Re: [announcement] SYSAPI and SYSSVC for Windows

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

Ekkehard Morgenstern wrote:

> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>> Try to install Windows over network!
> 
> There are toolkits supplied by Microsoft to permit remote installing.
> If you know how to use them, it's no big deal.
>  
>> It is also amusing to install NT 4.0 on a relatively modern box. You will
>> have a lot of fancy blue screens.
> 
> Windows NT 4.0 is an anachronism.

It is more stable than 2k/XP, thank to absence of plug'n'pray, I suppose.
Multitasking is also better under NT, at least it is more predictable. So
many of our customers keep sticking to NT. And honestly, I can hardly
remember anything really new in OS API...

> Microsoft doesn't support it anymore,
> either. Even Windows 2000 is outdated. Windows XP is the way to go, it
> does not only include all of Windows 2000 but also all of Windows NT (even
> the OS/2 1.3 and POSIX subsystems exist in XP).

As well as quick basic...

>> Well, an OO OS written in Ada sounds good. However, it would be rather
>> difficult to do in a clear way without multiple inheritance and dispatch,
>> full blown ADT, tagged tasks and protected types, light-weight smart
>> pointers, reasonable sreaming and memory pools support. Ada just has
>> started to catch it, but it has a long way to go.
> 
> Ada 95 just has a different way of doing things.

There is no different way to do things I mentioned. There are only more or
less nasty work-arounds. It is OK for 80% of applications, but for an OS,
using work-arounds in API is the worst thing I can imagine. Nobody needs
one more "adux" or "adows". We need a completely new OS. Scalable from
embedded to mainframe, from real-time to time-sharing etc, and with an OO
API. So if ADT and OO with all their bells and whistles are not supported
by a language (and presently there is no one), it is would be a great
mistake to make the OS API OO.

> If you take your time to
> understand them, you can use them effectively as well.
> 
> I bet the Ada 20xx standard that is in the works will add even more
> interesting stuff to the language.

I bet it will not change the situation. The time of a big cut is yet to
come.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de