Peter - My hat off to you

Spheris wrote on 4/20/2004, 12:58 PM
Two comments:

First :that is a truly beautiful piece of unicode. I'd like to ask if Forge will get similar treatment in a future revision. It's looking like things are finally getting upto speed. Hopefully the remainder of the line (acid) will get a similar build now that the learning curve is past the development team?

Second: I've watched the GUI argument and have a weigh in of my own on this. It was the right call. And a shame it escaped most people that the same properties are apparent in Forge 7. Just not as obvious because there is not the UI elements happening with it. But I have to ask now, if it will be extensible to something more suitable than a manifest link to the xml shell or it will remain tied to that and subject to future changes to the shell as the avalon and sp2 technologies come to bear?

Comments

DataMeister wrote on 4/21/2004, 4:03 AM
I must have missed the thread that inspired this one.

What are Avalon and SP2 technologies? And what learning curve has the development team gone through? Just point me to the right thread if necesary.

JBJones
Spheris wrote on 4/21/2004, 8:55 AM
morning JB

avalon is the new GUI shell that will be shipping with longhorn and possibly parts of it with an interim XP release.

service pack 2 is in its final finishing tests for release may/june timeframe. Several key next generation technologies will be bundled with it including some revision to the shell and how it interacts with the desktop in a secured manner - eg: will it be an issue for a themed vegas?

The learning curve - Forge 7. Some truly hideous design decisions made because of either brass at sony or a still being picked up command of unicode. The second round - eg: vegas. Near perfect in planning and execution and was wondering if similar revisions/thinking would extend backwards to future updates to forge.
pwppch wrote on 4/21/2004, 9:33 AM
FWIW: We have actually been UNICODE compatible since Vegas 1.0. It was a long and hard rule that "it MUST build UNICODE."

We just never shipped UNICODE versions because of Win9X. The Win9X compatability layer had problems, so we punted on that approach.

Peter
Spheris wrote on 4/21/2004, 10:44 AM
Completely understandable OS9's support was - to put nicely - a joke. Wasn't until the initial darwin builds that anyone could take it seriously, but can you give a heads up on the other parts, as far as avalon and sp2?
Nat wrote on 4/21/2004, 10:54 AM
Could you explain what unicode is ?
Spheris wrote on 4/21/2004, 12:29 PM
http://www.unicode.org/unicode/standard/WhatIsUnicode.html

http://www.unicode.org/standard/standard.html

As brief a primer as can be had.
pwppch wrote on 4/21/2004, 1:19 PM
Simple explination: 16 bits per char vs ASCII.

Peter
pwppch wrote on 4/21/2004, 1:20 PM
>can you give a heads up on the other parts, as far as avalon and sp2?
Nope, I am not really up on these things (there are those here that are) and some of the Longhorn stuff is very NDA'd currently.
Nat wrote on 4/21/2004, 4:09 PM
Thanks guys :) good preparation for my C classes this summer :)