21世紀平臺系統(tǒng)的倒行逆施——Windows篇

Win7之家（ afsion.com.cn）：21世紀平臺系統(tǒng)的倒行逆施——Windows篇

文章來源：譯言

　　It is an unfortunate truth that the glory days of platform trolling are behind us. Where once we had an enormous variety of targets with their many foibles—the legendary user-friendliness and rich capabilities of MS DOS, Apple"s infamous low prices, Windows NT"s svelte size and minimal hardware demands, IBM"s memorable and effective OS/2 marketing campaigns, BeOS"s rich selection of software, Linux"s top-notch hardware support—the computing world of today is so much more boring.

　　斯蒂夫喬布什被忍者綁架了！

　　你有壞到想去救他嗎？

　　不得不說一個不幸的事實就是平臺紛爭的光輝歲月已經離我們遠去。那時我們有無數(shù)的目標，雖然他們各自也有自己的瑕疵——傳說中功能強大但對用戶不友好的MS DOS，Apple聲名狼藉的低價銷售，Windows NT苗條的身材和超低的硬件要求 ，IBM記憶中高效的OS/2市場營銷，BeOS豐富的可選軟件，Linux的高端硬件支持——今日計算機的世界顯得太過無趣。

　　Those features that were once so important to the platform wars—preemptive multitasking, protected memory, and multiuser security, to name a few—are now taken for granted. No mainstream operating system goes without.

　　那些特性曾在平臺戰(zhàn)爭中起著直觀重要的作用——搶先多任務處理，內存保護和多用戶安全等特性——我們現(xiàn)在已經對他們習以為常。主流的操作系統(tǒng)沒有一個缺少上述特性的。

　　Things really took a dive with Apple"s 2005 decision to make the switch to Intel processors. The company"s long history of claiming, in spite of all objective data, that its PowerPC-based systems were not just as fast as x86 machines but substantially OMG-faster came to an end. The glory days of Photoshop bake-offs, those exciting demonstrations where Steve Jobs would strut around on stage and run a specially chosen set of Photoshop filters to show that the hardware he was hawking wasn"t actually godawful, were at an end. After Thinking Different(ly) for so long, Macs were relegated to plain old PCs.

　　當蘋果2005年決定轉而使用Intel處理器時事情真的出現(xiàn)了直轉而下。盡管一直都有非�？陀^的測試數(shù)據(jù)存在，但是蘋果公司長期散布的自己基于PowerPC的系統(tǒng)不僅能和x86機器在速度上媲美，而且會快很多的言論最終走到了盡頭。那些退讓依靠Photoshop的光輝歲月——那時候，斯蒂夫喬布斯會趾高氣昂的在演講臺上激動的展示他那些精心選擇的Photoshop過濾器，來證明他所展示的硬件其實沒那么糟糕，而現(xiàn)在這些都已經離我們遠去。在長時間改變思維之后，Macs現(xiàn)在也已經委身下嫁給平庸的PC。

　　The combination of everyone getting operating systems that weren"t completely horrid and everyone using the same hardware has, therefore, taken a lot of the passion out of the traditional platform wars. Platform warriors have not gone away—they"ve just moved on to the greener pastures of bitching about other people"s smartphone choice: it"s just unthinkable that someone would even consider getting a phone that is and/or isn"t the latest iPhone/Android handset.

　　想讓所有人聯(lián)合在一起使用一種操作系統(tǒng)或許還不是那么恐怖，但是想讓大家都用同一種硬件就有點聳人聽聞了，因此，這也讓傳統(tǒng)的平臺之戰(zhàn)喪失了些許激情。（譯者注：這里的意思大致是說由于用戶所有的PC硬件千差萬別，想要用一種操作系統(tǒng)去統(tǒng)一起所有的硬件太難了，所以比較打擊想一統(tǒng)平臺的人）平臺之戰(zhàn)的勇士們并沒有走遠——他們只是跑到了更綠的草地上對大眾智能手機的選擇喋喋不休。不可想象有人會想要買一個沒有搭載最新iPhone或Android操作系統(tǒng)的手機。

　　This hasn"t stopped Microsoft or Apple from trying to stoke the fires of the platform wars. Apple"s recently ended Mac versus PC campaign went to lengths to paint PCs as buggy, insecure, and just plain dull—albeit harmless and likeable—while for some unfathomable reason choosing to portray Macs as, well, complete asshats. Smug, arrogant, hipster asshats. Honestly, did anyone like Mac? Didn"t you just want to slap him for being a jerk and give PC a great big hug? It was an interesting campaign choice.

　　但是這卻沒能阻止微軟和蘋果點燃平臺之戰(zhàn)的戰(zhàn)火。蘋果最近終結了Mac和PC之間的口水仗，蘋果曾不惜一切代價的將PC描述為幼稚，不安全，平庸——雖然無害而且還蠻安全的——而同時出于一些高深莫測的原因將Mac刻畫成完全的白癡用機。自命不凡，傲慢，時尚的白癡。老實說，有人喜歡Mac嗎？你難道不想給它一巴掌狠狠摔掉然后給PC一個巨大的擁抱？這是一個有趣的戰(zhàn)略選擇。

　　Microsoft, meanwhile, has fought back with websites and Facebook pages dedicated to extolling the virtues of Windows PCs and denigrating the Mac OS X opposition, with a healthy mix of truth and BS.

