Something that’s always made me wonder is the concept of an Operating System that can be run on many different architectures. The obvious example here is Linux. Of course, my limited experience with it is only on x86 architecture, so I never got to figuring out if something written for it on an x86 would also work on a PPC or Itanium, or ARM7, etc. - I’m guessing that the vast majority of it won’t.. not in binary form, anyway.

So I was reading up on C# at Wikipedia, and I got to thinking - is .NET and the attendant language, C# part of a grander plan from Microsoft?
What happens if/when MS get sick of pandering to Intel’s demands (or vice versa) and decide to pull the plug on x86 support? That’s an extraordinarily unlikely situation, I know, but let’s just imagine it happening after “Longhorn Next” is out. By then, the .NET framework and the C# language to go with it will probably be the In Thing to be programming stuff for Windows with. We already know that the Longhorn driver model requires drivers to be written for the .NET framework; just take a look at ATi’s [abysmal] Control Center for an example.

If MS decides to give x86 the boot in ten years, then they’ll break compatability with almost all programs around right now, but thanks to the .NET/C# platform, it looks like not everything will go down the gurgler, and the transition will be mostly painless - I can only think of one program I ever use from 1994, and I don’t miss it in Windows x64, so I suspect that I wouldn’t miss any programs I use regularly now if they went missing in 2014.