Why the delay for Windows Vista? "too much manpower"

[Deja Q]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/personal_technology/14196272.htm

:eyes:

Too many cooks spoil the soup, and too many software developers can cause more problems than they solve.

This could explain, at least in part, what's wrong at Microsoft.

The company suffered a huge embarrassment last week in slipping the consumer launch of Windows Vista back to January.

This came after Microsoft made solemn pledges to ship Vista, the newest version of its flagship operating system, in time for this year's holiday selling season.

Vista is crucial to Microsoft's future.

Windows XP, its predecessor, is almost 5 years old -- retirement age in the fast-moving world of computing. Improved security and slick new features in Vista could help Microsoft regain a cutting-edge image snatched away by faster-moving competitors such as Apple Computer and Google.

But Windows has gotten so big over the years, designed for everything from high-end computer entertainment systems to portable touchpads, that coming up with a new version is untangling a bowl of spaghetti.

The challenge of big software projects was probably best described by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. in his classic 1975 book, ``The Mythical Man-Month.''

Brooks, a professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, stated then what he called Brooks' Law: ``Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.''



Try too many ingredients instead. XP itself has over four billion lines of code. Vista is 5 years in the running, has had set backs and components axed out before...

And, no, vista is NOT crucial to MS's success. Most corporations wait to deploy it; they observe end user/home user responses first. It's less expensive that way.

[wakeme2008]

1. I know companies still on 2000

they just do not jump everytime MS says jump.

[Warpy]

3. Right, last place I worked for is still using 2000

and their administrative stuff is still DOS.

Since Microshaft finally got it right with XP, a memory hog of a system still, but one that doesn't give you the blue screen of death every few hours, I doubt many people are going to be motivated to shell out the money to switch. I won't.

[wakeme2008]

4. Plus from what I have heard you need well over 1gig of memory

and a lot of machines today are shipping with 512meg....

Oh you want the new OS,,, bring your machine in and pay us to upgrade it with a lot more memory.

[Deja Q]

5. 2gb, minimum, I should think... Vista redefines bloat.

And it might be deliberate; to get more companies down the thin client path... :think:

[wtmusic]

2. "Untangling a bowl of spaghetti" is an apt metaphor

but 4B lines of code?? Hard to believe.

[Deja Q]

6. It's the truth. Linus Torvalds slammed Gates several years ago:

Saying why Linux is so big is because it's open source and anyone can work with it.

He then added, "What's Microsoft's excuse?"

:rofl:

Very true. Microsoft, in a world ran by common sense and not by money-grubbing opportunists (money itself being a fair impetus, but not this time), would have been squished a long time ago.

[wakeme2008]

8. Yes but you can STILL run Linux on a 128 Meg machine without

problems... OK unless you plan to run Oracle..... :)

[BlooInBloo]

7. And yet there are literally 1000s of un/underemployed

Programmers and other tech people in the Seattle area.

Fuck MS. They don't wanna pay to make a product, then they don't get a product.

[Tesha]

9. Windows' *BIG PROBLEM* is that...

Windows' *BIG PROBLEM* is that everything under the
hood is connected to everything else. This makes for
very, very brittle code where one small error in some
obscure corner of the system brings the whole house
of cards tumbling down.

If the system were more modular, it might take you
a 'couple more clicks to do something, but:

0) Faults wouldn't propagate around the system
like the latest bird flu,

1) Hackers couldn't easily jump from a crack in
one module to ripping the whole system open,

2) There'd be a chance that Microsoft could actually
ship a working product,

3) Third-parties would be able to integrate their
products into the overall system on the same level
playing field as Microsoft.

They came close to getting it right when Dave
Cutler built the first 'NT kernel, but they
chickened out in the name of not breaking any
legacy software. With all the billions of lines
of legacy software come all the legacy bugs and
security weakneses.

Someday, they'll accept a break in compatibility
from MS/DOS, lay a proper presentation layer
on top of the 'NT kernel (that still lives on
in Win/2K, XP, and Vista), and move onwards into
the modern age of software engineering.

Tesha