threading

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 11:22 PM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
> In all things technology related, there is an evolutionary path.  It
> goes something like this:
>
> * bleeding edge
> * avant-garde
> * what the kewl kids are using
> * modern
> * mainstream
> * traditional
> * corporate standard
> * legacy
> * extended support
> * prehistoric
>
> I figure Windows (at least on the desktop) is legacy at this point.  Or,
> in the case of XP (The Release That Wouldn't Die), extended support.  I
> acknowledge it exists, and is still commercially important, and even has
> certain advantages, in the same way that I acknowledge the continued
> existence of incandescent light bulbs, POTS, C++, and film photography.

And technologies can be, at the same time, at different points
depending on where you look. To many people, OS/2 is prehistoric; to
us, it's legacy. Incandescent light bulbs are legacy in a lot of
places, but corporate standard in theatres (the modern replacement is
LEDs, but their colors are distinctly different so you can't just pull
out an incan and stick in an LED). Same goes for plenty of other
technologies.

To a lot of people, Windows is mainstream, and Linux is "what the
non-cool kids are using", which doesn't exactly fit on your scale
anywhere :) So if your audience is that sort of person, then to you
Windows has to be considered mainstream or at least traditional, with
Linux being the modern option that you're trying to push people onto.
That's how I am with my MUD client. People use Windows, Mac OS, and
Linux (plus various mobile devices, which I don't support); I'd like
to push more people to Linux, but as a second-best, I can get them
onto the same client that I'm developing on Linux, which minimizes the
cross-platform development work. That's unlikely to change any time
soon, so Windows support has to be a part of what I do.

Doesn't mean I can't look with envy at projects that have dropped
Windows support altogether and saved themselves a mess of trouble...

ChrisA