programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
John Gruber gloats that Windows XP does not fare well in a comparison against OS X:
But everything about Boot Camp is calibrated to position Windows-on-Mac as the next Classic-style ghetto -- a compatibility layer that you might need but that you wish you didn't.Even the Boot Camp logo:
reinforces this. It's a bastardized variant of Microsoft's Windows logo, sans color, and with the whitespace between the four panels forming a hidden "X", la the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo.
[Microsoft is] stuck with the fact that in a fair shoot-out, Mac OS X is better. It looks better, it's better designed, it's more exciting, more intriguing, more satisfying. Cf. this joke from an anonymous poster in the comments at Mini-Microsoft's weblog:
What's the difference between OS X and Vista?Microsoft employees are excited about OS X…
What's conspicuously missing from this comparison is any mention of the fact that Windows XP was originally released in October 2001.
In the intervening five years, Apple's OS X has seen five major releases. If you squint your eyes, tilt your head, and look at it from a distance, perhaps you could consider Service Pack 2 a point release. But any way you slice it, Windows XP is going on five years old now. That's ancient. It's also the longest time Microsoft has ever gone between major releases of Windows.
Consider the minimum system requirements for Windows XP:
The cost of a license to Windows XP is-- quite literally-- more expensive than purchasing a PC that meets these minimum specs today.
What Gruber doesn't realize is that relegating Windows XP to "Classic" status isn't an insult. It's simply acknowledging what every Windows user already knows: Windows XP is a legacy operating system.
And there's no shame in it.
Look at the age of UNIX, which OS X is based on. In the same way that OS X is a modern remodelling of its BSD and Mach kernel origins, Windows Vista will be a much-needed modern renovation of the XP core.
But in the meantime, as the guys at Engadget recently said:
At this point we don't really know what to expect anymore, and since our current XP-powered setup already does everything we need it to, we're getting pretty close to not caring if Vista is ever released at all.
I'm perfectly content to use Windows XP "classic", as long as Windows Vista is on the horizon for 2007.
And there are other benefits to Windows XP's advanced age, too.
Since XP's minimum system requirements are absurdly low by today's standards, you'll have no problem running Windows XP-- even multiple instances of Windows XP-- in a virtual machine on a modern development PC. My optimized, fully-patched Windows XP SP2 Virtual Machine image is down to 587 megabytes. That's a mere 139 megabytes as a self-extracting RAR file.
Most apps run fine in Windows XP with 128 megabytes or 160 megabytes of memory. For example, here's a screenshot of IE 7, Beta 3. It's running in an optimized Windows XP virtual machine with only 128 megabytes of memory:
That's with four tabs open to ESPN, eBay, Yahoo news, and MSN. Even with all that going on, I have more than 20 megabytes of free memory. And my commit charge total is well under the physical memory total. There's still room for more stuff!
Clearly, if all you need to do is test IE7 beta 3 in a virtual machine, a humble developer machine with 512 megs of memory will work fine.* Of course, you still need to be careful if you don't have a gigabyte or more of system memory. There are more detailed guidelines at the Virtual PC guy blog.
Here's the complete Task Manager process list for this VM, if you're curious.
I see a few services that could be disabled to free up even more memory.
* however, if you're working at a job where developers are expected to work on machines with less than 1 gigabyte of memory, it's definitely time to start looking for a new job.
Have you ever tried to run Windows XP on these so called minimum requirements? Gives one a new appreciation of pain.
Joseph Scott on July 28, 2006 5:53 AMFor comparison, here are the VMs with three different memory configurations. Each one was set up the same way: booted, launch IE7, navigate to four different sites in each tab. Task manager is visible so you can see the memory summary.
128mb
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/winxp-vm-ie7.png
160mb
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/winxp-vm-ie7-160mb.png
256mb
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/winxp-vm-ie7-256mb.png
I found out the hard way that you'll see a big variance if you load the tabs *simultaneously*. Evidently this puts a lot of pressure on memory. Let each tab load to completion, then open the next tab.
See my article on Task Manager for a summary of how to interpret the taskman Performance tab:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000393.html
The most relevant figure, as always, is the Commit Charge. If Commit Charge Total is regularly exceeding the Physical Memory Total, you're in trouble.
Jeff Atwood on July 28, 2006 6:27 AM"What's conspicuously missing from this comparison is any mention of the fact that Windows XP was originally released in October 2001"
Which is one of the major reasons why I switched to a Mac late last year. Why use an operating system that, when it finally sees a major upgrade in 2007 (we all hope), will still not be on par with Mac OS X as it stands today? Or as it stood a year ago. I personally keep Windows around because I make money developing .NET apps, but that's it. Microsoft's inability to ship its operating system, which is the company's bread and butter, is a sad indicator on the health of the company.
