A magazine about programmers, code, and society. Written by and for humans since 2018.
By Adrian Kosmaczewski, May 5th, 2025
Welcome to the 80th issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, about Windows. In this edition, we deplore the sad state of the Windows operating system; in the Library section, we review “The Old New Thing” by Raymond Chen; and in our Vidéothèque section, we learn about how the Longhorn project derailed through Dave Plummer.
Billions of people in this planet instinctively associate the concept of "operating system" to Microsoft Windows by antonomasia. Through perhaps resignation, corporate coercion, laziness, or just sheer ignorance, most cannot fathom a world in which laptops do not boot without a "Start" menu or do not randomly display a Blue Screen of Death every time they plug a new device.
Hard to believe as it is, it has been already almost 20 years since the days when Apple plastered the halls of its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) with huge posters proclaiming "Redmond, start your photocopiers" or "Mac OS X Leopard: Hasta la vista, Vista". The decade of the 2000s, coinciding with Steve Ballmer’s tenure as CEO, is widely perceived as a lost one for Microsoft, and one of the most visible signs of that decline was, without a doubt, the "Longhorn" saga.
Most technical books I have read during my career have had a positive effect in me, in the sense that they brought me enthusiasm and eagerness to learn more, and to understand better the platforms, programming languages, and technologies I wanted to discover. This month's Library entry is probably the biggest exception to that rule; because as soon as I read it, I decided to drop out from the Windows galaxy altogether, and to never look back.