[X4U] Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

[Ed Gould]

On Jun 16, 2008, at 7:26 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> ------------------- 
> SNIP------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> ------------
> Most people here seem to understand that if something works for  
> you, it
> would be nice if certain companies didn't force you to go out and  
> replace
> it.
>
> Zane
>
>

Zane:

This a little bit off topic but it sort of does connect up back at  
the end so here it goes.

Once upon a time say 40 years ago a lowly programmer wrote a  
subroutine that (its unimportant what the subroutine did to this  
story) everyone in the shop used it and there were literally 1000's  
of programs that used this subroutine in all of their programs.

Several years go by and its still in use and even more programs use  
they same subroutine now the count is up to 2000 and growing.

Same company 30 years later and the subroutine is still working  
thousands of time a day (some times more).

Now lets see there have been 10 computer upgrades and oh yes 15  
Operating systems upgrades and the routine still works! the computer  
is now 200 times faster (or more) that the original one the OS has  
Sooooo many bells and whistles that most people can't get their arm  
around it all.

This actually has happened in quite a few shops around the US and the  
world. What computer and what OS has maintained compatibility after 40 
+ years? Yes its a bad old IBM mainframe computer. Whatever you say  
IBM's dedication to compatibility is by far the worlds best (on any  
platform). Apple can't ever come close not even by a yard.

Now I can just hear some people say but what about Y2K, yes there had  
to changes but not necessarily for the subroutine (this may or may  
not be the case, the example I know personally did not have any Y2K  
issues) In some other cases it did but in a typical example here it  
did not. It did not care what version of OS it ran it may or may not  
have file I/O and it didn't need any changes to continue to work. IBM  
really believes in compatibility something Apple does not.

The upgrades to the computer were needed for processor speed and  
capacity and 99++ percent of all the programs did not need re- 
compiling or re-writing just because an OS level change occurred or a  
newer or bigger CPU was needed.

Now to get all the nay-sayers out of the way the 1 percent of  
programs that needed to be changed (or partial rewrite) had to be  
done because they depended on some system function that was altered  
or dropped or changed. That is a extremely small number compared to  
other platforms and languages. Can Apple come close not even close.  
Has Apple stagnated not really but the total cost of ownership is  
going out of sight because of the new OS or the CPU type and it  
really hasn't done much for Apple except to cause people to have  
doubts and when there are doubts it is the beginning of the end.

Also, not to put to fine of a point on changes the only real changes  
have started to occur somewhere around Y2K. Some people in IBM lost  
their way and started to make massive recompiles mandatory. I suspect  
that will kill IBM down the road. People buy IBM for stability and  
expandability. This screw the user is not going over well in IBM  
land. I suspect that (like on here) they have shills that spout the  
Apple line. IBM does the same, but for the most part the old timers  
know them and disregard their mutterings.

Ed