TONT 35213 为什么 CreateProcess 函数会做自动修正？

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050623-03/?p=35213

Programs that weren’t designed to handle long file names would make mistakes like taking the path to the executable and writing it into the registry, unaware that the path might contain a space that needs quoting. (Spaces—while technically legal—were extremely rare in SFN paths.) The CreateProcess function had to decide whether to “autocorrect” these invalid paths or to let those programs simply stop working.

在设计阶段没有考虑处理长文件名的应用程序，在实际运行时处理诸如获取可执行文件路径、并将其写入注册表时可能出现一些纰漏，因为其意识不到路径中可能包含空格，需要用（英文）引号包裹起来。（虽然在短文件名体系下的路径中包含空格是合法的，但这种情况极为罕见）。CreateProcess 函数不得不做出一些（额外的）努力，来判定是为这些无效路径做一些『自动修正』，还是放任其停止工作算了。

This is the battle between pragmatism and purity.

这是一场有关实用主义与纯粹主义的论战。

Purity says, “Let them suffer for their mistake. We’re not going to sully our beautiful architecture to accomodate such stupidity.” Of course, such an attitude comes with a cost: People aren’t going to use your “pure” system if it can’t run the programs that they require.

纯粹主义者说，『让那些程序去承担自己犯下的错误吧，我们不应该为了适应这种愚蠢的做法而玷污我们华丽的架构。』当然了，这种态度的代价就是：当人们无法运行所需的程序时，是不会去选用你那所谓『纯粹』的系统的。

Put another way, it doesn’t matter how great your 1.0 version is if you don’t survive long enough to make a 2.0.

换个角度来说，要是你活不到出2.0版本的时候的话，不管你的1.0版有多伟大都没什么意义。

Your choice is between “being pure and unpopular” or “being pragmatic and popular”. Look at all the wonderful technologies that died for lack of popularity despite technical superiority. Sony Betamax. Mattel Intellivision. (And, in the United States: The metric system.)

你需要在『纯粹但无人问津』和『活跃且广为接受』做出选择。回顾一下那些虽然技术上优越、但由于缺乏流行度最终悻悻而终的技术吧。Sony Betamax，Mattel Intellivison都是例子。（在美国，还有公制系统也一样。）

Electric cars are another example. As great as electric cars are, they never reached any significant market success. Only after conceding to popularity and “sullying” their “purity” by adding a gasoline hybrid engine did they finally gain acceptance.

电动汽车是另一个例子（译注：本文撰写时2005年）。虽然电动汽车这个概念很先进，但却从来没有取得任何商业上的成功，只有在面向大众时做出退让、通过增加油电混动引擎而『玷污』了其『纯粹性』之后，才最终被人们所接受。

I see this happening over and over again. A product team that, hypothetically, makes automated diagramming software, says, “I can’t believe we’re losing to Z. Sure, Z’s diagrams may be fast and snazzy, but ours gets <subtle detail> right, and when you go to <extreme case> their diagrams come out a little distorted, and they’re faster only because they don’t try to prevent X and Y from overlapping each other in <scenario Q>. We’re doing all those things; that’s why we’re slower, but that’s also why we’re better. Those people over at Z just don’t ‘get it’.”

我已经看到类似的事情发生了一次又一次：假设有某个研发了一款自动图表软件的产品团队声称：『简直难以置信我们会输给Z公司。是啊，Z的图表软件的确是快了一点、时髦了一点，但我们的产品在（某个细枝末节）上做了正确的事，而且在（某个极端条件下）时，Z公司的软件生成的图表会有点扭曲，何况他们的软件之所以快，是因为他们没有再（场景Q）下避免X和Y重叠。我们把这一切都考虑到了，所以我们的软件会慢了一点，但这也是我们的软件更优的原因。那些吹捧Z公司软件的人根本不懂“这些”。』

Guess what. People are voting with their wallets, and right now their wallets are saying that Z is better in spite of all those “horrible flaws”. Whatever part of “it” they don’t get, it’s certainly not the “make lots of people so happy that they send you money” part.

你猜怎么着，人们是用钱包来投票的，而当下他们的钱包正在呐喊『Z公司的软件更好』而无视了那些“可怕的缺点”。不管这些人不懂的“那些”是什么，肯定不是“让很多人用得开心所以送钱给你”这部分。