Microsoft names new system Vista

[Brolan]

http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/22/technology/microsoft_vista/index.htm?cnn=yes

This version will probably require a retinal scan everytime you try to boot it.

[Strazos]

Vista? Bleh, I liked Longhorn better myself.

[Paelos]

Vista - because it's a wonderful view as your PC plunges off our cliff

[AOFanboi]

Since they have changed the color of the BSOD to red, maybe they are thinking... sunsets?

Hell, are they thinking?

(Continues to download SuSE 9.2 LiveCD w/Gnome)

[Shockeye]

WTF? Is that Tony Little on the left?

[schild]

(Continues to download SuSE 9.2 LiveCD w/Gnome)

Linux is for work. Not for fun. And even then not for most work. Linux might as well change it's name to  "We want to dethrone Microsoft but we don't understand concepts like ease of use, productivity, and joe six-pack." Sure, it's a little wordy but it works.

Really though, who cares. Tis a name. Admittedly, I liked Longhorn better than too, but I can't muster up enough caring to ask more than "why?" To which the only answer I can come up with is - The wait for Longhorn was too long. The wait for Vista will be shorter. Marketing at its finest.

The first person to say "M-dollarsign" or "Micro-dollarsign-oft" gets a knife to the jugular.

[Shockeye]

[Big Gulp]

Linux is for work. Not for fun.

[slashdot]

Complete hogwash my good man!  Why just yesterday I played some smashing games of TuxRacer, Frozen Bubble, and FreeCiv!  Tell me where, praytell, can I find a selection that good in commercial software?  People making money makes Stahlman cry.

[/slashdot]

[stray]

Linux is for work. Not for fun.

[slashdot]

Complete hogwash my good man!  Why just yesterday I played some smashing games of TuxRacer, Frozen Bubble, and FreeCiv!  Tell me where, praytell, can I find a selection that good in commercial software?  People making money makes Stahlman cry.

[/slashdot]

For some reason, I heard the voice of Ralphie from the Simpsons when I read that (EDIT: Wait, not Ralphie. It's Martin, I think).

[Shockeye]

Linux is for work. Not for fun.

[slashdot]

Complete hogwash my good man!  Why just yesterday I played some smashing games of TuxRacer, Frozen Bubble, and FreeCiv!  Tell me where, praytell, can I find a selection that good in commercial software?  People making money makes Stahlman cry.

[/slashdot]

For some reason, I heard the voice of Ralphie from the Simpsons when I read that (EDIT: Wait, not Ralphie. It's Martin, I think).

It's more fun to imagine Barney.

[Fabricated]

The only two things even remotely interesting about longhorn are getting patched into XP eventually: Avalon and WinFS.

I'm rather looking forward to Avalon, since vector graphic desktops handled by the GPU are not only prettier but much much faster and save CPU cycles.

[Shockeye]

Didn't WinFS get delayed?

Yep.

Building WinFS Solutions

UPDATE: In spite of what may be stated in this content, WinFS is not a feature that will come with the Longhorn Operating System. However, WinFS will be available on the Windows platform at some future date, which is why this content continues to be provided for your information.

[stray]

OS X/Tiger will pretty much trump all of those features before Longhorn Vista is even released. It already has some of those features now.

It'll be nice to run both on the same platform though (and equally nice that Microsoft is moving away from Win32).

[MrHat]

I'm rather looking forward to Avalon, since vector graphic desktops handled by the GPU are not only prettier but much much faster and save CPU cycles.

huh?

[stray]

I'm rather looking forward to Avalon, since vector graphic desktops handled by the GPU are not only prettier but much much faster and save CPU cycles.

huh?

Scalable, vector based desktops (as opposed to bitmapped). Look at Aqua for an example.

[naum]

[slashdot]

Complete hogwash my good man!  Why just yesterday I played some smashing games of TuxRacer, Frozen Bubble, and FreeCiv!  Tell me where, praytell, can I find a selection that good in commercial software?  People making money makes Stahlman cry.

[/slashdot]

Actually, the multiplayer of FreeCiv is still far superior to any of the MP implemented in the Sid Meier series. Granted, it's a given that the graphics are woefully inferior, but even until patches released a few years after the initial release, the UI of FreeCiv contained more features (keyboard unit commands, stack moving, etc.…).

And I still haven't played a CRPG > NetCraft. Bemoan ASCII graphics, but gameplay > graphics for me…

[MrHat]

I'm rather looking forward to Avalon, since vector graphic desktops handled by the GPU are not only prettier but much much faster and save CPU cycles.

huh?

Scalable, vector based desktops (as opposed to bitmapped). Look at Aqua for an example.

huh?

[Alkiera]

I'm rather looking forward to Avalon, since vector graphic desktops handled by the GPU are not only prettier but much much faster and save CPU cycles.

huh?

Scalable, vector based desktops (as opposed to bitmapped). Look at Aqua for an example.

huh?

