What is so bad/wrong/terrible about Windows 8.1?
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
Ok, so the bottom line with me is that I have a Windows 8/8.1 tablet computer (Acer R7). Love the computer HATE the OS. Why? It locks regularly and maybe unfreezes after 15 minutes. Else a hard boot. The file system operations sloooooooow down massively for unknown reasons. I have to reboot it once or twice a day to "fix" it. Software updates are fairly regularly via Windows Update but routinely involve 1 GB+ file package sizes. I regret having Windows 8 on my PC. I upgraded to 8.1 and still have these problems. I would dearly love to downgrade to Windows 7 for stability reasons but that's a complete reload and I have to use old drivers from other machines that may or may not work. Bottom Line: Avoid Windows 8.1 unless you need touch screen support or specifically need 8.1. Use good old reliable Windows 7 instead. And if you must use 8.1 get Stardock's Start8 for the Start Button bring back. - Grant
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Umm, no... Home machine, not work. That's out-of-the-box behavior, courtesy of Lenovo
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)So... the administrator works at Lenovo, setting those defaults. Maybe it was the same person that installed the giant advertisement pushing security hole, maybe just part of the team.
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
I don't know so many people are against it. I quite like Win 8/8.1 and some of the changes coming in Win 10 annoy me because they're going 'backwards'. I like the new start screen (always hated the old start menu) - though the visible button in the corner to access it in 8.1 is sensible for new users. I love Metro IE too.I use Win 8/8.1 mostly on a non-touch laptop for work and non-touch desktop for home, occasionally on a Surface Pro 1. I have no issues. Likewise I had very few problems with Vista which everyone hated, and basically see Win 7 as Vista with lipstick but no one else really admits that. Not every change is going to suit every person, or every workflow so I can understand some people being upset but it seems like a lot of other people are just anti-change or jumping on the bandwagon. One small problem with 8/8.1 is I find the 'close' gesture for metro apps is very difficult for most people using touch (and they don't know how with the mouse). They either don't drag far enough or the system doesn't register the interaction the right way (usually does with the mouse to be fair). The new title bars kind of fix that, but I personally dislike them. Also, sadly, the 'store' is filled with crap. I would love to use more Metro apps, but there are so few that are actually any good I don't bother with most.
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Google provides more of an all-purpose solution.
So you're saying that you can log onto your Windows 8, Windows 7, Linux and Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices using the same gmail account? Google does not offer that, and I wouldn't expect them to. Furthermore, what they do offer is not significantly better than Outlook.com, Office.com or Skype. Hangouts would be nice, but they just don't want to offer that in the same way Microsoft offers Office and Skype for Android and iOS.
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Additionally, you are opening yourself to one of the biggest of privacy invasion gaps.
Care to back that up?
I don't use Google to log into the operating system. Google only maintains my calendar, contacts and any reference documents I consider of minimal security risk. Anything of importance is usually carried on my person in the form of an encrypted memory stick. Social networking, including this forum, is kept to a minimum. My Windows platform is primarily a word/spreadsheet processing station with graphics/gaming thrown in for recreational purposes. Due to certain performance issues, I don't use Outlook or Skype. For email, I prefer to rely on the email server packages associated with my email accounts and access those using whatever browser is available on the platform I am using. (Business is kept separate from personal.)
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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I don't use Google to log into the operating system. Google only maintains my calendar, contacts and any reference documents I consider of minimal security risk. Anything of importance is usually carried on my person in the form of an encrypted memory stick. Social networking, including this forum, is kept to a minimum. My Windows platform is primarily a word/spreadsheet processing station with graphics/gaming thrown in for recreational purposes. Due to certain performance issues, I don't use Outlook or Skype. For email, I prefer to rely on the email server packages associated with my email accounts and access those using whatever browser is available on the platform I am using. (Business is kept separate from personal.)
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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I don't use Google to log into the operating system.
So then how is your comment relevant much less comparable to being able to log onto various instances of an operating system which was my point in the first place? Also, I'm not sure why you would mention Outlook. I was talking about Outlook.com.
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Tim Carmichael wrote:
Is the layout different? Yes, but the layout was different going from a green screen in college to Windows 3, and then again on Windows 95... Change is constant.
