Web services use the Unix way

Web services use a very different mindset than the typical Windows application. Windows applications are large, all-encompassing systems that contain everything they need.

Web services, in contrast, are small fractions of a system. A complete system can be composed of web services, but a web service is not a complete system.

We've seen this pattern before. Not in Windows, nor in PC-DOS or MS-DOS, but in Unix (and now Linux).

"The Art of Unix Programming" by E.S. Raymond covers the topic well. The author describes the philosophy of small, connectable programs. Each program does one thing well, and systems are built from these programs. Anyone who has worked with the Unix (or Linux) command line knows how to connect multiple programs into a larger system.

We don't need to discover the properties of good web services. We don't need to re-invent the techniques for desiging good web services. The properties and techniques already exist, in the command-line philosophy of Unix.

Steve Jobs, Dennis Ritchie, John McCarthy, and Daniel McCracken

We lost four significant people from the computing world this year.

Steve Jobs needed no introduction. Everyone new him as that slightly crazy guy from Apple, the one who would show off new products while always wearing a black mock-turtleneck shirt.

Dennis Ritchie was well-known by the geeks. Articles comparing him to Steve Jobs were wrong: Ritchie co-created Unix and C somewhat before Steve Jobs founded Apple. Many languages (C++, Java, C#) are descendants of C. Linux, Android, Apple iOS, and Apple OSX are descendants of Unix.

John McCarthy was know by the true geeks. He built a lot of AI, and created a language called LISP. Modern languages (Python, Ruby, Scala, and even C# and C++) are beginning to incorporate ideas from the LISP language.

Daniel McCracken is the unsung hero of the group. He is unknown even among true geeks. His work predates the others (except McCarthy), and had a greater influence on the industry than possibly all of them. McCracken wrote books on FORTRAN and COBOL, books that were understandable and comprehensive. He made it possible for the very early programmers to learn their craft -- not just the syntax but the craft of programming.

The next time you write a "for" loop with the control variable named "i", or see a "for" loop with the control variable named "i", you can thank Daniel McCracken. It was his work that set that convention and taught the first set of programmers.

What Microsoft's past can tell us about Windows 8

Microsoft Windows 8 changes a lot of assumptions about Windows. It especially affects developers. The familiar Windows API has been deprecated, and Microsoft now offers WinRT (the "Windows Runtime").

What will it be like? What will it offer?

I have a guess.

This is a guess. As such, I could be right or wrong. I have seen none of Microsoft's announcements or documentation for Windows 8, so I might be wrong at this very moment.

Microsoft is good at building better versions of competitors' products.

Let's look at Microsoft products and see how they compare to the competition.

MS-DOS was a bigger, better CP/M.

Windows was a better (although perhaps not bigger) version of IBM's OS/2 Presentation Manager.

Windows 3.1 included a better version of Novell's Netware.

Word was a bigger version of Wordstar and Wordperfect.

Excel was a bigger, better version of Lotus 1-2-3.

Visual Studio was a bigger, better version of Borland's TurboPascal IDE.

C# was a better version of Java.

Microsoft is not so much an innovator as it is an "improver", one who refines an idea.

It might just be that Windows 8 will be not an Innovative New Thing, but instead a Bigger Better Version of Some Existing Thing -- and not a bigger, better version of Windows 7, but a bigger, better version of someone else's operating system.

That operating system may just be Unix, or Linux, or NetBSD.

Microsoft can't simply take the code to Linux and "improve" it into WinRT; doing so would violate the Linux license.

But Microsoft has an agreement with Novell (yes, the same Novell that saw it's Netware product killed by Windows 3.1), and Novell has the copyright to Unix. That may give Microsoft a way to use Unix code.

It just may be that Microsoft's WinRT will be very Unix-like, with a kernel and a separate graphics layer, modules and drivers, and an efficient set of system calls. WinRT may be nothing more than a bigger, better version of Unix.

And that may be a good thing.