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journal: mac
When Zealots Attack
"Microsoft sucks, Windows sucks, Win Zealots should go to hell, Apple rules, all hail Steve Jobs"
What’s more amusing than a Mac Zealot? A Windows Zealot trying to call a Mac Zealot a fanatic and trying to sound like an average user. And vice versa. The blog post over at wincustomize.com isn’t really as interesting as the comments that follow it. There are several Windows Zealots that seem to be following the same format:
“Apple sucks, Macs suck, Mac Zealots should go to hell, Microsoft rules, all hail Bill Gates”
Now this would be kind of shocking if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve seen it so many times in this format:
“Microsoft sucks, Windows sucks, Win Zealots should go to hell, Apple rules, all hail Steve Jobs”
But there is a very big problem. Mac Zealots seem to get pointed out a lot more than Windows Zealots. They both act the same so why don’t they both get treated the same? There are many times when a normal user may say “The other OS is good but...”, and say why they don’t like it as much as their preferred OS. After which a zealot comes and rip the poor soul to pieces.
For example, I personally think that Windows Vista will be good and I am considering buy a PC (or an Intel Mac) to play with it. Now I’m not abandoning the Mac, I’m just curious as to what’s been taking Microsoft so long. But while I think Vista will be good I don’t think that it’ll be quite as revolutionary as I first thought. Why? Well Avalon I’ve seen before, it’s called Quartz Extreme and from what I’ve seen and heard it doesn’t have anything to match CoreImage and CoreVideo. Fundamentals for the most part is just updating the security system and doing stuff like putting .Net 2.0 into Vista and improving WiFi and Bluetooth support. It’s basically a lot of core improvements. This is just catching up to what OSX has already for the most part.
Then you have the two areas where I genuinely believe MS currently (and I’m comparing Vista Beta 1 to Tiger here) has the edge over Apple. There is next to nothing like Indigo in OSX at the moment and the closest Apple can come to WinFS is CoreData & Spotlight. But we are of course forgetting something. And that something is the 15 or so months between now and Vista’s release. In that time I don’t expect a huge amount of changes to what Indigo and WinFS do. We’ve seen what Apple is up against. But Apple is also doing something in around 15 months. It’s releasing OSX 10.5, Leopard. So what’s going to change with this? Well if the rumours are true about iChat in the next Tiger upgrade then Leopard will ship with features like Indigo provides built in. And while CoreData and Spotlight in their current states don’t provide a huge competitor to WinFS they are a very good foundation and if Apple builds upon them then they will have a good competitor.
Now, that is my argument for Vista not being as revolutionary as people want to think. IMO it’s a very reasonable argument. But I get attacked for it by the Windows Zealots. Now I’m pretty sure if someone made the same arguments but in reverse (after all, it is as easy to say that Vista will outclass OSX as it is to say OSX will outclass Vista) then they would get attacked by the Mac Zealots too.
But why do we hardly ever hear about the Windows Zealots? Is it because there are so few compared to the normal windows users? Maybe they’re just better at hiding? Some of the people that used to be considered Windows Zealots, such as Thurrott and Dvorak, are actually warming up to Apple following recent moves such as Tiger, the Mac Mini and the Mighty Mouse. So is it that Windows Zealots are a dying breed? Are they all starting to see that Apple perhaps isn’t as dirty as they first thought and instead of just saying “Apple sucks” they are now saying “Apple isn’t as good as Microsoft, but it does do some cool things”? If this really is the case then it could be very bad, unless the Mac Zealots start dying out.
The fact remains that no matter what the platform zealots are bad, because they scare off more timid users. Though when zealots go up against each other, it ain’t half funny to watch.
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thinkback
Actually, CoreData and Spotlight are very related to WinFS. Unless WinFS doesn’t allow you to create database back ends for your applications or search your computer quickly and implement that search into your own applications. WinFS and CoreData & Spotlight are just prime examples of the different ways MS and Apple do things. MS likes to make one big thing that does everything, Apple likes to make lots of little things that work together. So instead of having one big database that hold everything (WinFS) you can have lots of little databases that can share data between. Both ways have their benefits and disadvantages.
