In article <[log in to unmask]>,
David Masterson  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> But MS-Windows is a much simpler environment than UNIX and, therefore,
> requires less support.

Crikey. Warn me before you say something like that, I almost spewed milk
all over my keyboard (I was eating breakfast when I read it).

Windows simpler than UNIX? Not even in the same ballpark. UNIX has a very
simple design, with a very clear division of duties between applications
and the kernel and between one application and the next, and with a carefully
designed small set of system calls to mediate communication between these
components. Windows (the Win32 API, which is common to Windows NT and the
old DOS-based Windows, and the associated library/process model which extends
into the NT kernel and Windows CE) is inherently far more complex. There is
really no clear division between libraries and programs, and between system
components and applications. Apart from the library calling scheme itself,
there is no overall design for the API... calls that perform the same function
are duplicated in multiple libraries, new calls and libraries are added in an
organic, evolutionary fashion. Where UNIX is a garden left to grow wild, with
the occasional bush growing into the path, Windows is a jungle with a leaking
nuclear weapons plant on one side, and a pesticide factory on the other...
full of glowing mutant alligators and vines that reach out of the swamp
to strangle the unwary traveller.

--
 `-_-'   In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva.
  'U`    "A well-rounded geek should be able to geek about anything."
                                                       -- [log in to unmask]
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