Ah, but it doesn't have to be. It's a balancing act, between progress (change is good!) and what is already good and familiar (change is bad!) I see it as kind of like the progression of cooking (speaking from personal experience here...) DOS and earlier were kind of like PB&J sandwiches. Basic, but kept you fed. Windows 3/3.1 etc were like microwave ramen. Slightly more difficult to make, but still, kept you fed. Windows 95 was a step up to grilled cheese. Getting better, but still, not all that great. Windows 98 was adding ham to that grilled cheese. Windows 2000 was pairing cream of tomato soup with that grilled ham and cheese. Windows ME was back to ramen. Windows XP was a medium sirloin with a loaded baked potato. Close, but not quite there yet. Windows 7 was a perfectly cooked rare filet mignon with a loaded baked potato and asparagus with hollandaise. Perfection. Now Windows 8... That is like you took a look at that beautiful meal that was Windows 7... And got greedy. You said 'I want more. I can do better.' But what you ended up with was an over-seasoned, over-cooked, filet, a potato with flavors that don't pair well, and hollandaise with a consistency that more closely resembles cold butter, than maple syrup. All because you couldn't leave well enough alone. Now your wife is upset with you because you ruined her favorite meal, and you had to order pizza. Progress only comes from experimentation, and we certainly learn more from our failures than our successes. Still, you have to learn when to leave well enough alone. Microsoft has been in business long enough now that they should have already learned that lesson.
Kyle Moyer wrote:
Windows ME was back to ramen.
Windows ME was stale overcooked ramen and someone forgot to include the flavor packet.
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Member 4724084 wrote:
A professional chef will toy around with things til they are to his liking and then he will use guinea pigs to see if other people like it.
But if I pay full price for an OS, I am not paying to be a guinea pig; I am paying for a completed, working product. If they want me to beta test, we can arrange for a method for them to pay me for my time. Mind you, if they had to pay everyone for the time wasted by Win 8 and the ribbon, they'd be bankrupt before they got a tenth of the way through the list. And you could say that win 10 is just the latest in a line of re-corned-beef-hashes of Win '95; the list of equivalences isn't short. Vista was a small branch into a different direction; Win 8 is a huge branch into a different direction. Both branches broke a perfectly stable tree.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
It was a complete working product, but it was not to the liking of the general public so the cooking method was changed. That's the point I am making. Vista was a complete working product, people had issues with the amount of intrusive security, so the source code was tweaked to make those security tasks less intrusive, it is no different than taking a rack of ribs, and broiling them rather than BBQing them. Vista and Win 7 is the exact same product, just cooked differently. Using your tree analogy, the trunk is MSFT, each branch is a different variant of Windows. Some branches become forked into smaller branches, others do not. Vista is a branch in the tree, win 7 was forked off Vista. Win 8.x is a new branch and Win 10 is forked off that branch, it is literally no different than going from 3 to 3.1. True, when people see a new branch they have trepidations, wether it can hold the weight etc, but when people realise the branch is stable and can hold the weight they will inevitably climb onto it and see the view is better from higher up. Honestly, I personally cannot see what the big deal regarding win 8, it was not a learning curve, the keyboard/mouse functionality is no different to any other variant of windows, the start screen is just a giant full screen start menu with slightly more functionality, that you are presented with on boot. This makes sense because the first thing people did after booting a windows machine was double click on a shortcut or go to the start menu. I really don't understand why people are griping that the process is one keystroke/mouse click shorter. If you don't like the 'metro' version of applications then unpin them and pin the desktop variants, it's a simplified variant of removing items from a win 7 start menu and creating shortcuts to others.
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I don't use Google to log into the operating system.
So then how is your comment relevant much less comparable to being able to log onto various instances of an operating system which was my point in the first place? Also, I'm not sure why you would mention Outlook. I was talking about Outlook.com.
