[alexluft]

I'm not a programmer or a developer so I don't know much in the code-writing area, but after recently switching to the Mac platform, I heard from Mac fan sites that Microsoft Windows code is terrible and garbage and etc... Why is this so??? How is code compared (like a computer chip is compared by clock speed, bus, cache, threads, etcc....)?
Is it really inferior and poorly designed and written or was it that Mac fans were bashing the Windows platform?

Can someone explain to me please???

PS: I don't mean DOS, I'm talking about Windows XP and 2000 and such that from what I've heard aren't DOS-based.

[Kickaha]

I've known a number of folks who have worked at MS. Most of them are very bright. The stories they tell, however... oy.

For those programmers in the audience, prior to Office 2000, Excel's macro language parser was a 33,000+ line *switch statement*. ONE.

Most companies have highly unpretty code, but the stories I've heard from the bowels of Redmond take the cake.

Heck, look at the security problems... those are either outright incompetence, or because the code is so badly designed that even intelligent people can't see the problems.

[torifile]

Most of us just like to bash MS just because. I'd say 99.9% of us have no idea what we're talking about but we're probably right when we say stuff like Windows is poorly written. There are a few of us here who know what they're talking about and could tell you why it's crap.

I know it's crap not because I know anything about the code itself but because there are times things just quit working on their own and then start again just as inexplicably. That's a poorly designed system. In my 4 years of using OS X, I've never had this happen to me. Not even once.

[SpecMode]

Hmm...well, the big difference between Mac OS X and Windows (XP, 2000, et al) is that OS X was rewritten from the ground up, sacrificing compatibility with many older applications for speed and stability, while Microsoft decided to maximize compatibility with the majority of older Windows applications in newer versions of its OS.

The end result is 'code bloat': excesses of obsolete code that are kept around to ensure that the newest versions of Windows are still able to run applications created over a decade ago. This is seen by many developers (not just Mac users) as unwieldy and IMHO is one of the biggest reasons that Windows seems to be more 'buggy' than most other OSes these days.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by SpecMode the newest versions of Windows are still able to run applications created over a decade ago.

*cough* Classic. *cough*

[SpecMode]

True, but Classic is more like a separate application than part of OS X itself; you can remove Classic in its entirety and IIRC OS X won't be affected in the slightest.

Try doing that in Windows XP.

[Kickaha]

Exactly. Making a clean break, then providing a clean method for running those legacy applications, *AND* having the two environments interact?? Genius. It allows Classic to remain more or less 'fixed', and it only has to track against the UI interaction hooks. All other Classic development can cease, and has.

MS has a boat anchor around their neck of their own making because they couldn't see a way out. Apple did, and took it.

It's funny, I have apps that run better under Classic than they did under OS9.

[ZogDog]

Another thing, fist I know jack when it comes to major software code, OSX is based off of NeXT and/or Unix/BSD.

This implies... better code?

[Gargoyle]

Originally Posted by ZogDog Another thing, fist I know jack when it comes to major software code, OSX is based off of NeXT and/or Unix/BSD. This implies... better code?

Yes I think it does!

When you are going out to dig up the garden you wear your old clothes - no one is really going to see your ass hanging out the ripped back pocket. However, when you go out on the pull you put on your best threads!

I think the same applies to code. If you are writing it "in-house" then you will probably use slightly messy and probably less efficient code. If you are writing it for something open-source, where some of the best programming minds in the world can examine it, then you are gonna spend that little bit extra time neatening it up and optimising it.

Not to mention that a couple of million bug spotters are always gonna be better than a couple of hundred or thousand!

[Franz Josef]

I dislike Redmond (with passion I hope ) not because the product is badly coded (though I assume it must be given the endless bugs and vulnerabilities) but because it simply doesn't work, it isn't fit for purpose - if I took a clean sheet of paper and set out what a sensible non-tech user would want from their laptop and software, then Windows running on a Dell simply doesn't deliver - it isn't nearly stable enough, nor user friendly / intuitive enough nor indeed secure. I'm struck by the new Longhorn tagline - "it just works" - if Longhorn just works WTF have 2000 and XP been doing for the last 5 years.

[end of rant]

[elmo]

Originally Posted by SpecMode Hmm...well, the big difference between Mac OS X and Windows (XP, 2000, et al) is that OS X was rewritten from the ground up, sacrificing compatibility with many older applications for speed and stability, while Microsoft decided to maximize compatibility with the majority of older Windows applications in newer versions of its OS. The end result is 'code bloat': excesses of obsolete code that are kept around to ensure that the newest versions of Windows are still able to run applications created over a decade ago. This is seen by many developers (not just Mac users) as unwieldy and IMHO is one of the biggest reasons that Windows seems to be more 'buggy' than most other OSes these days.

So true, WindowsOS need to rewrite ground up. With Cpu run at 2.6Ghz up to 3.6Ghz with 1GB memery + they can emulator to all the old apps out there for the Windows OS. But, Microsoft get there hands tied behind there back from become so big with OS. I heard on CNN not to long a go that 30% of the business out there are run Windows98. I mean that not to shocking If you think about the # of Windows Machines out there.