Current Windows UI, and past UI's thru Windows 3.0, are 'bitmap' based.  There is an image for all the lil buttons, alternates for twhen they are pressed, all the UI, is all just bitmaps, collated into one big bitmap by the OS graphics subsystem, which it then hands to the video card for display, 60+ times a second.

In a 'vector' based UI, Instead of having images, the UI elements are described in terms of lines and points and areas, things modern graphics cards are used to dealing with.  The instructions are passed once, and then held onto by the video card, and updated by the video card, rather than by the graphics system of the OS.  Thus, some of the processing time of the CPU is freed, and the video card's GPU, which normally does nothing during normal Windows running, picks up the slack...  Benefits can include zippier interfaces, and less of the response lag during heavy CPU-load situations.

Alkiera

[Big Gulp]

Think of it as the difference between Photoshop (pixel based, much more mem intensive, not so scalable) and Illutstrator (vector based, beziel curves.  Much less memory required, infinitely scalable).  Neither tool does everything, but for a UI vector graphics are much much more efficient, and you can do more graphically with them.

[Daydreamer]

Wasn't there a lawwsuit a while back from Apple against people creating a Windows mod to make it work like Aqua?  I think the vector based desktop stuff may be patented.

[Alkiera]

Wasn't there a lawwsuit a while back from Apple against people creating a Windows mod to make it work like Aqua?  I think the vector based desktop stuff may be patented.

I believe that had to do with a Chrome 'skin' for WinXP that made is look like Aqua... It was still a bitmap-based UI, Apple's issue was that they had copyright or trademark or some such on the 'look and feel' of Aqua, so by replicating it, the makers of the skin were violating those copyrights or trademarks or what-have-you.

It had nothing to do with vector-based UIs.

Alkiera

[Samwise]

We've got an example of a vector-based UI downstairs that predates Aqua.  It's called "Asteroids".  I don't think Apple's going to be able to claim they have a patent on this particular concept.   

Then again, Amazon patented one-click-shopping(TM), so who knows.

[stray]

There's more than just scalable graphics and pretty effects with Avalon though. Think Flash, but with the richness and ease of use of .NET.

Rich online apps already exist of course, but it's going to become much more common and seamless with all of these Longhorn technologies replacing the way things were done with Win32. If Microsoft doesn't get trumped by Apple's, Macromedia's, or Open Sourse/Mozilla's take on it, they're pretty much going to change the face of the Web itself.

[Murgos]

If Microsoft doesn't get trumped by Apple's, Macromedia's, or Open Sourse/Mozilla's take on it, they're pretty much going to change the face of the Web itself.

<quote picture of Tammy Faye Baker here />

[stray]

I hate the idea myself, since I prefer Macs, but Microsoft has the best chance of doing just that seeing that the majority of the world uses (and is going to use) Windows.

[Murgos]

As an internet developer I'm more worried about giving too much control to other anonymous web site developers.  I'm just not confident of Mstring's  ability to protect Joe User from the big bad world.

[Margalis]

There's more than just scalable graphics and pretty effects with Avalon though. Think Flash, but with the richness and ease of use of .NET.

Rich online apps already exist of course, but it's going to become much more common and seamless with all of these Longhorn technologies replacing the way things were done with Win32.

As someone who works in this general space, I disagree. An MS-only solution that runs on Longhorn and maybe somewhat on XP isn't going to displace anything. Most people do use Windows, but not all. And in governments/companies there is pressure to move away from Windows or at least be able to diversify.

One of the nice things about internet apps is you can go to a school library computer or hotel computer or whatever and they will just work.

The windows of the future rich web-client stuff is just an installed app with some smoother deployment options and scenarios. Sure you can run Avalon apps over the web the way you can run ActiveX over the web, a technology that almost nobody uses for a variety of reasons. And the XML-driven portion of Avalon is basically a generic compile-time class hook-up mechanism, not a UI language. It's not like an XML equivalent of HTML, and it gets real ugly real fast as you have to use assembly names in your apps, mix code and markup together, etc. It's essentially the equivalent of Java XML serialization/deserialization except at compile time instead of run time.

MS is just introducing one technology on top of another, without being able to explain what they are, or what they are used for. COM, DCOM, OLE, ActiveX, .Net, etc etc etc. Nobody, not even the top MS guys, can explain what .NET is, and years after it was introduced the .NET runtime has low penetration and even lower actual use. A lot of it is new technology just for the sake of new technology.

WinFS is similar. It's a horrible idea (at least the way they put it together) and they can't get it to work. The idea of meta-data driven searches for files is terrible in general because now it's not enough to remember the file name or some text in the file, but you have to remember to enter meta-data and then remember WHAT you entered. An actual working full text search would be way better, something they still haven't been able to deliver. (Try it in XP sometime, it never works)

[Pococurante]

.NET's not a technology.  It's a direction away from the binary Windows OS.

