From: Shane Dempsey (sdempsey at domain tssg.wit.ie)
Date: Thu 23 Sep 1999 - 10:22:29 IST
OK I am not going to say that Microsoft are wonderful and can do no wrong
but before we
go complaining that a particular app has screwed up our registry then lets
ask what
the registry is , what its purpose is and why would Microsoft deliberately
try to screw up
a product by getting it to write frequently to this very important file.
Microsoft ( for the sake of speed and that strange insanity that afflicts
the inhabitants of
redmond , seattle ) decided that they should produce a binary repository for
storing details about the programs that you have installed on your machine.
This data could be stored would be stored in various structures which could
be accessed
when a program wanted to find out details about other apps that exist on
your machine.
This geniunely does enable a form of integration that happens to be most
desirable for the company which has the most number of desktop apps. They
can achieve greater levels of integration , potentially making their
software easier to use.
This is proved true ( to a small extent anyway ) by a suite like MSOffice.
Integrating Outlook with this is a good idea.
The real problem is that Microsoft have never been good at removing their
shite
from the registry if you decide to uninstall their stuff. Not only that but
they seem to have encouraged firms that are in partnership with them to
behave the same way.
I have no problem with apps that proliferate themselves in the windows
registry but
a huge problem with people who willfully don't write proper uninstallation
programs.
UNIX uses the /etc directory as a form of registry I suppose.
It also has dirs for different users that provide configuration and
integration information.
A good example of this is the way that gnome integrates into enlightenment.
Microsoft went their route because of speed and a desire to appear to take
an object oriented approach. It ain't perfect but it isn't a bad idea. The
execution is less than perfect.
Now integrating WM graphics into a kernel subsystem , that is stupidity.
...shane
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