I’ll say it once, I’ll say it forever: Windows has better backward compatibility, period. Even compared to linux. Rebuilding an old open source linux app to work on a modern distro can be done, but it’s a process that could take hours or days. And if you don’t have the source code you’re shit out of luck. Have fun getting that binary built against a 1 year old version of glibc to work. This, incidentally is what things like flatpak, docker and ubuntu’s nonsense competitor to both (of which our hatred is entirely rational no really stop laughing) are trying to solve.
Meanwhile microsoft office still handles leap years wrong because it might break backwards compatibility with old documents. Binaries built for windows xp will usually just work on windows 11. Packages built for ubuntu 22.0 often won’t run on ubuntu 23.0. You never notice this because linux are a culture of recompilers. Rebuilding every last package once a month is just how some distros roll. But that’s not backwards compatibility, that’s ongoing maintenance.
I think this is because Windows developers are bored to remove old code and as a result Windows 11 is an added layer on top of Windows 10, 8, 7 and even XP.
But is that desirable? I’d rather break things in favor of something better, and provide a way to make the old thing run, than be stuck with ancient baggage
Also, while that’s true for software, compatibility for old hardware is horrible under Windows
Rebuilding the app for the newer version is an objectively better solution, because it allows you to take advantage to new features. 64-bit migrations are a game changer for example. But its an ungodly amount of effort. Every single sodding package has a person responsible for building it for every distro that supports it. Its only because its on the distros to make a given program work on their distro that the system works at all. I agree that I’d rather it be rebuilt to fit into the new system. But that’s a lot of work. Never forget that.
I’ll say it once, I’ll say it forever: Windows has better backward compatibility, period. Even compared to linux. Rebuilding an old open source linux app to work on a modern distro can be done, but it’s a process that could take hours or days. And if you don’t have the source code you’re shit out of luck. Have fun getting that binary built against a 1 year old version of glibc to work. This, incidentally is what things like flatpak, docker and ubuntu’s nonsense competitor to both (of which our hatred is entirely rational no really stop laughing) are trying to solve.
Meanwhile microsoft office still handles leap years wrong because it might break backwards compatibility with old documents. Binaries built for windows xp will usually just work on windows 11. Packages built for ubuntu 22.0 often won’t run on ubuntu 23.0. You never notice this because linux are a culture of recompilers. Rebuilding every last package once a month is just how some distros roll. But that’s not backwards compatibility, that’s ongoing maintenance.
I think this is because Windows developers are bored to remove old code and as a result Windows 11 is an added layer on top of Windows 10, 8, 7 and even XP.
But is that desirable? I’d rather break things in favor of something better, and provide a way to make the old thing run, than be stuck with ancient baggage
Also, while that’s true for software, compatibility for old hardware is horrible under Windows
Rebuilding the app for the newer version is an objectively better solution, because it allows you to take advantage to new features. 64-bit migrations are a game changer for example. But its an ungodly amount of effort. Every single sodding package has a person responsible for building it for every distro that supports it. Its only because its on the distros to make a given program work on their distro that the system works at all. I agree that I’d rather it be rebuilt to fit into the new system. But that’s a lot of work. Never forget that.
Backwards compatibility, but at what cost?
The stifling of innovation. So that’s more of a feature to microsoft
The vast majority of software run on Windows these days runs in a web browser. The legacy shit in windows doesn’t impact most software engineers
Or its an electron app.
One good thing (probably the only good thing) about electron is it makes it easy to port an app to linux.
Something something something history repeating