Jeff Perrin on July 28, 2006 7:50 AMwas there a point to this post? if there was, i missed it. sounds like defensive MacOS envy.
Some Dude on July 28, 2006 8:59 AMif you're working at a job where developers are expected to work on machines with less than 1 gigabyte of memory, it's definitely time to start looking for a new job.
I agree that people should not have such machines as their primary boxes, but I think developers could get a little insight into every once in a while running their software on configurations that are a little less cutting edge. It can be illuminating, for example, to see that your product takes 15 ... 20 ... 25 seconds to load on a 512KB machine running a couple of apps, unlike the 7 seconds it takes on your 2GB, mucho-MHz computer. For example.
mike on July 28, 2006 9:12 AMYou know, it seems all developers see is what mac can do and how it will so affect windows. It seems people have not really done the math so let me do it now and its very simple. Mac is not taking anything (not market share) away from windows. Windows doesnt make hardware, they make software. The companies going to loose (if even windows will run efficiently on mac machines) will be the Dells and hp's and the what nots. In fact windows will gain, people who buy macs with windows will be buying windows which is $$$ in MS pocket. MS will make more sales with mac's move in MS space. Secondly, if mac is so good, why the hell are they trying hard to plug windows into it. Mmmmmmmmmm beats me! Yeah, it does. They even had to borrow office from windows and now they want to put winodws into mac and still say mac is better. lol. Let me laugh at that. When business men work, they are not looking forward to flashy screens (like mac has placed itself) but rather a tool that gets the job done. We dont need two tools of the same task function to do the same job. Its like using sql server and mysql at the same time, mmm for what. So the main reason why mac is placing windows as it next marketing campign is because windows has something to offer the mac world that mac itself cannot offer.
quame on July 28, 2006 10:41 AM"# 233 MHz processor
# 64 MB of RAM (128 MB recommended)"
Well, depends on what you want to do. Surfing (which doesn't use muc memory and CPU) works fine.
Writing texts with Word, the minimum requirements seem to be 800Mhz and 512Mb RAM, everything below that makes Word on XP unusable. Shame that some years ago all laptop vendors sold XP machines with 128Mb RAM. Upgrading them to 512Mb makes them usable for a small amount of money.
bye
-stephan//cintoo
Was Windows Server 2003 not a major release?
Chris Nahr on July 28, 2006 12:56 PMServer 2003 isn't a desktop OS so it doesn't really count :) But yes it is a major release.
@Jeff Perrin: I laugh at people who hold OS X in such high regard that they immediately slag off Vista as an unworthy opponent as a desktop OS. Open your eyes buddy. Apple can't even get the basics right - one buttoned mouse (LOL), mouse acceleration setting is insane (useless unless you get an app like USB overdrive... just to use a mouse.. come on!), trash (stores things in one folder, renames files (thanks a lot), can't restore files to the place you deleted them from), dialogs with no OK/Cancel buttons (thanks for saving the change i didn't want to make!), i could go on...
Windows XP is a great OS. It runs on fumes in terms of todays hardware, and despite what Apple fan boys might think, it is a solid, stable OS that has lasted us very well for 5 years and probably will for at least another 2 years for a lot of people.
Meanwhile, Apples major revisions of OS X would amount to double the cost of Windows XP Professional. And people think Microsoft is greedy? Nice one.
carter on July 29, 2006 4:13 AMcarter,
Mouse performance is the OS X showstopper for me. Utterly unusable, even with the $#$#%# USB Overdrive. What a farce. I cannot use OS X as it currently stands, as much as I've wanted to. My Mac is gathering dust
Scott C on July 29, 2006 5:41 AMIt's a shame that the Vista team seems to have forgotten that, as well. Despite the fact that I *work* for the company, I still can't be made to drink that Kool-Aid. I haven't tried it yet, so maybe I'm wrong, but the sheer level of "fluff" that has been added to the presentation layer in an effort to modernize the OS strikes me as insane.
I suspect that I'll probably be running XP SP2 with all the fancy graphical effects turned off (and running GeOShell instead of Explorer) until Vista goes through at least one Service Pack cycle of its own. :(
ChrisE on July 29, 2006 6:02 AMWhat Microsoft gets is that its major operating system income stems from companies and common (inexperienced) users, who favor low transition costs and backward compatibility more than anything else. Animations, spiffy colors, and other “cool” features that might appeal to some “high-end” users, won’t grow its market share significantly. No sane business would invest in a new operating system and new hardware for those silly reasons.
Until Microsoft’s competitors truly understand that the most important goals of an operating system are to raise user productivity and lower the total cost of ownership, it won’t have much to fear.
What’s the difference between OS X and Vista?
Microsoft employees are excited about OS X…
What's conspicuously missing from this comparison is any mention of the fact that Windows XP was
originally released in October 2001.