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| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 10:05 am |
Speaking of windows zealots. . . Kuaidang. . . ::Crickets::
My thoughts exactly. That’s what goes through my mind every time I read one of his posts.
XvsXP is a good place to find zealots on either side of the coin. That’s one of the reasons I stopped going there.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| Arden | 11:11 am |
XvsXP is a good place to find zealots on either side of the coin. That’s one of the reasons I stopped going there.
And DT doesn’t?
| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| Liam | 12:44 pm |
Actually, CoreData and Spotlight are very related to WinFS. Unless WinFS doesn’t allow you to create database back ends for your applications or search your computer quickly and implement that search into your own applications. WinFS and CoreData & Spotlight are just prime examples of the different ways MS and Apple do things. MS likes to make one big thing that does everything, Apple likes to make lots of little things that work together. So instead of having one big database that hold everything (WinFS) you can have lots of little databases that can share data between. Both ways have their benefits and disadvantages.
That’s completely wrong. WinFS is a file syste (for lack of a better term) and datastore. You actually store the data from an application in it. When you try to open a file or item stored within it you query WinFS. (Note that a query is not the same as a “search"). Neither CoreData nor Spotlight store files or user data. Spotlight is a search service and CoreData is something to help Mac developer simplify the process of creating an app with a data store. CoreData is not a user data store either.
The confusion come into play because Microsoft spoke about WinFS and said it will enable new types of querying and searching, which it will. It does that by storing the user data in it’s data store in a way that is easier to search and identify. Spotlight is an application that helps facilitate search by indexing the contents of another data store (your file system). For all intensive purposes, something like Spotlight could be built on top of something like WinFS. In fact, that’s how the Windows Search service and any other app built on top of WinFS will work (except they won’t have to index WinfS).
WinFS is related to NTFS, Reiser4, ext2/3, HFS+, SQL Server, Oracledb, SQLite, JET, and other file systems or file stores not applications built on top of a file system.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?post id=106356
Have you seen that video yet?
So no, WinFS doesn’t help you create backend databases for your applications. It is a database. So in this instance, CoreData is a hammer and WinFS is a house. Hammers help you build houses.
Yes, it helps facilitate quick search on your machine but it’s because of the way data is stored not because it’s some application built for searching like Spotlight. BTW, the way WinFS stores data also improves interoperabilty, and facilitates new ways of using user data. Again, WinFS is a file system and Spotlight is not.
And no, WinFS is not just one big database that holds everything. It can be but as you can see from the WinFS Beta 1 (available on bittorent if you really want it) you can create lots of separate data stores and most likely applications will do that to increase speed and reliabilty. All the data stores can easily interoperate with each other because of the way data is store in schemas.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | ||
| 1:28 pm |
I will say this about zealots. It seems to me that Windows zealots spend a helluva lot more time trolling Mac forums than the other way around. But this is probably due to the larger numbers of users out there.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 1:34 pm |
WinFS is related to NTFS, Reiser4, ext2/3, HFS+, SQL Server, Oracledb, SQLite, JET, and other file systems or file stores not applications built on top of a file system.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?post id=106356
Have you seen that video yet?
Yes I have seen that video. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t WinFS require NTFS. WinFS isn’t a file system, it’s something that sits on top of a file system. And yes you can store data in a CoreData database. For example, iTunes could be re-written so that all the song data is in a CoreData database, or Address Book etc.
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| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 2:48 pm |
Kuaidang, when was the last time you said something--anything--positive about Apple or the Mac?
| Nick | Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 2:48 pm |
Kuaidang, when was the last time you said something--anything--positive about Apple or the Mac?
I’m not saying CoreData or Spotlight are bad, I’m saying that they aren’t related to WinFS. It’s kinda like saying a car isn’t related to a watch. Just because I’m saying the watch (Spotlight or CoreData) isn’t a car doesn’t mean I’m saying the watch isn’t a Rolex. It may or may not be a Rolex but it definitely isn’t a car.