Your initial comment was about Active Directory and its portability through a single operating system. Outlook.com and Office.com are just extensions of AD. I get much of the same portability through Google. As to the mention of Outlook vs Outlook.com, Outlook is a POP3 client that works with the POP3 server at Outlook.com. By using the email server packages, I reduce the overheads associated with the email client and better manage my business. If you have multiple email accounts, Outlook is NOT the way to go.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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For me, it's a matter of not being able to really get there. I am on a service pack on Windows 8.0, as an upgrade from Windows 7. After three several hour attempts to upgrade to Windows 8.1, it fails with an esoteric blue screen crash, and takes a few more hours to roll itself back. I loathe Windows 8.0, primarily for its flakiness and app incompatibility, but I cannot move the box forwards or backwards without wiping it. I'll use Windows as required at work, but this box killer, plus Dell laptops now shipping with Ubuntu, means I'll never personally buy a Windows device again. {end mini-rant}
The app and driver incompatibility in regards to Vista comes down to vendor laziness, no different to how it was in Vista. Vista came out, vendors scrambled to catch up. The only real thing to blame there is the length of time before it was released, vendors got lazy, thought Vista was just vapour ware that would never get released then BOOM! everyone has to scramble to catch up. You use Dell machines? Well there's your problem. They are notoriously flaky, have had numerous issues with some variant of malware being cooked into their firmware, some 95% of machines requiring after market hardware maintenance etc. There is a very big reason why Michael Dell bought out the public shares and made the company private again.
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Your initial comment was about Active Directory and its portability through a single operating system. Outlook.com and Office.com are just extensions of AD. I get much of the same portability through Google. As to the mention of Outlook vs Outlook.com, Outlook is a POP3 client that works with the POP3 server at Outlook.com. By using the email server packages, I reduce the overheads associated with the email client and better manage my business. If you have multiple email accounts, Outlook is NOT the way to go.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Outlook.com and Office.com are just extensions of AD
So you need a domain admin and active directory server to run http://outlook.com and http://office.com ?
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Outlook is a POP3 client that works with the POP3 server at Outlook.com
Outlook handles multiple protocols including Exchange, POP3, and IMAP. And I doubt that that Outlook.com is using a POP3 server for its connector considering that when I read, move or delete an item on one device, it is synchronized on other devices. I use outlook.com on my desktop with Outlook or Windows Live Mail and on my tablet with Windows Mail (although I can use any of those clients on any of my Windows devices). In fact, I can use my other (multiple) email accounts from gmail, AT&T mail, Nokia mail, and Yahoo via Outlook. And I use Outlook.com via the web browser at work so I can access my personal mail w/o using a email client. Now, I know that I can't access my Outlook.com mail, AT&T mail, Nokia mail nor Yahoo from Gmail unless I want to use POP3, and who would use POP3 mail in this day and age of multiple devices?
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Outlook.com and Office.com are just extensions of AD
So you need a domain admin and active directory server to run http://outlook.com and http://office.com ?
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Outlook is a POP3 client that works with the POP3 server at Outlook.com
Outlook handles multiple protocols including Exchange, POP3, and IMAP. And I doubt that that Outlook.com is using a POP3 server for its connector considering that when I read, move or delete an item on one device, it is synchronized on other devices. I use outlook.com on my desktop with Outlook or Windows Live Mail and on my tablet with Windows Mail (although I can use any of those clients on any of my Windows devices). In fact, I can use my other (multiple) email accounts from gmail, AT&T mail, Nokia mail, and Yahoo via Outlook. And I use Outlook.com via the web browser at work so I can access my personal mail w/o using a email client. Now, I know that I can't access my Outlook.com mail, AT&T mail, Nokia mail nor Yahoo from Gmail unless I want to use POP3, and who would use POP3 mail in this day and age of multiple devices?
