RE: [LUG] Clueless users

["Julian Hall" <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In some ways Windows is *sort of* modular.  Inasmuch as programmers think
"Why write a DLL for that function when I can just tell my program to use
the Internet Explorer DLL?", and thus make their own code a lot smaller.  Or
at least they SHOULD.  The obvious downside is the all too common "You must
have X Y or Z installed to run this program" instead of having the sense to
carry the required DLLs in the installer.  If the user HAS the required
program, fine just don't install them, but don't expect a user to install a
20Mb program just because you can't be bothered to include a couple of DLLs
in your install program.

The other obvious point is that if you follow this approach, when Windows
gets reinstalled after crashing for the second time today (OK let's be kind,
this week!) you need to reinstall all your programs.  Some programmers to
give them their due do write programs that do not use the Windows install in
any way, Poser for example.  If you reinstall Windows and had Poser on a
separate partition, just recreate the shortcut and you're back up and
running.

Having said all the above, the modular approach is taken a lot more by third
parties writing programs *for* Windows, than in Windows itself, where I
grant you that "bloatware" rules the day.  I wrote my first program way back
in 1987 on a BBC Master and had to strip all the REMs out to get it to run
inside the available memory.  Not that it wasn't modular, but 7500 lines of
BBC Basic does run up a big bill in RAM :)  Who wants to bet all the REMs
have been purposefully left in every runtime copy of Microsoft applications?
:)

That'll eat your hard disk like nobody's business.  My current Mandrake 9.1
install is a shade under 2Gb including all the apps and utilities I
installed during the setup.  My Win2K install is about 2Gb before I even
start adding all the applications.  That says quite clearly, "Microsoft
Windows is not written to be compact".

Anyway, this is a Linux mailing list, so I'll go back to my box now :)

Kind regards,

Jules


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf
Of Mark Evans
Sent: 10 May 2004 20:03
To: list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [LUG] Clueless users


Adrian Midgley wrote:
> On Monday 10 May 2004 03:16, Simon Waters wrote:
>
>
> > Microsoft seem to be creating structural
> > weaknesses in their new products as fast (faster?) as they fix them in
> > the OS, and lack of competition means these new products will soon be
> > supporting enterprise critical applications that affect all of us.
>
>
> I found the argument advnaced a while ago that while the tendency in Linux
was
> to modularise, separating functions so far as possible and tending to be
more
> replaceable, interchangeable and maintainable -

This is called "structured programming". It's the way most books
on programming say you should do it. Or at least it was 20 years ago.

> Microsoft had deliberately reversed this with Windows, winding the
functions
> of programs as much into the operating system as they could, so as to
appear
> as if it was not possible to separate them, and done this for reasons
having

The converse of structured programming is known as "sphagetti code".

> everything to do with Courts and nothing to do with engineering sense.

It also makes it difficult for third parties to extend or replace parts
of Windows. Microsoft's "corporate vision" is a part of the equation.

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