Windows is OLD, time to support another OS?

[pj]

In November, Windows turns 40.

Maybe it's time to support another OS? Even your flip phone supports Android. Maybe x2 should, too?

That would extend x2 to smart phones (more of those than Windows PC now), Chromebooks, and other non-Apple connected devices.

More devices support Android/Linux world-wide than Windows, by a wide margin.

Isn't it time to expand into new markets?

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PJ in (selfishly desiring 20+ more years of x2 support, but realizing it goes away if Nikos goes broke) FL

[nikos]

too late for this dog to learn new tricks

[Tuxman]

In November, Windows turns 40.

I would venture to say that most people who care about file management are around that age – or even older. Ask one of these smartphone zombies what they think of the idea of a better file manager. I would bet the whole of Ireland that the answer will be: What is a file?

Maybe it's time to support another OS? Even your flip phone supports Android. Maybe x2 should, too?

No.

More devices support Android/Linux world-wide than Windows, by a wide margin.

Linux has a market share of approximately three percent in desktop systems. The hype generated by its fans on the Internet is disproportionate to its complete insignificance for all relevant applications.

[Kilmatead]

I would bet the whole of Ireland that the answer will be: What is a file?

Hands off, we've had our fill of losing historical colonial bets, thanks. That said, while my neighbour's car could probably launch a guided missile straight into the heart of the first woman who betrayed mine, as a general-purpose computing device, it's a complete failure, much like I hope that particular girl's life turned out. (Not that my scars bear grudges, or anything.)

Even your flip phone supports Android. Maybe x2 should, too?

That Android is the evil child of an even greater evil entity (who implicitly codified its own prerogative to be evil!) speaks for itself. I could make a joke about Apples not falling far from trees, but double-entendres are too expensive to waste, besides the sound of Chiang Kai-shek spinning in his grave is drowning me out.

Linux has a market share of approximately three percent in desktop systems.

If you factor FTP servering into that (if you have a really really big desk), the number goes up a bit... so Nikos could just chuck us all in the bin and aim to get himself some proper corporate clients. ("Or even just one," says he, steepling his fingers and laughing maniacally.)

Wine is... uh... improving?

[Tuxman]

If you factor FTP servering into that (if you have a really really big desk), the number goes up a bit...

Probably not, if you don't count mine (since my servers proudly [?] run on real operating systems instead of juvenile nonsense), but I strongly suspect that those who are unlucky enough to be responsible for FTP servers don't normally run desktop file managers there; or desktops at all.

Wine is... uh... improving?

If the main argument in favour of Linux these days is that it can now run Windows applications reasonably well, then I wonder even more whether three percent isn't still far too much. I could also ride a bicycle to the next town; you don't fall off them that often these days. But a bus seems to me to be the better choice.

[Kilmatead]

I could also ride a bicycle to the next town; you don't fall off them that often these days.

À propos de rien, I actually got on one of those infernal things for the first time in 25 years last week and as my head collided with the ground 30 seconds later I recalled the old adage about how "you never forget" something... but I seem to have forgotten it. Now, if I get hit by a bus soon, the odds say I should let you place that bet wanted to make, just so you can live comfortably in your declining years on the strength of my... foolhardy indiscretions.

Nikos isn't the only old dog around here.

[Tuxman]

So, no teaching new tricks (e.g. riding a bike) for you?

[Kilmatead]

Well, like any cosmically unbalanced executive presiding over the collapse of late-stage capitalism (or barbarian pretender aloft a decaying political throne), I'm surrounded by people whose only job is to completely insulate me from the real world, so the odds of anything "new" puncturing my little intellectual bubble of self-importance (and Scooby-Doo reruns) is very low. It's what all the kids aspire to these days. Solipsism: the true philosophy of aspirational inclusiveness.

Like I was just telling Nikos the other day, I've been programming in C since I was 12, and just a month ago for the first time in 45 years I actually found a legitimate purpose to use a 'union' (a language construct where two or more variables are mapped to the same finite memory address). Every programmer learns how to make these things (the books are full of 'em), but unless you're a firmware guy (or someone who likes to read things into parables), they're just exotic objects that are superfluous to the regular God-fearing journeyman.

Most likely it will be another 45 years before I find another use for one, so my dance-card might have reached its newness quota for yet another century.

Though I'm beginning to wonder if there could be such a thing as a bicycle-balancing apparatus for the more loftily-brained (yet soft-of-skull) parishioners amongst us... it could be called training wheels or something... it's a nascent idea... good feeling about it though... I'll get my people on it right away...

[Tuxman]

You might want to dig your BASIC skills up. Commodore is back and I wouldn't even be surprised much if it was the future - again.