I agree with you regarding IMAP vs POP3 that POP3 is somewhat obsolete. The only advantage with POP3 is that you can disconnect from the net and take your latest messages with you. With IMAP, you lose that capability and have to reconnect with the net to get your messages. Outlook.com, Live.com, and Hotmail.com are all the same animal. In server-to-server email transfers, POP3 is the easiest protocol to manage and is generally the preferred protocol; which explains why Gmail uses POP3 to communicate with AT&T, Nokia, Yahoo and a few others. I wouldn't be surprised if your only option linking Outlook.com to AT&T is POP3. The old Outlook client used to download all of your active email threads, including binaries, onto your workstation and possibly fill up your disk as you tried to negotiate through the tons of garbage you receive on a daily basis. (Heaven help you if the server went down while you were trying to delete 80-90 messages in a single action. You would wind up reloading the messages you just deleted in order to delete them again. This is where IMAP wins.) I'm not 100% certain, but I believe the current Outlook client and others like it use a blend of IMAP and POP3 to manage your email. As a security measure, most of the clients allow you to deny downloading of binaries unless specifically requested.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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It was a complete working product, but it was not to the liking of the general public so the cooking method was changed. That's the point I am making. Vista was a complete working product, people had issues with the amount of intrusive security, so the source code was tweaked to make those security tasks less intrusive, it is no different than taking a rack of ribs, and broiling them rather than BBQing them. Vista and Win 7 is the exact same product, just cooked differently. Using your tree analogy, the trunk is MSFT, each branch is a different variant of Windows. Some branches become forked into smaller branches, others do not. Vista is a branch in the tree, win 7 was forked off Vista. Win 8.x is a new branch and Win 10 is forked off that branch, it is literally no different than going from 3 to 3.1. True, when people see a new branch they have trepidations, wether it can hold the weight etc, but when people realise the branch is stable and can hold the weight they will inevitably climb onto it and see the view is better from higher up. Honestly, I personally cannot see what the big deal regarding win 8, it was not a learning curve, the keyboard/mouse functionality is no different to any other variant of windows, the start screen is just a giant full screen start menu with slightly more functionality, that you are presented with on boot. This makes sense because the first thing people did after booting a windows machine was double click on a shortcut or go to the start menu. I really don't understand why people are griping that the process is one keystroke/mouse click shorter. If you don't like the 'metro' version of applications then unpin them and pin the desktop variants, it's a simplified variant of removing items from a win 7 start menu and creating shortcuts to others.
Member 4724084 wrote:
Vista was a complete working product
Atcherley, they admitted that it wasn't.
Member 4724084 wrote:
people had issues with the amount of intrusive security
Not I. Have you ever used unix (or linux)? You have to enter your username and password every couple of minutes, as a developer (I've never used either as a user).
Member 4724084 wrote:
Vista and Win 7 is the exact same product
So was Win '95, going by that reasoning. In fact, I'd say that the vast majority of everything in Windows 10 was there in Windows 3.1.1. It's also pretty much the same in OSX, Unix, and every flavour of Linux, not to mention Android, iOS, OS/2, etc. The available hardware is the available hardware, and that is the main delimiter of the functionality of an OS, because the only point of having an OS is to provide access to the hardware. So, using your cookery view on the OS, every version of every operating system is simply a variation of a single recipe. That view is way too simplistic; I'm not going to adopt it, no matter how many times you repeat it, so you may as well quit repeating it.
Member 4724084 wrote:
Honestly, I personally cannot see what the big deal regarding win 8
It is an operating system designed for devices that one holds in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs. If your development machine is a device that you hold in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs, then you must be a pretty weird developer.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Member 4724084 wrote:
Vista was a complete working product
Atcherley, they admitted that it wasn't.
Member 4724084 wrote:
people had issues with the amount of intrusive security
Not I. Have you ever used unix (or linux)? You have to enter your username and password every couple of minutes, as a developer (I've never used either as a user).
Member 4724084 wrote:
Vista and Win 7 is the exact same product
So was Win '95, going by that reasoning. In fact, I'd say that the vast majority of everything in Windows 10 was there in Windows 3.1.1. It's also pretty much the same in OSX, Unix, and every flavour of Linux, not to mention Android, iOS, OS/2, etc. The available hardware is the available hardware, and that is the main delimiter of the functionality of an OS, because the only point of having an OS is to provide access to the hardware. So, using your cookery view on the OS, every version of every operating system is simply a variation of a single recipe. That view is way too simplistic; I'm not going to adopt it, no matter how many times you repeat it, so you may as well quit repeating it.
Member 4724084 wrote:
Honestly, I personally cannot see what the big deal regarding win 8
It is an operating system designed for devices that one holds in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs. If your development machine is a device that you hold in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs, then you must be a pretty weird developer.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark_Wallace wrote:
Atcherley, they admitted that it wasn't.