I’m not sure where you got that saying those things aren’t related to WinFS was some kind of quality judgement.
Yes I have seen that video. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t WinFS require NTFS.
In Vista and XP, it does but it could just as easily ride on top of UDF or anything else that handles streams. Just like SQL Server you could, theoretically in the case of WinFS, put it on a raw drive and use it to handle all data management.
WinFS isn’t a file system, it’s something that sits on top of a file system.
No, it’s a file system and data store that works with another file system. In a way it’s an extension to NTFS like ext3 is in Linux.
Here’s a post from Sam Drunker detailing WinFS and saying why it is a file system. Also if you look up the definition of a file system WinFS fits perfectly.
In fact,
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?Post ID=20305#20305
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system
Notice there are file systems listed that sit on top of other file systems or are extensions of other file systems.
WinFS is a file system.
And yes you can store data in a CoreData database. For example, iTunes could be re-written so that all the song data is in a CoreData database, or Address Book etc.
It wouldn’t make any difference in those apps because it’s not really a “CoreData Database”, it’s an XML database (flat-file) or SQLite database that Coredata help you create but the database itself is not CoreData.
http://blogs.msdn.com/jmazner/archive/2005/ 03/08/389718.aspx#391241
In the 2003 incarnation, if I recall correctly, WinFS wasn’t a file system in the sense that you could right click a drive, choose Format, and pick WinFS instead of NTFS. But it was a file system in the sense that there was a part of the disk that WinFS owned, and if you weren’t using WinFS’s file redirector as the access mechanism to those sectors/bits, it would be hard to make any sense of the data stored there.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | ||
| 3:29 pm |
Yes, of course but it is still a file system. It can use NTFS for storage of file streams and you can store them directly in WinFS. NTFS can not read anything in WinFS just like HFS+ can not read anything in NTFS. When HFS+ looks at the NTFS portion of a drive all it sees is a blob of bits. That’s what NTFS sees when it looks at WinFS.
WinFS uses NTFS for some file streams because of backward compatibilty and for the simple fact that NTFS is really good at it. NTFS has encryption, compression, security, stabilty, and great file stream handling, so there is no reason to rebuild WinFS to handle that stuff instead of NTFS.
WinFS and NTFS work together with WinFS on top. That means when you go to open a file WinFS picks up the request and figures out if it needs to get the data from NTFS or the WinFS store. That’s what they mean by “on top”.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | ||
| 3:43 pm |
Yes, of course but it is still a file system. It can use HFS+ for storage of file streams and you can store them directly in the Spotlight metadata system. HFS+ can not read anything in the Spotlight metadata system just like NTFS can not read anything in HFS+. When NTFS looks at the HFS+ portion of a drive all it sees is a blob of bits. That’s what HFS+ sees when it looks at the Spotlight metadata system.
The Spotlight metadata system uses HFS+ for some file streams because of backward compatibilty and for the simple fact that HFS+ is really good at it. HFS+ has encryption, compression, security, stabilty, and great file stream handling, so there is no reason to rebuild the Spotlight metadata system to handle that stuff instead of HFS+.Â
The Spotlight metadata system and HFS+ work together with the Spotlight metadata system on top. That means when you go to open a file the Spotlight metadata system picks up the request and figures out if it needs to get the data from HFS+ or the the Spotlight metadata system store. That’s what they mean by “on top�.
Spotlight doesn’t store file streams at all. It doesn’t even store alternate metadata streams for files, it copys the metadata from a file to the spotlight database (which is just a flat file database in HFS+).
It’s currently impossible to write to a file or application data store using Spotlight. The data (metadata) movement is one way just like Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop search and similar products.
When an app asks the system to open or save a file it can not save the file to the spotlight database nor can it save the metadata to the Spotlight database. In fact, Spotlight doesn’t handle the open or write requests at all.
So…
No, of course it is not a file system. It must use HFS+ for storage of file streams and metadata and you cannot store them directly in the Spotlight metadata system. HFS+ can read anything in the Spotlight metadata system because it’s just a file in HFS+.
