>I believe that if MS were willing to completely break backward compatibility in the same way, they could come up with an OS/API combo that most anyone would consider "clean" or "elegant". However, they would need to include a VM to run "classic" Win32/Win64 apps, the same way that OS X can run Apple Classic apps (well, mostly, anyways). Then, if you still support the VM, how do you encourage developers to write for the new APIs?

>I'd be interested in getting this author's take on *n?x/*BSD APIs vs. Apple vs. Windows. The former have been around for a long time,

I wonder if windows 7 just might break classic win32 apps and require a VM?

You are right,I wonder what his take might be on Linux/Unix. If you think about it the structure of linux/unix has not changed in twenty or more years. Of course Linux/Unix was built with the idea of modules from the beginning and maybe that's helped.

The article commented on the .Net API being a mess. I have worked with other API's and it has been my experience that they all have issues of code style and flow not any different than that of .Net. But the comments made think about it more with .Net.



John