[CoffeeFiend]

JorgeA, on 14 February 2012 - 06:48 PM, said:

Metro IE10

Two wrongs (Metro and IE) don't make a right (yes, but three lefts do)

It looks like Win8 tablets running ARM CPUs will pretty much be free from most useful software, much like I had expected (so there's no point to run Windows in the first place). MS' best solution is to open a web page in Metro IE10, which then connects to terminal services (remote desktop basically). I'm almost giggling at the idea.

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 14 February 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 14 February 2012 - 06:48 PM, said:

Metro IE10

Two wrongs (Metro and IE) don't make a right (yes, but three lefts do)

LOL

CoffeeFiend, on 14 February 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

It looks like Win8 tablets running ARM CPUs will pretty much be free from most useful software, much like I had expected (so there's no point to run Windows in the first place). MS' best solution is to open a web page in Metro IE10, which then connects to terminal services (remote desktop basically). I'm almost giggling at the idea.

Thanks for another interesting link. At first I thought that Mary Jo Foley (or Simon Bisson) made a mistake in writing about, "the new plugin-less IE Desktop in Windows 8" as only Metro IE was going to be without plug-ins. (I've already added a plug-in to desktop IE10.) If the final Desktop IE10 would also make no room for plugins, then things would be even worse than we thought. But it turns out that this is desktop IE for Windows on ARM, whew!

--JorgeA

[CoffeeFiend]

Oh, another somewhat reliable link that says we'll have Metro forced on us, against our will.

Quote

I suspect there’s a hard core of Windows fundamentalists who will never accept Metro style, or will resist it for some period of time. They’ll just have to deal with it, because I’m told the final release will not include a “classic” option with the Windows 7-style Start menu and search behavior.

So I guess updating is over. No more sales for MS ever. Let's hope we'll have enough years of downgrade rights to switch away or something (then again, lots of people will certainly pirate it beyond that point), and updates beyond year 2020 too. Or maybe some company's going to make a killing selling a sane shell for the new OS. Or maybe they'll fire Ballmer and Sinofsky... Or maybe someone will find an easy way to patch Win7's shell and bolt it on top of Win8's core. Who knows. But they've essentially done the unthinkable and killed Windows as far as I'm concerned. My next PC will be a Mac. Microsoft just sold me into buying a Mac

They're just going to force users to other OS'es, developers to make cross-platform software (no need for Windows anymore) or to make web apps (ditto). And Windows will just slowly become irrelevant, being used mainly for legacy stuff, in VMs and terminal servers.

[mrsk565]

I would hate to see that day, im on win 7 now and I can do just about anything I can think of, my wife on the other hand has an ipad 2. And I know some people like it but i just cant get into it. I dont want to pay for things that windows offers for free. Im not really into apps either. I run windows 7 for games, music, videos, just about anything. But when using the ipad it can be very restricting for me to do those things. I have done the work arounds to unlock things but it always comes down to having to pay. In a lighter note I would like windows 8 on a touch device to insure my freedom to do want i need to. But besides from MAC which is a laptop and im not talking about laptops now but touch devices like the ipad, I think apple sucks at this.
Of course if you have money to through at apple it might not concern you. Ya there is paid apps in win 8, but it still gives you the ability to use flash and other types of files that Ipads dont. Apple is making big bucks off turning free content into paid content and thats something I really dont like.

This post has been edited by mrsk565: 15 February 2012 - 06:35 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

mrsk565, on 15 February 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

I would hate to see that day

Same here, but MS is working hard towards that.

mrsk565, on 15 February 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

im on win 7 now and I can do just about anything I can think of

Same here, and loving it too. Not really big on tablets either, much like you. They don't answer most of my needs, but it's probably handy for a few fun things (like most portable gadgets).

mrsk565, on 15 February 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

But when using the ipad it can be very restricting for me to do those things.

I don't see Win8-on-ARM tablets being any better. Mainly the same thing, but with Metro and less apps. It won't run *any* software you already have (nor things like Flash games online), it's just as locked down, same apps marketplace idea, etc. It might have the Windows name, but it's totally unlike what you've used on the desktop.

Either ways, I'm not concerned about iPads or the dead on arrival Win8 tablets (or WP7 phones that share the same fate). I'm talking about MS turning the desktop into something really awful to use, making it a real pain for developers and so on.

[tomasz86]

Any similarities ?

[CoffeeFiend]

tomasz86, on 15 February 2012 - 06:55 PM, said:

Any similarities ?

Lots
-Windows 3.1 was little more than a pointless graphic launcher for text (DOS) apps. Win8 is little more than a pointless OS for launching a handful of Metro apps.
-Both have a pretty horrible interface
-Both bring very little worthwhile features over their predecessor
-Both suck for developers
...

And yes, big boxes everywhere too.