Yeah, that may be because that comparison was between OS X and Vista?
Pius on July 29, 2006 12:02 PM"What's conspicuously missing from this comparison is any mention of the fact that Windows XP was originally released in October 2001"
What's wrong with comparing the latest Microsoft operating system* to the latest Apple operating system? Until Vista is actually released, it's as good as vaporware.
*Since the "Daring Fireball" post (and this one) is nominally about Boot Camp, something primarily for desktop usage, we can leave server operating systems such as Windows Server 2003 out.
Long-time reader, first-time poster on July 29, 2006 1:40 PMI nick-named XP "Walt Disney Windows", and always switch back to classic settings and theme on new installs. I guess Vista will be "Pixar Windows"...
Seems to me like there is more religion than anything else in these endless max/win discussions. I suspect that in the majority of cases, people don't have the choice - either because the company/customer dictates, or because required software only runs on one or the other.
To my mind, arguing over this just sidetracks us from the main point, which is that we are still miles away from anything that is really intuitive and user-friendly, and which doesn't oblige the user to 'think' like a computer.
benjol on July 31, 2006 4:16 AM"Pixar Windows"...
That's really funny. It's like "Steve Gates", or "Bill Jobs".
Question: Wasn't OS X released before XP? I kinda remember thinking that XP's default UI (Which I despise) was a rip-off of the "Lickable" Mac UI.
Dowdian on July 31, 2006 12:13 PMWindows... MAC OS X...
I think that linux's better... for any of the two platforms... and have a low cost Eye Candy!
Just had to comment. As far as I am concerned I am quite very productive doing Java development on XP Professional OS. It has not crashed on me, shown a BSOD and I have not shut down my machine in a month. All I do is Hibernate my development machine when I am done for the day. At idle after a month, I have seen XP only take up 250 MB of memory. With Eclipse, Tomcat and a database running along with a few explorer and browser windows, a Trillian and Google talk clients running, I use around 640 MB of memory and the machine is still brutally fast.
Mac OS X in my opinion is also a very nice OS but yes it is ahead in terms of fit and polish with respect to XP. But that is no problem because all I need to do on my machine is Java development, and JDKs are released a lot quicker on Windows platforms than they are on an OS X machine. I surf, listen to music, and do an occasional bit of gaming and thats it. XP Pro fits the bill perfectly.
Enter Vista...why anyone in their right mind would upgrade to that, I will not understand. The only thing I can see worth appealing is to hardcore gamers who are already looking forward to what eye candy in games DirectX 10 will bring. I am a gamer, but I am not THAT interested. I am of the opinion that Vista will be maybe worth upgrading to once it has at least a Service Pack under its belt. I have tested the Betas and I am ashamed to see such a large and resourceful company like Microsoft spew this kind of crap after 5 years of development work on it. That said, unless Vista makes its resource requirements just a little more than XP, I dont think it is worth buying at all...after all just because hardware is getting faster is no excuse to write crappy, buggy, useless code that does nothing other than draw fancy heavy UIs across the screen. I would rather spend my CPU and GPU cycles on much more productive things thank you very much.
Surya on August 1, 2006 3:59 AM"Secondly, if mac is so good, why the hell are they trying hard to plug windows into it. Mmmmmmmmmm beats me! Yeah, it does. They even had to borrow office from windows and now they want to put winodws into mac and still say mac is better. lol. Let me laugh at that. When business men work, they are not looking forward to flashy screens (like mac has placed itself) but rather a tool that gets the job done. We dont need two tools of the same task function to do the same job. Its like using sql server and mysql at the same time, mmm for what. So the main reason why mac is placing windows as it next marketing campign is because windows has something to offer the mac world that mac itself cannot offer."
- originally posted by quame
you are a silly man.. mac is trying to offer versatility. There are tons of people using windows only because their software is incompatible with a mac. Now that Mac is supporting win32, these people have nothing to lose. They aren't putting that in there because windows is better, they're putting that in there because now people will be able to use their stuff on an OS that they believe to be better than windows.
paul on August 1, 2006 11:31 AMJust to be clear:
John Gruber did not say that Windows XP is a 'classic'.
PowerPC versions of Mac OS X support a subsystem for running older Mac OS 9 and earlier applications. OS 9 was the last version of the old non-Unix Mac OS. The OS 9 subsystem is known as 'Classic'. It's somewhat akin to the WOW (Windows on Windows) support in NT for 16bit Windows apps.
The experience of running an app under Classic is not seamless -- hence Gruber's phrase "Classic-style ghetto."
Jonathan Dodds on August 2, 2006 9:14 AMquame wrote:
They even had to borrow office from windows and now they want to put winodws (sic) into mac and still say mac is better. lol. Let me laugh at that.
Word has been available for mac since 1985. It has been available for windows since 1989.
What were you laughing at again?
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