Citation please.
Mark_Wallace wrote:
So was Win '95, going by that reasoning. In fact, I'd say that the vast majority of everything in Windows 10 was there in Windows 3.1.1.
No, while they all do the same thing, they do it differently. To qualify as the same thing the code base has to be identical. I am not the one who came up with the food analogy, I just extended it to include Vista when the original poster of the food analogy left it off the list.
Mark_Wallace wrote:
It is an operating system designed for devices that one holds in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs. If your development machine is a device that you hold in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs, then you must be a pretty weird developer.
No it is not, it was designed as an operating system that can be used anywhere on any device. Similarly to iOS, it doesn't matter of it's an iPhone or an iPad or even some variants of the iPod, it is the exact same operating system. MSFT just extended the idea to include desktops and laptops as well. Win 10 takes the integration one step further by allowing you to carry jobs from one machine to the next without having to save your work somewhere and shift the files to some other machine. if I am editing a document on my laptop and I want to swap to a desktop I will be able to do that. It was even mentioned in the CodeProject daily news. The article didn't specify how to swap from one to the other on the fly, but it's an interesting idea, and one that I have no doubt people will gripe about. My development machine is a desktop, I use win 8.x on it with not one single issue. If you don't like "metro" apps then uninstall them and use the desktop variants instead, which is exactly what I did. So again, I cannot see what the big deal is regarding win 8.x, other than people being lazy. P.S. I take the weird developer comment as a compliment, so thank you :-D
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Mark_Wallace wrote:
Atcherley, they admitted that it wasn't.
Citation please.
Mark_Wallace wrote:
So was Win '95, going by that reasoning. In fact, I'd say that the vast majority of everything in Windows 10 was there in Windows 3.1.1.
No, while they all do the same thing, they do it differently. To qualify as the same thing the code base has to be identical. I am not the one who came up with the food analogy, I just extended it to include Vista when the original poster of the food analogy left it off the list.
Mark_Wallace wrote:
It is an operating system designed for devices that one holds in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs. If your development machine is a device that you hold in one hand, primarily for communications and taking photographs, then you must be a pretty weird developer.
No it is not, it was designed as an operating system that can be used anywhere on any device. Similarly to iOS, it doesn't matter of it's an iPhone or an iPad or even some variants of the iPod, it is the exact same operating system. MSFT just extended the idea to include desktops and laptops as well. Win 10 takes the integration one step further by allowing you to carry jobs from one machine to the next without having to save your work somewhere and shift the files to some other machine. if I am editing a document on my laptop and I want to swap to a desktop I will be able to do that. It was even mentioned in the CodeProject daily news. The article didn't specify how to swap from one to the other on the fly, but it's an interesting idea, and one that I have no doubt people will gripe about. My development machine is a desktop, I use win 8.x on it with not one single issue. If you don't like "metro" apps then uninstall them and use the desktop variants instead, which is exactly what I did. So again, I cannot see what the big deal is regarding win 8.x, other than people being lazy. P.S. I take the weird developer comment as a compliment, so thank you :-D
Member 4724084 wrote:
No, while they all do the same thing, they do it differently.
Not so differently as you seem to think. How many ways are there to print a pixel on the screen? How many ways are there to read a character from memory? How many ways are there to connect to a wifi access point? Hint: There's one way for each. The "base code" -- the commands sent to the hardware -- are absolutely identical for each item of hardware, no matter what device the hardware is a part of. Saying that Windows 3 and Windows 999 use the same machine code is a waste of breath. They have no choice but to use the same machine code, because the one and only machine code is what makes computers work, for every version of every operating system from everyone who makes operating systems. Everything else is window dressing -- no pun intended (for once in my life). Do you think that having taskbars or menus built with ever-so-slightly different third- or fourth-generation code makes operating systems incredibly unique? Look more closely at the machine. When you write code, you are putting together sets of instructions to be sent to the hardware, nothing more, nothing less. Sure, you can vary the commands to a very small degree, and vary the order in which they're sent to a higher degree -- you can modify the recipe, as you put it -- but that doesn't change your root ingredients, which are the same ingredients that everyone has to use. Nothing in Windows is unique to Windows. Their task bars and menus are printed on the screen using exactly the same "base code" as everyone else's. I dunno. Kids these days...