The Spotlight metadata system uses HFS+ for file streams and metadata because of the simple fact that Spotlight can’t store file metadata just a copy of the file metadata.
Not related.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | ||
| 5:44 pm |
Yes, of course but it is still a file system.
Except for the fact that it’s not.
“WinFS is not a file system, but a file storage subsystem that will run ontop of the NTFS file system, indexing the content of the drive.” -Wikipedia
“WinFS: The storage subsystem
“WinFS addresses the problem of having too much data and no way of finding what you want. Applications like WMP9 and iTunes provide ways of finding and organizing files according to their metadata. What WinFS will do is to make these capabilities global. Rather than one having to use a number of specialized applications — one for music, one for videos, one for photos, etc. — WinFS will place the metadata into the filesystem, and so allow these finding and management tasks on a global basis. In this way they’ll be accessible from any application, and extensible by any application.“It was initially planned (as far as I can tell) that WinFS won’t store files as such; it will store serialized .NET objects. There will be a filesystem-like API compatible with NTFS, but it will be somewhat illusory; there only for backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, to achieve compatibility with traditional file-based applications, WinFS currently keeps items in NTFS files; I would hope that the issues can be resolved so that WinFS no longer does this. At present, WinFS only applies to items residing in Documents and Settings — the rest of the disk being traditional NTFS, though one can create additional WinFS stores on an NTFS volume. For items within the WinFS Storage System there will be a number of APIs; the de rigeur managed API will probably be the most widely used, but also noteworthy is a T-SQL interface. WinFS will provide — partially, at least — a database-like filesystem.” -Foghorn Longhorn on Ars Technica
To conclude, WinFS, despite all its crowning achievements as the savior of modern computing, is not a file system in of itself, but a subsystem that operates with NTFS.
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| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| Arden | 6:27 pm |
Wikipedia is wrong and the video on channel9 clearly shows that.
The Arstechnica article isn’t completely wrong but as Sam Drunker said and the channel9 demo showed, you can in fact store files in WinFS.
Sam is one of the programmers working on WinFS BTW.
WinFS Is a File System
For traditional file-based data, such as text documents, audio tracks, and video clips, WinFS is the new Windows file system. Typically, you will store the main data of a file, the file stream, as a file on an NTFS volume. However, whenever you call an API that changes or adds items with NTFS file stream parts, WinFS extracts the metadata from the stream and adds the metadata to the WinFS store. This metadata describes information about the stream, such as its path, plus any information that WinFS can extract from the stream. Depending on file contents, this metadata can be the author (of a document), the genre (of an audio file), keywords (from a PDF file), and more. WinFS synchronizes the NTFS-resident file stream and the WinFS-resident metadata. New Longhorn applications can also choose to store their file streams directly in WinFS. File streams can be accessed using the existing Win32 file system API or the new WinFS API.WinFS Isn’t Just a File System
A file system manages files and folders. While WinFS does manage files and folders, it also manages all types of nonfile-based data, such as personal contacts, event calendars, tasks, and e-mail messages. WinFS data can be structured, semistructured, or unstructured. Structured data includes a schema that additionally defines what the data is for and how you should use it. Because WinFS is, in part, a relational system, it enforces data integrity with respect to semantics, transactions, and constraints.WinFS isn’t just a relational system, either. It supports both hierarchical storage and relational storage. It supports returning data as structured types and as objects—types plus behavior. You might consider WinFS a hierarchical, relational, object-oriented data storage system—although it actually contains certain aspects of each of those traditional storage systems. WinFS extends beyond the traditional file system and relational database system. It is the store for all types of data on the newest Windows platform.