[mrsk565]

"COFFEE SAID"

Quote

don't see Win8-on-ARM tablets being any better. Mainly the same thing, but with Metro and less apps. It won't run *any* software you already have (nor things like Flash games online), it's just as locked down, same apps marketplace idea, etc.

I see, Sorry for the confusion. I think was alittle mislead by some of the youtube videos out there showing you can do alot of the same stuff as win 7 on 8. Most be fakes then

This post has been edited by mrsk565: 15 February 2012 - 07:23 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

mrsk565, on 15 February 2012 - 07:21 PM, said:

showing you can do alot of the same stuff as win 7 on 8. Most be fakes then

Those must be demos based on the desktop version of Windows 8 (it still has the Phone-like touch interface), not ARM Tablets.

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 15 February 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

I don't see Win8-on-ARM tablets being any better. Mainly the same thing, but with Metro and less apps. It won't run *any* software you already have (nor things like Flash games online), it's just as locked down, same apps marketplace idea, etc. It might have the Windows name, but it's totally unlike what you've used on the desktop.

The locked-down Metro interface is a salvo in what's been called "the war on general computation." Intentionally or not, computers are slowly turning into appliances that customers can use only as the makers wish.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 15 February 2012 - 08:05 PM

[tomasz86]

Here is a nice article about the development of Windows UI.

[CoffeeFiend]

tomasz86, on 15 February 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

Here is a nice article about the development of Windows UI.

It has a few good points for sure. KDE 4 was a WTF, and GNOME 3 even more so (don't even talk about Unity). However, Win8 just takes the cake. That's yet another reason why I'm most likely getting a Mac next: Apple is the only one that hasn't screwed up yet (and still has lots of software I want and need to use).

[tomasz86]

By the way, isn't the speed dial feature used in many browsers basically the same thing? In order to open a new page you need to close/minimize the current one or open a new tab to do it... I use Opera but I don't think it's different for others.

It DOES make sense on a tablet (I've got one) where you need as much screen space as possible.

[Joseph_sw]

when win8 was annouced, it came with promise to run on both x86 processors & ARM processors.
and somewhere along that promise it also said that apps writen specificaly for win8 would able to run both on x86-based win8 & ARM-based win8.

http://www.withinwin...ial-transcript/

Quote

[Walt Mossberg> And every program that runs in desktop Windows will run on
[Steven Sinofsky> It's Windows.]
[Walt Mossberg> any/all hardware.

so, how can that be? considering the fact of vast differences between x86 vs ARM archictectures...
some begin to speculates that MS will adopt the classic xBase/Clipper p-codes apporach,
or JavaVM bytecodes apporach,
or something like Flash ActionScript p-codes.

Therefore new apps designed for win8 will not in binary form that natives to CPU instructions anymore,
but rather in binary intermediate-codes, that will be interpreted (or JiT/AoT compiled) by win8.
One could said what win8 is an OS scale javaVM-like or and OS Scale flash player.


Then, developer preview arrives.
Those who spout above theories immediately recognized the WinRT as the intermediate-codes,
after all WinRT have no other purpose, benefit, nor any other justified reasons of being there.

Somewhere in the development MS probably realized for winRT to works,
it need unified/consistent environment (or ecology as MS term) that can exist both in x86 systems or ARM system.
And thats where Metro comes in, to force the unified environment to any Windows 8 users,
regarless wether the Metro actually mets windows users needs or not.

This post has been edited by Joseph_sw: 15 February 2012 - 08:41 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

Joseph_sw, on 15 February 2012 - 08:35 PM, said:

and somewhere along that promise it also said that apps writen specificaly for win8 would able to run both on x86-based win8 & ARM-based win8

Perhaps he meant that Metro apps would run on both? Either ways, that video's almost a year old. Things might have changed since then.

Here on Win8's blog you can read (WOA = Windows On Arm):

Quote

WOA does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps.

That's pretty clear. Different CPUs with instruction sets, different architectures, etc. It probably won't even have a classic desktop to use with your apps. It might only support Metro apps. And also: ARM devices not running x86/x64 code also means that *none* of the existing drivers work.

Joseph_sw, on 15 February 2012 - 08:35 PM, said:

Therefore new apps designed for win8 will not in binary form that natives to CPU instructions anymore,
but rather in binary intermediate-codes, that will be interpreted (or JiT/AoT compiled) by win8.
One could said what win8 is an OS scale javaVM-like or and OS Scale flash player.

No. You can still compile native binaries for x86 and ARM CPUs (e.g. using C++) so long as you manually compile for both, or you can C#/VB which works on both (if you leave the project settings to AnyCPU obviously). But in all cases you have to use WinRT (and XAML, again, just the Metro stuff). You can't run native x86 code/apps on an ARM CPU, nor the inverse. There's also the HTML + JScript option which is basically just a web page in a fancy browser (not what developers want or expect). They leave you with only one choice (well, unless you really want to count HTML as a second?) which happens to only work on Windows 8 too.