　　而與此同時，微軟通過網站和Facebook頁面全力謳歌Windows PC的優(yōu)勢同時用真相和屁話的混合言論詆毀Mac OS X來進行回擊。

　　So it"s against this backdrop that we felt it was time to get back to basics in the platform wars. The truth of the matter is, there"s plenty that sucks on both sides of the fence. For all you Ravens out there, we"re going to kick off with a guide to the things that continue to make the world of PCs irredeemably awful, leaving Macs as the only sensible choice. Tomorrow, we"ll tell you why Macs are wretched and overpriced, and Windows is the only realistic alternative if you want to get anything done.

　　出去對幕后黑幕的憎惡，我們認為是時候回到平臺戰(zhàn)爭的基本重心去了。實際的情況是，兩邊陣營都有相當數(shù)量的問題。當果粉在的時候，我們會介紹那些讓PC世界無可避免糟糕的原因，而Mac是唯一理性的選擇。而明天，我們會告訴你Mac骨瘦如柴，價格高昂，如果你真的想做事的話Windows是你唯一實際的選擇。

　　Backwards compatibility: a curse, not a blessing 向后兼容性：絕非上帝的祝福，而是詛咒。 When Windows NT hit the market in 1993, it was the first ever 32-bit Windows product. As a result, it didn"t have a whole lot of software available for it; new operating systems rarely do. To resolve this obvious problem, Microsoft made Windows NT compatible with the widely used 16-bit Windows, and 16-bit Windows" partner in crime, DOS.

　　當Windows NT于1993年面向市場的時候，它是第一個32位的Windows系列產品。因此，它沒有足夠的軟件來支撐；新操作系統(tǒng)大多會碰到這樣的問題。為了解決這個突出的問題，微軟將Windows NT弄得和應用廣泛的16位Windows，以及16位Windows的惡棍同伴 Dos兼容。

　　Of drive letters and DLLs 驅動字符和DLL This compatibility took two forms. Windows NT could directly run programs built for these other systems without having to install virtual machines or use dual booting or anything like that. More insidiously, Windows NT"s new, modern 32-bit API was heavily based on the 16-bit API of its spiritual predecessor. This was done so that developers would have an easy time porting existing 16-bit programs to the new platform—it meant that the number of code changes they had to make would be minimal.

　　這有兩種形式的兼容方式。在不安裝虛擬機或者使用雙重啟動等其他類似方式的前提下Windows NT可以支持運行為其他系統(tǒng)編譯的程序。而更為隱晦的是，Windows NT的新先進32位API極大的依賴于它前任的16位API。這樣做的好處是，16位程序能發(fā)者能更為輕松的轉向這個新平臺——這意味著他們需要更改的代碼能達到最小化。

　　The repercussions of this were many and varied. Some, like the use of drive letters and backslashes, are quite superficial. We might argue that a nicer scheme could be developed for naming disks, and we would probably prefer Windows to use the same forward slashes that URLs do, but both choices work acceptably enough.

　　針對這一舉措的反響強烈褒貶不一。其中一些，如驅動字符和反斜杠等則相當兩個簡單的例子。我們可能會說對磁盤的命名應該可以找到一種更好的方案，我們也可能希望Windows使用和URL中一樣的正向斜杠，但是這兩個方案最終都工作在人們可以接受的范圍之內。

　　Other decisions are more unfortunate. The recent DLL loading flaw exists precisely because today"s Windows follows design decisions made over 20 years ago for 16-bit Windows. The DLL loading behavior made some amount of sense back then (or at least, it was essentially harmless). It"s an absolute liability today.

　　而其他的一些決策則相對不幸了。最近爆出的DLL的加載漏洞，追究其 原因還是因為這個20年前以前為16位Windows所作的決定。而DLL的加載在當時來說還是有一定的意義的（至少，它基本是無害的）。但是今天，它完全成了一個負擔。

　　16-bit Windows had various limitations that made sense in the days of machines with 1MB RAM and floppy disks, but are thoroughly anachronistic on modern machines. For example, 16-bit Windows limited filenames—including the path and drive letter—to a total of 260 characters. Modern Windows doesn"t have that limitation—except in a few places where it does. Software is perfectly capable of creating longer names, up to a total of about 32,000 characters, and for the most part, these longer names will work fine, and are a supported, official capability of the system. Except they don"t work everywhere. The Windows command prompt can"t use them. Windows Explorer will give peculiar errors if an attempt is made to change into a directory with a long filename.

　　在計算機還只有1MB內存和軟驅的年代，16位Windows的諸多限制還是有一定意義的，但是對今天的電腦來說，則是徹徹底底的歷史遺留問題了。舉例來說，16位的Windows限制了文件名長度——包括路徑和驅動字符在內——一共不能超過260個字符�，F(xiàn)代的Windows則沒有這樣的限制——當然也有幾少數(shù)幾個還有限制。軟件層面上來說完全由能力支持更長的文件名，最多甚至可以到達32000個字符，對大部分地方來說，這些長名字工作正常，而且它還是官方公布的系統(tǒng)的固有功能。但是它卻不是所有場合都能工作。在Windows的命令行中你就不能使用長名字。如果你嘗試把一個目錄更名為一個長文件名的話，Windows資源管理器則會給你一個特殊的錯誤提示。

　　Derp derp derp

　　A fatal flaw? No, probably not. A huge inconvenience when programs create such long names (even if accidentally)? Definitely. Acceptable in the year 2010? Not in the least bit.

　　這是一個致命錯誤嗎？不，應該不是。當程序想要產生這一類長名字文件的時候會碰到很大的麻煩（即使是突發(fā)性情況也是）？在2010年這會有所改觀嗎？至少在現(xiàn)在的版本中還沒有。