R.I.P. Byte

David LeBlanc whisper at accessone.com
Fri Jan 22 07:40:56 UTC 1999


I'm wondering what critical system libraries us Windows programmers are
free to overwrite when installing new software on Windows?

Aside from the language libraries (i.e. msvcrtNN.dll), the equivilent of
which ARE also updated with fair regularity on Linux (every time a new gcc
comes out pretty much - and I keep hearing tales about some version of gcc
being good or bad to compile Linux in), i'm not aware of any vender
shipping a modified version of, for instance, win32.dll, user32.dll,
kernel32.dll, gdi32.dll etc.

WRT Byte, I was a charter subscriber back in ?1977?. I didn't renew after
the first year because Dr. Dobbs had come along and seemed to be doing a
much better job then Byte. Dr. Dobbs itself succumbed to commercialization
when Miller-Freeman bought them although it lives on in name. These days, I
just surf (and read squeaky mail lists :-) ).

Sincerely,

Dave LeBlanc

At 05:44 PM 1/21/99 -0500, agree at carltonfields.com wrote:
>Actually, this is an important point.  If "Linux" is just the Torvold
Kernel, 
>the point is tremendously well-taken.  If Linux is the rest of the operating 
>system and application software, clearly there is no unspoken or spoken 
>suggestion that it cannot be modified.
>
>The same is true of Windows.  What we NOW call an "OS" includes so much of
the 
>functionality of the universe of computing that the demand for customization 
>is enormous, hence the "permission" to make modifications.  Windows now (if 
>you believe their Antitrust defense) is so deeply integrated that the 
>"application aspect," "systems aspect" and "kernel aspect" are now all a 
>unity.
>
>Is the bottom line that the Kernel should be REALLY tiny and untouchable,
and 
>that the System surrounding the Kernel should be really, really, really 
>well-designed for safe and non-competing reuse?
>
>Is this any surprise?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	MIME :briank at hex.net 
>Sent:	Thursday, January 21, 1999 5:39 PM
>To:	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu; janb at pmatrix.com
>Subject:	Re: R.I.P. Byte
>
>I've always believed the reason why some OS's were unstable was because
>some OS's allow application developers to replace libraries critical to
>the OS (Windows is a prime example of this), whereas other more stable
>OS's (i.e., Linux) discourage the modification of critical/kernel OS
>code by applications.
>
>  --Brian
>
>Jan Bottorff wrote:
> 
>> I don't know, one of the last issues of BYTE published in the summer of '98
>> had just an incredibly good article on why OS's were unstable. It seemed
>> like the bottom line conclusion was "new untried lines of code are
>> unstable, the more you have the more unstable you are". I personally agree
>> with their conclusion.
>
>----------------------
>--Brian Koontz      --
>--Routech, Inc.     --
>--briank at routech.com--
>----------------------
>
> << File: ENVELOPE.TXT >> 
>
>
>





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