In message 31, DanS
writes:
"BillW50" wrote in
:

(Note: Any deleted material does not mean I agree with it.

And again, going from 32 bit to 64 bit. CPUs with new
added instruction sets and other advances in hardware
architecture can require changes to take advantages of it.

OMG! Windows supported 16 bit for almost two decades. Now
the move from 32 to 64 bit, it can't be done anymore? With
the older Microsoft programmers it would happen. But with
the new lazy new programmers, it is not possible.

It wasn't 'lazy programmers', no matter what you say.

It was a business decision.

It's a bit of a combination of both. It takes a non-zero amount more
effort to make something backwards-compatible than not to; if the choice
is between maintaining backwards compatibility and adding new features
(let alone fixing bugs), and your programming resources are finite, it
can indeed be a business decision: you hope you will attract more new
users with your new features than lose old users.

You can't support 100% of everything forever.

At some point, you have to decide that instead of supporting
100% you can only support 99.9999998% of users(, in relation
to this 16-bit issue.)

However, I think supporting older device drivers _as a whole_ - i. e.
the _family_ of them - isn't a 0.0000002% of users issue. Writing a new
OS so that it doesn't _work with_ older drivers _is_ lazy - not
necessarily lazy programming, lazy business decision, as in "if we drop
support for older drivers, we'll not even have to _think_ about it in
future in our board meetings".

Users are crying about Windows 'bloat', and how do you cut
bloat.....by removing things that *virtually noone* uses
anymore.

As opposed to adding things that "virtually no-one" (note the hyphen)
wants?

Ideally, software should be a whole lot more modular, so you only have
to buy (or at least install) the bits you want. But that's not
attractive from the business point of view, as they want to be able to
keep selling the whole suite every time. (It's not exclusive to
softwa if I buy a new TV, for example, it is likely to include
facilities I no longer not only probably don't want anyway, but also
already have in the devices I'll be connecting to it.)
[]
There are only 3 OSs now that are viable for everyday
use.......Windows, Linux and OSX (MAC).

I'd eve say that for the man in the street it's only the first and third
two: for whatever reason, all the main (US) or high (UK) street stores
(in UK, that's PCWorld/Currys, Comet, Tesco, Sainsbury, John Lewis,
Selfridges, even ToysRUs ...) do _not_ sell Linux-based computers in the
mainstream, though will occasionally sell some _devices_ that are Linux
inside (but not mention it, and have no need to as it's embedded).

There are many that tried to get into the game. Although I
see a big turning point and nobody is giving what people
want. So the door is wide open for even a startup to step
in.

I can't see any new OS taking off in the real world: it'd have to run
Windows and/or Mac applications or not enough people would buy it for it
to be anything but a novelty for geeks. It's not that M$/Apple now even
have to apply their (undoubtably significant) marketing force: they're
just _there_ in such a big way that nothing can shift them. OK, some of
the developments via the mobile and tablet markets are likely to have an
effect - but I suspect it's going to be more that Microsoft and Apple
incorporate ideas from those areas, rather than that those are going to
replace M/A. (There is the _possibility_ that computers as we know them
- desktops and laptops/netbooks - will themselves become the exception,
with most people using very portable devices, but I don't think so for
at least 5 years.)
[]
You can say what you
want, but you can't change the truth. And the only danger
Microsoft has is they lost all of the programmers who has
learned the hard lessons from the past. As the new
programmers don't have a clue.

Well, I'm assuming by 'programmers' you are talking about the
heads of individual programs...the one's that *actually make
the decisions* of what is or isn't included in whatever. The
people that actually do the programming, do what they are
told.....unless you think the 24-year old first year out of
college CS graduate is making the decisions of what goes or
doesn't go into Windows.

No, but the person making the decisions may well be a 2x-year-old fresh
out of business school. (Not that that _necessarily_ means s/he'll make
_wrong_ decisions, though we oldies [BillW50, does the 50 signify
something?] may tend to think they tend to be _hasty_ decisions.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... his charming, bumbling best, a serial monogamist terrified of commitment,
who comes across as a sort of Bertie Wooster but with a measurable IQ. - Barry
Norman on Hugh Grant's persona in certain films, Radio Times 3-9 July 2010