the relevance (marginal) is that 'modularity' is key to ontology
I agree, that point has been left behind in the first thread (01)
anyway (02)
john - i think the original quote was the longhorn one you cited, then
the story got dragged
after the name change (03)
http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39090&mode=linear
(somwhere down) (04)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003460386_btview04.html
(gates says cost is 8/9 bn us) (05)
How much the apollo cost? (06)
On 7/1/08, Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I am not an expert on ontology and I personally find this discussion
> very interesting and all that but I find it hard to believe that belongs
> here.
> Perhaps there is a Microsoft vs NASA forum that you could move this to
> and let us know where you take it.
>
>
> Ron
>
>
> Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
> > John,
> >
> > you wrote:
> >
> >
> >> EB> (1) a general lack of design principles in MS Windows in
> >> > the 1990-95 period...
> >>
> >> Not true. Microsoft hired the chief designer of Digital's VMS,
> >> which was an outstanding operating system. The foundation for
> >> NT was OS/2, which was jointly designed by IBM and MSFT. ...
> >>
> >
> > Which was not MS Windows in the 1990-95 period.
> >
> > Windows NT was a separate product, and I said that, and I pointed to the
> > VMS background.
> >
> >
> >> EB> (2) a poor hardware base...
> >>
> >> EB> (3) upward compatibility requirements...
> >>
> >> Neither of those is true. Both NT and OS/2 were designed to run
> >> on any 32-bit hardware,
> >>
> >
> > Except that Intel didn't actually build a 32-bit hardware architecture
> > until 1994, which is what I said. The problem with the previous 80x86
> > designs was that the memory was never a single address space as seen by
> > the instruction set, every I/O device control was thru a primary
> > register, and all the DMA schemes were different. The 1980 breakthrough
> > in microcomputers (like the MC68000 used by Apple and the Z8000) was
> > 32-bit addressing in the processor and "memory-mapped", i.e.
> > bus-addressable, devices. And most of them involved shared bus control,
> > which Intel had pioneered but IBM didn't use in the PC design.
> >
> > And NT was not a part of the Windows 95 or Windows 97 or Windows 98 or
> > Windows 2000 products.
> >
> >
> >> and the migration strategy outlined above
> >> would have allowed the old 3.1 GUI and a full 32-bit GUI to coexist
> >> on different applications running simultaneously.
> >>
> >
> > Of course. But that "GUI" included application intervention in keyboard
> > interfaces, mouse movement, screen displays, sound management, etc.
> > Microsoft actually made a significant investment in constructing a
> > virtual environment to run such applications in Windows 95. Part of the
> > upward compatibility problem was to make the real operating system
> > elements support that virtual environment. It gave rise to a lot of
> > cascading interface conversions, which became a bad habit at Microsoft.
> >
> > And each system has introduced new upward compatibility issues,
> > particularly in the graphics and sound areas, because the previous
> > system functionality set was underdesigned with respect to the next
> > generation hardware. The general model being presented to the
> > application has been different from the underlying support models since
> > Windows 95, and each time it is augmented, the next generation of
> > hardware modifies the support model and forces another transform.
> > Almost all of this is about supporting the fancy graphics and sound
> > capabilities needed by games and videos, which is where (4) comes in.
> >
> >
> >> EB> (4) all things to all men. The Windows target market was
> >> > businesses, control systems, gamers and hobbyists, and grandmothers.
> >>
> >> Apple's OS X meets those requirements far better with a separable
> >> GUI on top of a Unix clone. A server doesn't need a high-speed GUI,
> >> but a game machine needs a super-speed GUI. If they're separate,
> >> you can support both with the same kernel. For example, a game
> >> GUI could run in a virtual memory that is locked into unpaged RAM.
> >>
> >
> > How and what Apple does in this diverse market I don't really know. But
> > unlike Microsoft, they didn't have 18 other companies making new and
> > wonderful display hardware and graphics accelerators and enhanced sound
> > systems that Dell and Sony and IBM and HP and ... elected to plug into
> > their hardware platforms. Each of the hardware vendors was targeting a
> > particular market and seeking "best in class" in that market, but they
> > all depended on Windows to support them. Microsoft was only somewhat
> > able to control the interface situation, and unlike Apple, they were not
> > trying to create and control customer appetites (in that area).
> >
> > The point I was making is that trying to support all of it, along with
> > upward compatibility with earlier underdesigns, and bad ideas like
> > "integrating" the browser into the operating system, had a much bigger
> > impact than the degree of "modularity" in the software design.
> >
> >
> >> EB> (5) external pressure. Vista is a hack on Windows XP whose
> >> > primary objective was to lock down security before certain powerful...
> >>
> >> Any OS designer with any smarts would know that those security features
> >> would be broken by a professional hacker in about 15 minutes.
> >>
> >
> > I was recently given to understand that in mid-2008 Mac OS X is known by
> > security freaks to have about the same level of vulnerability as Vista.
> > The advantage it has is that fewer criminals have chosen to attack it,
> > because targeting 20% of the marketplace produces lower RoI than
> > targeting 80% of it.
> >
> > But you don't need to be a highly skilled professional hacker to
> > penetrate most of these systems. There are lots of stupid and careless
> > people who have access and are just waiting to be used.
> >
> >
> >> Sony
> >> made the foolish decision to placate the RIAA, and Steve Jobs ate
> >> their lunch. When an industry such as RIAA has an obsolete business
> >> model, getting in bed with them is suicide.
> >>
> >
> > Yes, Apple and Microsoft can ignore certain industry complaints, and
> > even big political campaigns from some industry organizations. But I
> > don't think it was the RIAA that created the security issues that
> > spawned Vista. Think who is liable for everything but the first $50 on
> > credit card frauds, and who is deeply concerned about penetration of
> > databases of private information that was acquired by law. And imagine
> > the pressure they can bring to bear.
> >
> >
> >> EB> And OBTW, the saga of Windows is a nearly one-for-one repeat of
> >> > the sequence of mistakes IBM made in designing operating systems
> >> > for the 360/370 series between 1964 and 1976.
> >>
> >> I was at IBM in those years, and I plan to write some memoirs about
> >> those events. The only thing in common was that pointy-haired
> >> bosses made technical decisions for political reasons. The kinds
> >> of mistakes were very different.
> >>
> >
> > Well, John, you and I seem to have different approaches to abstraction.
> > So it stands to reason we wouldn't see the same commonalities:
> > - bad systems design practices
> > - underdesigned hardware
> > - upward compatibility requirements
> > - all things to all men
> >
> > But then, you don't believe that those were characteristic of the
> > Windows legacy either.
> >
> > In fairness, the IBM 360 effort was among the first of its kind, and
> > some of the underdesign was a consequence of unknown territory. But
> > unfortunately, some of it was deliberate, and some of it was also
> > failing to learn from prior experience, or to use the people who had it.
> > And once the mistakes were in place in the customer and developer
> > shops, upward compatibility became an albatross. MVS was every bit as
> > ugly and ungainly as Vista, and for many of the same reasons.
> >
> > Quod scripsi, scripsi.
> >
> > -Ed
> >
> >
>
>
>
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--
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
********************************************* (08)
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