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Member 4724084 wrote:
No, while they all do the same thing, they do it differently.
Not so differently as you seem to think. How many ways are there to print a pixel on the screen? How many ways are there to read a character from memory? How many ways are there to connect to a wifi access point? Hint: There's one way for each. The "base code" -- the commands sent to the hardware -- are absolutely identical for each item of hardware, no matter what device the hardware is a part of. Saying that Windows 3 and Windows 999 use the same machine code is a waste of breath. They have no choice but to use the same machine code, because the one and only machine code is what makes computers work, for every version of every operating system from everyone who makes operating systems. Everything else is window dressing -- no pun intended (for once in my life). Do you think that having taskbars or menus built with ever-so-slightly different third- or fourth-generation code makes operating systems incredibly unique? Look more closely at the machine. When you write code, you are putting together sets of instructions to be sent to the hardware, nothing more, nothing less. Sure, you can vary the commands to a very small degree, and vary the order in which they're sent to a higher degree -- you can modify the recipe, as you put it -- but that doesn't change your root ingredients, which are the same ingredients that everyone has to use. Nothing in Windows is unique to Windows. Their task bars and menus are printed on the screen using exactly the same "base code" as everyone else's. I dunno. Kids these days...
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
How many ways to print a pixel on a monitor? 3, one for CRT, one for LCD, one for Plasma. How many ways to read a character from RAM? Depends on the RAM architecture. How many ways are there to connect to a wifi access point? Ok you got me on that one. There is more than one type of Machine code, so your statement that there is only one that makes computers work is entirely false. The machine code that is used is dependant entirely on the architecture. Software, including base code such as is found in kernels, is ever changing with each iteration, eventually you have something that has little to no resemblance to the original. This also happens as new more efficient algorithms are discovered to perform any given task, as those new algorithms are implemented, less and less of the original code remains. As hardware undergoes an iteration, so to does the code that runs on that hardware, again after x iterations you have little to nothing left of the original. Also the code that runs on a binary computer is substantially different to code that runs on a ternary computer. By your definition it is the same thing, in practice it is not, radically so. Any variant of windows you can name prints a task bar/menu on the VDU in a different manner than Mac OS system 6, again by your definition they are the same thing. In practice they are not.
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How many ways to print a pixel on a monitor? 3, one for CRT, one for LCD, one for Plasma. How many ways to read a character from RAM? Depends on the RAM architecture. How many ways are there to connect to a wifi access point? Ok you got me on that one. There is more than one type of Machine code, so your statement that there is only one that makes computers work is entirely false. The machine code that is used is dependant entirely on the architecture. Software, including base code such as is found in kernels, is ever changing with each iteration, eventually you have something that has little to no resemblance to the original. This also happens as new more efficient algorithms are discovered to perform any given task, as those new algorithms are implemented, less and less of the original code remains. As hardware undergoes an iteration, so to does the code that runs on that hardware, again after x iterations you have little to nothing left of the original. Also the code that runs on a binary computer is substantially different to code that runs on a ternary computer. By your definition it is the same thing, in practice it is not, radically so. Any variant of windows you can name prints a task bar/menu on the VDU in a different manner than Mac OS system 6, again by your definition they are the same thing. In practice they are not.
I don't like answers that come from wikipedia.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I don't like answers that come from wikipedia.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark_Wallace wrote:
I don't like answers that come from wikipedia.
Neither do I, exactly why I don't use it. To use one of your phrases "Kids these days..."
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Mark_Wallace wrote:
I don't like answers that come from wikipedia.
Neither do I, exactly why I don't use it. To use one of your phrases "Kids these days..."
