A difference in philosophy

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Developer Handholding

MS has worked hard to develop software components that can be used to more efficiently build robust software. This is a Good Thing, and I don't think it is in the least bit inconsistent with "Unix" philosophy.

The problem is, when faced with a choice between expedience and maintaining modularity, MS has chosen expedience every time. The components, and even many MS applications, have tendrils that extend down into the core OS and into each other.

So Microsoft defines an operating system as "everything that is too tangled with the kernel and basic UI too be sold as a separate package."

This happens to work will for business types, because when they buy Windows, they are buying an entire platform and system of components. This is much easier to understand. It avoids all sorts of costly decisions associated with choosing the best components, all sorts of costly integration when pieces on different stacks need to be integrated, and all sorts of user confusion when faced with 5 applications developed on 5 different component stacks.

The difference between MS and Apple is that Apple is smaller. MS can afford to build a tangled mess and throw thousands of developers at it without serious effects on margins, while Apple would get killed. MS cannot release subpar technology because it is the dominant player and defines par, while Apple must produce a superior end-user experience.

Apple is what MS would be under competitive and financial pressure, only without the HW business. Apple modeled itself on IBM (kind-of), in that it wanted to control the entire stack from HW on up, just before MS went out and ate IBM's lunch.

Apple's superior technology is a result of competitive pressure. It has to be better from soup to nuts if it doesn't expect to be ignored by consumers on one end and railroaded by suppliers on the other.

So I think you're wrong about Apple and Unix common philosophical origins.

Unix, on the other hand, is more of a bunch of fueding city-states, so doing anything useful with Unix requires glueing together different pieces. What the market did to Apple, Unix has done to itself. I think musings on the Unix philosophy are largely like seeing animals in clouds - it's imposing order on chaos in order to satisfy human needs for order and causality.

Of course, that's resulted in competition, and competition is what leads to superior products.

Posted by: Erik Engbrecht   Posted on: 01/29/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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