software is ..... unpollished...

I'm affraid that some of the bad programming habbits (from Microsoft) have not been forgotten about this:

- First the application is an other rehab of 'like something else' with not much innovation, no new concept.

- Graphics are .... windows 95 like

- Web site is pledge with 404 errors...

Some will say, give it time, but no ! I was a windows users for 20 years before seing the light and I was one of those users who used to accept unfinished work and wait for updates to improve the product.

This software just demonstrate the 'what not to do' for the Iphone.