WinFS and NTFS
You can store a file either in the traditional NTFS file system or in the new WinFS data store just like you can store things in FAT32 or on CD-ROMs or in NTFS today. Normally, a file stored in NTFS is not visible in WinFS. Longhorn applications using the new WinFS APIs can access data stored either in WinFS or in NTFS. In addition, Longhorn applications can continue to use the Win32 API to access data stored in the NTFS file system.File Promotion
Files are either in WinFS or not. Any item that has a file stream part can participate in promotion/demotion, which we more generally call metadata handling. When WinFS promotes a file, it extracts the metadata from the known NTFS file content and adds the metadata to the WinFS data store. The actual data stream of the file remains in the NTFS file system. You can then query WinFS regarding the metadata as if the file natively resides within WinFS. WinFS also detects changes in the NTFS file and updates the metadata within the WinFS data store as necessary.File Import and Export
You can also import a file to WinFS from NTFS and export a file from WinFS to NTFS. Importing and exporting a file moves both the file content and the metadata. After importing or exporting, the new file is completely independent of the original file.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.a sp?url=/library/en-us/dnintlong/html/longhornch0 4.asp
From the horses mouth.
http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/DAT209R _Mehrotra.ppt#384,9,What is WinFS?
If that link doesn’t work then try this one and go to slide 9.
http://216.55.183.63/pdc2005/slides/DAT209R _Mehrotra.ppt
So in conclusion, WinFS is a file system.
The End.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | ||
| 6:51 pm |
I always thought it was something on top of NTFS, or so the debates on XvsXP lead me to believe.
Like it really matters in the end…
| Nick | Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 8:56 pm |
It’s currently impossible to write to a file or application data store using Spotlight
I think that’s what CoreData is for. Don’t quote me though.
| Nick | Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 8:58 pm |
I think that’s what CoreData is for. Don’t quote me though.
I meant using Spotlight as the data store.
You can’t use Coredata as the data store either.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | ||
| 9:00 pm |
“I’m not saying CoreData or Spotlight are bad, I’m saying that they aren’t related to WinFS. It’s kinda like saying a car isn’t related to a watch. Just because I’m saying the watch (Spotlight or CoreData) isn’t a car doesn’t mean I’m saying the watch isn’t a Rolex. It may or may not be a Rolex but it definitely isn’t a car.
I’m not sure where you got that saying those things aren’t related to WinFS was some kind of quality judgement.”
True. Oftentimes, it gets hard to distinguish the two though (e.g. on XvsXP)
| Nick | Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| 9:02 pm |
This thread is “hot”. Can’t we all just get along?
Zealots of any kind are at the extreme end, and for whatever reason, will not be as laid-back as other people. So? Whether you are the creator of the Mac or Windows OS’s or their biggest fan, you can still accept others who are different.
I find people who are interested in computers of all kinds fun to talk to as long as they have an open-mind.
| Sep. 17, 2005 | |
| moreApple | 10:24 pm |
I meant using Spotlight as the data store.
You can’t use Coredata as the data store either.
OK then, you tell me what there is to stop Apple making CoreData a data store in leopard? Remember, I said that CoreData & Spotlight are good foundations that can be built on.
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| Sep. 18, 2005 | |
| 12:18 am |
1.
No, they don’t act the same. Have you taken a look at those posts on Microsoftgadgets.com or WinInfo? Mac zealots are like a swarm of bees and usually completely irrational and hypocritical-- witness MacdailyNews writing an article about Microsoft copying from Apple then trying to say Apple didn’t copy Konfabulator in the same article…
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/co mments/6887/
Avalon and QE aren’t related. You’re thinking of the desktop compositing engine or DCE.
What have you seen and heard?
WOW!!! That must be the quickest most incomplete and utterly incorrect gloss over in the history of man. Superfetch, memory management, the new audio stack, safedocs and shadow copy, diagnostics, freeze dry, new sync tools, the new color system, transacted file system and system-wide databases etc. Those are things in the Fundamanetals branch.
No, not for the most part.
Indigo provides a lot of features but that isn’t even the biggest one or even a new feature. Windows XP shipped with Document Sharing in Windows Messenger if you care to remember.
No they won’t. Neither one of them is related to WinFS. What you’re saying is like saying “while my snow mobile doesn’t provide a huge competitor to your Hummer it is a very good foundation and if I work on it then I’ll have a competitor”.
Two fairly unrelated things that bear on the most superficial resemblence.