[Pc_Support] Re: Yet another technology not in longhorn: improved CLI

[Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>]

From: Damien McKenna <dmckenna at thelimucompany.com>
> http://www.betanews.com/article/No_New_Command_Line_for_Longhorn/1118333463
> Yet another technology has been pulled from Longhorn, this time the much
> vaunted improved command line dubbed Monad.

Damn!  I was actually looking forward to that!

I was _sincerely_hoping_ that at least the .NET-security designed
Monad would make it.  It was basically designed as a "complement"
to the .NET Indigo services/sandbox.  In other words, you would at
least have a _good_ CLI environment atop of NT/Win32, something
Microsoft could "build on" in the future.

Such as a scripting environment that could be "sandboxed."  I'm sure
the hope would be that ISVs would be a rich environment to take
away from the traditional UNIX preference.  But no more!

> So, is anything left at this stage?

No.  At this point, I think it's _dead_ just like Cairo.  Let's review the
WinFX technologies ...

- WinFS:  _Dead_, just like CarioFS before it

RESULT:  Still massive issues with 15 year-old NTFS-SAM design, including
the fact that NTFS is still tied to the specific NT install that created it.

- Avalon:  Partial/Delayed to Windows Graphics Foundation (WGF) 2.0

RESULT:  WGF 1.0 is DirectX 9, which is largely a software-layered
approach (WGF 2.0 is based on DirectX 10 work).  So Avalon will feature
some eye-candy like Apple's QuartzExtreme, but will _slow_down_
massively, unlike QuartzExtreme

- Indigo:  Alive, supposedly still-on target

RESULT:  Win32 will have a "server sandbox" to compete with UNIX and
Java application servers.  This was expected.

- Monad:  _Dead_, limited technology re-use

RESULT:  Some internal service re-use of technologies.  E.g., Exchange 12
will benefit from the Monad environment for parsing RFC821/822/etc...,
replacing the extremely _buggy_ ESMTP service in current Exchange 5.5
through 2003 releases.

Like the promise of "Consumer NT" in NT 4.0 "Cairo" before it, there is
_no_ "consumer .NET" platform to be found, which means there is only
and extremely limited "sandbox .NET" services.

In other words, Microsoft has invented *0* new concepts, with the majority
of their only WinFX technology offering in Indigo being almost entirely based
on Java 1 (1.0-1.1) and, in the re-license, Java 2 (1.4+).  They are the
_king_ of *0* innovation.



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org