Beyond that it's a unified product line.  Which is to say tihngs that actually work together as opposed to the licensing/support nightmare that is Java or Linux, or the mismarketed Apple line which is basicallly no more than 1997.NET for the 0.4% of the market still needing affirmation they are out of the mainstream.

Go ahead - tell me it's not perfect.  Then craft me the enterprise COO financial plan that even comes close using &otherStuff.

Love,
Ex-IBM Guy, Touched in Wrong Places by Sun/IBM/Oracle/Linus

[Margalis]

.NET's not a technology.  It's a direction away from the binary Windows OS.

Beyond that it's a unified product line.  Which is to say tihngs that actually work together as opposed to the licensing/support nightmare that is Java or Linux, or the mismarketed Apple line which is basicallly no more than 1997.NET for the 0.4% of the market still needing affirmation they are out of the mainstream.

Uh...what? A direction away from the binary Windows OS? In what way? Some parts of the .NET runtime are open and have been ported, of course missing all the MS specific classes. (AKA the important part) You won't find any real .NET apps running on anything other than windows.

What the hell is .NET? Seriously. It's a collection of crap with the name .NET stuck onto it. Visual Studio .NET? WTF is that, other than just the next Studio? VB.NET. It's just a non-backwards compatible VB. .NET runtime? Who cares, nothing uses it. Remember how MS passport was supposed to be part of .NET?

I would love for someone to give a concise technical description of what .NET is. The only good part of .NET is the app-server part, whatever they are calling it these days. (ASP.NET I suppose)

As far as being unified, I suppose VB.Net and Studio.Net, ASP etc work well together, in the same way that the office suite apps do. .NET on the client-side has been a total non-starter though, outside of certain industries. And .NET on the server side isn't starting any fires either.

[stray]

I'm not a developer, so I'm in way over my head here. I just have some experience with multimedia and web design.
 
All I know is that their "plans" are to move away from Win32 (or so they say...), and .NET supposedly won't be fully realized until Longhorn comes around. Part of the thing that makes .NET/Avalon/Indigo/XAML (whatever!)  interesting to me is that they're encouraging the use of the same methods and tools for writing apps natively for Windows as they would for writing for the web.

Designers or people with only a knowledge of scripting and markup languages aren't going to be writing robust apps or anything, but they will have the ability to work with the OS interface like they couldn't before (and a few other things). The line between "web developers" and "developers", on the other hand, is going to start to blur.

[Murgos]

In my experience.  .NET is two things.   One is a failed marketing gimmick.  The passport crap and the whole .NET will wash your balls for you marketing push of 1999 and 2000.

The other is a JIT compiler, a set of (actually quite good) shared libraries and an assembly registery.  Depending on what you're doing (object orientated business apps for the windows enviroment) .NET is a really, really useful tool.  Even without the fancy schmancy IDE there are a LOT of good tools in the .NET common runtime library to make development easier.

VB.NET. It's just a non-backwards compatible VB. .NET runtime? Who cares, nothing uses it.

Err, no.  VB.NET is a real object orientated language now, with inheretance and abstraction and all that good stuff.  Big, vast, really huge improvement.

[Margalis]

I was talking about VB.NET and the .NET runtime as two separate things. Yes, plenty of people use all versions of VB, it's pretty decent at what it does. However the .NET runtime environment is basically useless.

[Murgos]

The only real use for the runtime environment that I can see is that if you know that everyone has the .net framework installed you can push out programs compiled to byte code instead of the massive multi-MB executables that is standard Microsoft bloat.

Other than that without the cross platform support of say, JAVA, compiling to byte code and using JIT is really fucking silly.

[Ookii]

Vista? Bleh, I liked Longhorn better myself.

Had to happen eventually, all versions of Windows in development are codenamed after Canadian ski lodges, would you rather have Windows XP or Windows Whistler?

[Pococurante]

Other than that without the cross platform support of say, JAVA, compiling to byte code and using JIT is really fucking silly.

Compile once, run in both 32 and 64 bit platforms.  No need to distribute multiple libraries.  And 64 bit is hardly the end of the OS cycle.

As far as non-MS environments there is a stable .NET for BSD and Mono is coming along nicely.  The ECMA spec is available for anyone that wants to implement it - has been for several years now.  The real issue is licensing so we'll probably continue to see Windows-only .NET in the commercial world.  And then there are some really interesting hybrid tools like Mainsoft's Grasshopper and ZeroC's Ice.

A VM will never be as performant as machine code.  That's the .NET framework's strength - MSIL compiles on-demand to machine code and uses machine code libraries for things the Java VM provides through emulation.

Porting Java code across JVMs used to give me fits.  Let alone trying to port code through different Java app containers.  And the tools - sheesh what a nightmare.  I'm hellaciously more productive with .NET and respond shitloads faster to my employer's changing demands.  Fricking business users...