I don't even understand why someone would want an ARM tablet that runs Windows 8. Or why you'd pick that over an iPad, Android device or anything like that.

[JorgeA]

tomasz86, on 15 February 2012 - 06:55 PM, said:

Any similarities ?

LOL

The tiling and limited multitasking in Metro remind me of Windows 1.0. So we've "advanced" into the past either 22 or 26 years.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 15 February 2012 - 10:06 PM

[Joseph_sw]

just look at this ancient but visionary stuff: VisiCorp Visi On (1982/1983)
Point of interest:

Quote

A very interesting feature of Visi On is the way it was designed.
It was designed to be portable to other OSes such as CP/M or Unix, or to other CPUs besides the 8086.
It did this by providing a kind of non machine specific "virtual machine" (called the Visi Machine) that all applications were written for.
Only the very core of Visi On (called the Visi Host) was machine specific.

Applications were developed in "Visi C", a fairly restricted subset of C designed for maximum portability.
The development environment was Unix based and included a non-graphical version of the Visi-Host that let portions of Visi-On applications be run and tested on Unix.

Sounds kind of like Java doesn't it? And Microsoft is only just now starting to re-write their Windows applications for their .net environment to help accommodate major CPU changes coming up in the future.

you could easly see paralels between what VisiOn capable of vs what Win8'Metro want to be.

[JorgeA]

tomasz86, on 15 February 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

Here is a nice article about the development of Windows UI.

My favorite bit from that article:

Quote

And what is it with people trying to fix what isn't broken?

Amen to that!

--JorgeA

[CoffeeFiend]

Joseph_sw, on 15 February 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

you could easly see paralels between what VisiOn capable of vs what Win8'Metro want to be.

In a very large sense, perhaps. But they're rather different technologies. Metro is a new "menu" and visual style design, not something that makes your apps magically run everywhere on everything. WinRT is how you make graphics happen on the new Windows (using XAML markup or code). It's just a common "presentation" platform. You can still compile ARM-only or x86-only apps this way. But yes, having a common UI for every device helps somewhat.

JorgeA, on 15 February 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

And what is it with people trying to fix what isn't broken?

That could also mean "never change anything" or "never innovate" in some ways. I'm all for change -- so long as the replacement is at least as good as what it replaced. I guess there's a fine line between "stale or outdated" and "with excess or for no good reason".

Then again, especially on the developer side, MS abandons lots of reliable and proven "mature" technologies, then pushes new stuff that doesn't catch on, then changes its mind, then pushes more new stuff that makes you wonder WTF they're thinking.

A couple quick examples? MS abandons C programmers (no C99 compliant compiler after over a decade and it's not planned), ditto for classic ASP (no meaningful updates since Win2k), C++11 support lagging behind GCC (yes, open source GCC supports new C++ features better than MS' flagship Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 that costs $11899) and so on. Then they push for new technologies like Silverlight and WPF which fail to gain significant adoption (only to replace them already). And now? All this brand new Win7 stuff we haven't half implemented yet (e.g. jump lists, task dialogs, etc) that you're just barely starting to use? Forget about all of it! Now learn this Win8-only WinRT stuff. Oh, and by the way, we're pushing aside the desktop, all the software you use and killing backwards compatibility as well. Multitasking is passé while cloud (Azure) is the future! And we're still supposed to be all excited about a phone touch-screen interface on our desktops now I guess, because Windows ARM tablets and WP7 phones are the future, right? I just don't see this ending well.

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 15 February 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 15 February 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

And what is it with people trying to fix what isn't broken?

That could also mean "never change anything" or "never innovate" in some ways. I'm all for change -- so long as the replacement is at least as good as what it replaced. I guess there's a fine line between "stale or outdated" and "with excess or for no good reason".

Good point. I was thinking of it in the sense of "change for change's sake."

Improvements are always welcome: the Windows 95/98 desktop worked much, much better than the Windows 3.x Program Manager. But I don't see any point in making changes because a given way looks "stale" or "outdated." What makes a UI "outdated," anyway -- just because it's been around (and worked fine) for some time?

It's like saying about automobiles that having the gas pedal to the right of the brake, with the emergency over to the left, is a stale old "legacy" interface, and it's so cool to use dashboard buttons instead, with the gas to the left, the emergency in the middle, and the brake over to the right. It's not "cool," just silly.

When I point this out to fans of "change for change's sake," they look at me with glassy eyes and call me a "hater." No: I simply don't see any purpose in changing the way I interact with my machines, just because. I'd rather use my equipment for purposes beyond itself, than waste time relearning how to use it.

CoffeeFiend, on 15 February 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

(yes, open source GCC supports new C++ features better than MS' flagship Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 that costs $11899)

--JorgeA