21世紀(jì)平臺(tái)系統(tǒng)的倒行逆施——Windows篇

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

文章來(lái)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(shuō)一個(gè)不幸的事實(shí)就是平臺(tái)紛爭(zhēng)的光輝歲月已經(jīng)離我們遠(yuǎn)去。那時(shí)我們有無(wú)數(shù)的目標(biāo)，雖然他們各自也有自己的瑕疵——傳說(shuō)中功能強(qiáng)大但對(duì)用戶不友好的MS DOS，Apple聲名狼藉的低價(jià)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(chǎng)營(yíng)銷，BeOS豐富的可選軟件，Linux的高端硬件支持——今日計(jì)算機(jī)的世界顯得太過(guò)無(wú)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(tái)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中起著直觀重要的作用——搶先多任務(wù)處理，內(nèi)存保護(hù)和多用戶安全等特性——我們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)對(duì)他們習(xí)以為常。主流的操作系統(tǒng)沒(méi)有一個(gè)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(dāng)蘋果2005年決定轉(zhuǎn)而使用Intel處理器時(shí)事情真的出現(xiàn)了直轉(zhuǎn)而下。盡管一直都有非常客觀的測(cè)試數(shù)據(jù)存在，但是蘋果公司長(zhǎng)期散布的自己基于PowerPC的系統(tǒng)不僅能和x86機(jī)器在速度上媲美，而且會(huì)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(shí)候，斯蒂夫喬布斯會(huì)趾高氣昂的在演講臺(tái)上激動(dòng)的展示他那些精心選擇的Photoshop過(guò)濾器，來(lái)證明他所展示的硬件其實(shí)沒(méi)那么糟糕，而現(xiàn)在這些都已經(jīng)離我們遠(yuǎn)去。在長(zhǎng)時(shí)間改變思維之后，Macs現(xiàn)在也已經(jīng)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(diǎn)聳人聽(tīng)聞了，因此，這也讓傳統(tǒng)的平臺(tái)之戰(zhàn)喪失了些許激情。（譯者注：這里的意思大致是說(shuō)由于用戶所有的PC硬件千差萬(wàn)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(tái)的人）平臺(tái)之戰(zhàn)的勇士們并沒(méi)有走遠(yuǎn)——他們只是跑到了更綠的草地上對(duì)大眾智能手機(jī)的選擇喋喋不休。不可想象有人會(huì)想要買一個(gè)沒(méi)有搭載最新iPhone或Android操作系統(tǒng)的手機(jī)。

　　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(méi)能阻止微軟和蘋果點(diǎn)燃平臺(tái)之戰(zhàn)的戰(zhàn)火。蘋果最近終結(jié)了Mac和PC之間的口水仗，蘋果曾不惜一切代價(jià)的將PC描述為幼稚，不安全，平庸——雖然無(wú)害而且還蠻安全的——而同時(shí)出于一些高深莫測(cè)的原因?qū)�Mac刻畫(huà)成完全的白癡用機(jī)。自命不凡，傲慢，時(shí)尚的白癡。老實(shí)說(shuō)，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(gè)巨大的擁抱？這是一個(gè)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(shí)，微軟通過(guò)網(wǎng)站和Facebook頁(yè)面全力謳歌Windows PC的優(yōu)勢(shì)同時(shí)用真相和屁話的混合言論詆毀Mac OS X來(lái)進(jìn)行回?fù)簟?/p>

　　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(duì)幕后黑幕的憎惡，我們認(rèn)為是時(shí)候回到平臺(tái)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的基本重心去了。實(shí)際的情況是，兩邊陣營(yíng)都有相當(dāng)數(shù)量的問(wèn)題。當(dāng)果粉在的時(shí)候，我們會(huì)介紹那些讓PC世界無(wú)可避免糟糕的原因，而Mac是唯一理性的選擇。而明天，我們會(huì)告訴你Mac骨瘦如柴，價(jià)格高昂，如果你真的想做事的話Windows是你唯一實(shí)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(dāng)Windows NT于1993年面向市場(chǎng)的時(shí)候，它是第一個(gè)32位的Windows系列產(chǎn)品。因此，它沒(méi)有足夠的軟件來(lái)支撐；新操作系統(tǒng)大多會(huì)碰到這樣的問(wèn)題。為了解決這個(gè)突出的問(wèn)題，微軟將Windows NT弄得和應(yīng)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(qū)動(dòng)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(jī)或者使用雙重啟動(dòng)等其他類似方式的前提下Windows NT可以支持運(yùn)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(jìn)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(zhuǎn)向這個(gè)新平臺(tái)——這意味著他們需要更改的代碼能達(dá)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(duì)這一舉措的反響強(qiáng)烈褒貶不一。其中一些，如驅(qū)動(dòng)字符和反斜杠等則相當(dāng)兩個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的例子。我們可能會(huì)說(shuō)對(duì)磁盤的命名應(yīng)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(gè)方案最終都工作在人們可以接受的范圍之內(nèi)。

　　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(duì)不幸了。最近爆出的DLL的加載漏洞，追究其 原因還是因?yàn)檫@個(gè)20年前以前為16位Windows所作的決定。而DLL的加載在當(dāng)時(shí)來(lái)說(shuō)還是有一定的意義的（至少，它基本是無(wú)害的）。但是今天，它完全成了一個(gè)負(fù)擔(dān)。

　　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(jì)算機(jī)還只有1MB內(nèi)存和軟驅(qū)的年代，16位Windows的諸多限制還是有一定意義的，但是對(duì)今天的電腦來(lái)說(shuō)，則是徹徹底底的歷史遺留問(wèn)題了。舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，16位的Windows限制了文件名長(zhǎng)度——包括路徑和驅(qū)動(dòng)字符在內(nèi)——一共不能超過(guò)260個(gè)字符�，F(xiàn)代的Windows則沒(méi)有這樣的限制——當(dāng)然也有幾少數(shù)幾個(gè)還有限制。軟件層面上來(lái)說(shuō)完全由能力支持更長(zhǎng)的文件名，最多甚至可以到達(dá)32000個(gè)字符，對(duì)大部分地方來(lái)說(shuō)，這些長(zhǎng)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(chǎng)合都能工作。在Windows的命令行中你就不能使用長(zhǎng)名字。如果你嘗試把一個(gè)目錄更名為一個(gè)長(zhǎng)文件名的話，Windows資源管理器則會(huì)給你一個(gè)特殊的錯(cuò)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(gè)致命錯(cuò)誤嗎？不，應(yīng)該不是。當(dāng)程序想要產(chǎn)生這一類長(zhǎng)名字文件的時(shí)候會(huì)碰到很大的麻煩（即使是突發(fā)性情況也是）？在2010年這會(huì)有所改觀嗎？至少在現(xiàn)在的版本中還沒(méi)有。