It was a typical wikipedia answer, in that it was a lot of useless detail that is totally irrelevant to the discussion. For example: In response to my statement that all OS manufacturers have to use one method for printing a pixel, you responded that there are three methods, "one for CRT, one for LCD, one for Plasma". So are you: a: Saying that Microsoft uses CRT for Windows, apple uses plasma, and Linux uses LCD? b: just responding with the result of a google search through wikipedia that threw up totally irrelevant details that are meaningless in the context of the discussion? In response to my statement that there is only one machine code you replied "There is more than one type of Machine code" So are you: a: Saying that Microsoft uses one variety of machine code for Windows, apple uses another for iOS, and Google uses another for Android? b: just responding with the result of a google search through wikipedia that threw up totally irrelevant details that are meaningless in the context of the discussion? In both examples, the answer appears to be b. If you want to have a discussion with someone, have a discussion with them. Don't force people to sit through tiresome discussions with you + wikipedia. Believe it or not, your opinion is more interesting than any "information" from wikipedia (which is often incorrect, as -maxx- likes to demonstrate).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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It was a typical wikipedia answer, in that it was a lot of useless detail that is totally irrelevant to the discussion. For example: In response to my statement that all OS manufacturers have to use one method for printing a pixel, you responded that there are three methods, "one for CRT, one for LCD, one for Plasma". So are you: a: Saying that Microsoft uses CRT for Windows, apple uses plasma, and Linux uses LCD? b: just responding with the result of a google search through wikipedia that threw up totally irrelevant details that are meaningless in the context of the discussion? In response to my statement that there is only one machine code you replied "There is more than one type of Machine code" So are you: a: Saying that Microsoft uses one variety of machine code for Windows, apple uses another for iOS, and Google uses another for Android? b: just responding with the result of a google search through wikipedia that threw up totally irrelevant details that are meaningless in the context of the discussion? In both examples, the answer appears to be b. If you want to have a discussion with someone, have a discussion with them. Don't force people to sit through tiresome discussions with you + wikipedia. Believe it or not, your opinion is more interesting than any "information" from wikipedia (which is often incorrect, as -maxx- likes to demonstrate).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
You said:
Mark_Wallace wrote:
How many ways are there to print a pixel on the screen? How many ways are there to read a character from memory? How many ways are there to connect to a wifi access point? Hint: There's one way for each.
Your hint is utterly false on two of those statements. What I am saying is an OS, while achieving the same goal, is not the same across the board, just like two of the answers to your questions. Yes there is more than one variant of machine code. Machine code is processor dependant. Motorola does not use x86 machine code, for example, nor does PowerPC, or a host of other processor fabricators you care to name. The way software is 'cooked' is, as you have already pointed out, largely dependant on the hardware that it runs on. The end result is largely the same, how that end result is achieved varies with each iteration of hardware and code. After x amount of iterations of either, it becomes largely unrecognisable when compared to the first iteration. Again, comparing win 3.x to win 8.x is like comparing apples and oranges. That is the entire point I have been making.
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Tim Carmichael wrote:
Is the layout different? Yes, but the layout was different going from a green screen in college to Windows 3, and then again on Windows 95... Change is constant.
Ah, but it doesn't have to be. It's a balancing act, between progress (change is good!) and what is already good and familiar (change is bad!) I see it as kind of like the progression of cooking (speaking from personal experience here...) DOS and earlier were kind of like PB&J sandwiches. Basic, but kept you fed. Windows 3/3.1 etc were like microwave ramen. Slightly more difficult to make, but still, kept you fed. Windows 95 was a step up to grilled cheese. Getting better, but still, not all that great. Windows 98 was adding ham to that grilled cheese. Windows 2000 was pairing cream of tomato soup with that grilled ham and cheese. Windows ME was back to ramen. Windows XP was a medium sirloin with a loaded baked potato. Close, but not quite there yet. Windows 7 was a perfectly cooked rare filet mignon with a loaded baked potato and asparagus with hollandaise. Perfection. Now Windows 8... That is like you took a look at that beautiful meal that was Windows 7... And got greedy. You said 'I want more. I can do better.' But what you ended up with was an over-seasoned, over-cooked, filet, a potato with flavors that don't pair well, and hollandaise with a consistency that more closely resembles cold butter, than maple syrup. All because you couldn't leave well enough alone. Now your wife is upset with you because you ruined her favorite meal, and you had to order pizza. Progress only comes from experimentation, and we certainly learn more from our failures than our successes. Still, you have to learn when to leave well enough alone. Microsoft has been in business long enough now that they should have already learned that lesson.
Linux is a Michelin-starred all-you-can-eat buffet.