TONT 33663 发现新设备:波音747

Once again, airplane manufacturers have been giving serious consideration to offering Internet access in the skies. Back in 1994, Boeing considered equipping each seat with a serial modem. Laptop users could hook up to the modem and dial out. (Dial-up was the primary means of connecting to the Internet back in those days.)

再一次,飞机制造商们认真考虑了在空中提供 Internet 连接的可能性。1994 年的时候,波音公司曾考虑给每个座位提供一台串口调制解调器,乘客可以把自己的笔记本连上去拨号(访问互联网)。(那时候拨号是主要的访问 Internet 的方式。)

We chuckled at the though of attaching the serial cable and getting a Plug-and-Play pop-up message:

听说这件事的时候,我们都笑了起来,设想着把调制解调器连上电脑时,右下角弹出的即插即用弹出消息:

New device detected: Boeing 747(发现新设备:波音747)

TONT 33673 为什么禁用桌面这件事是被允许的?

原文链接:https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051021-11/?p=33673

Some time ago, I mentioned the dangers of disabling the desktop window. But why is it even possible to disable the desktop anyway?

之前我曾讨论过禁用桌面窗体的危险性(译注:原文链接已失效)。不过,为什么禁用桌面这件事本身是允许的呢?

This is simply an artifact of the history of philosophy of Windows operating system design.

这不过是 Windows 操作系统设计哲学中的一个人为设计罢了。

Back in the old days, memory was tight, hard drives were luxuries, the most popular CPU for the IBM PC didn’t have memory protection, and software development was reserved for the rarefied elite who could afford to drop a few thousand dollars on an SDK. This had several consequences:

过去的时候,内存是紧缺物资,硬盘是只有有钱人才用得起的东西,IBM PC 最受欢迎的 CPU 没有内存保护机制,软件开发也只是面向那些能在 SDK 上砸下几千美元的高等精英人士的事情。以上这些现实情况造成了下述影响:

  • Tight memory means that anything optional had to be left behind.(内存紧缺意味着可做可不做的功能都要舍弃掉)
  • Software developers were trusted not to be stupid.(人们相信软件开发者不会做傻事)
  • Software developers were trusted not to be malicious.(人们相信软件开发者不会做坏事)
  • Software developers were trusted to do the right thing.(人们相信软件开发者会去做正确的事)

Certainly there could have been a check in all the places where windows can be disabled to reject attempts to disable the desktop window, but that would have made one window “more special” than others, undermining the “simplicity” of the window manager. Anything optional had to be left behind.

当然了,在所有禁用窗体的流程中做检查,然后拒绝所有尝试禁用桌面窗体的尝试也不是不可以,不过那样就让(桌面)这一个窗体显得比其它窗体『更加特别』,由此便削弱了窗体管理器的『简洁性』(就像刚刚所说的那样,)可做可不做的功能都要舍弃掉。

Software developers were trusted not to make the sort of stupid mistakes that led to the desktop being disabled, the heap being corrupted, or any of the other “don’t do that” types of mistakes lurking in the shadows Windows programming. If such a serious mistake were to creep in, certainly their testing department would have caught it before the program was released. Software development was hard because nobody said this was going to be easy.

软件开发者们被给予了信任,不会做出让桌面被禁用、让堆数据损坏、或者任何『不能这样做』这类潜伏在 Windows 编程中的失误行为。如果这类严重的疏忽不小心发生了,开发团队的测试部门理当在程序正式发布前将其检查出来。软件开发是件困难的事,毕竟从没有人说过这件事很容易

Software developers were trusted to treat their customers with respect. Because, after all, software developers who abuse their customers won’t have customers for very long. If a program put itself in the Startup group, then it was doing so not for selfish reasons but rather because the customer actually wanted it.

人们相信软件开发者会尊重他们的客户,毕竟说到底,折腾自己客户的软件开发商是活不长的。如果某个应用将自己放到启动群组里,那么它这么做就应当是由于客户的真实需求,而不是出于自私的目的。

The window manager was left fairly exposed, granting software developers the power to do things like install hooks, subclass windows that were owned by other processes, and manipulate the contents of the Startup group, with the assumption that software developers would use the power for good, not for evil. Don’t bother stopping a program from disabling the desktop window, because maybe that program is doing it for a good reason that we hadn’t thought of.

窗体管理器是开放的,给予了软件开发者们进行例如安装钩子、在其它进程的窗体中创建子类、修改启动群组的内容之类事情的权力,这也是出于对软件开发者的信任,相信他们会合理运用这些权力,而不是去做坏事。不要去管某个程序禁用了桌面窗体,毕竟可能开发者这么做,会有我们没想到的合理理由。

The world of software has changed much since those simpler days. I had a nice chat with my colleague Zeke where we discussed how philosophy has changed over the years. Maybe he’ll write a few words on the subject…

不过,软件开发早已不是早年那样简简单单的世界了。我和我的同事 Zeke 对这些年软件开发的哲学发生了哪些变化进行了一次愉快的交流,可能他会针对这个话题写几篇博文来谈谈吧。

TONT 33733 给产品团队起名时要当心

原文链接:https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051018-09/?p=33733

They thought they were so clever when they named the Desktop Applications Division. “And the abbreviation is ‘DAD’, isn’t that cute? Complements the Microsoft Office Manager toolbar (MOM).”

某个团队给自己起名叫『桌面应用小组』(Desktop Applications Division),感觉自己实在是太聪明了,顺便还说:『缩写是DAD(英文里的“父亲”),可爱吧?正好跟“Microsoft Office Manager” 工具栏(缩写MOM,英文里的“母亲”)凑一对。』

And then the troubles started.

然后他们的麻烦就来了。

Shortly after the new product group was formed, everybody in the product group started getting email talking about strange non-business things. How’s the garden doing? Did you get my letter? When will the twins be coming home from college?

产品团队成立还没多久,团队里的成员就开始收到讨论奇怪的、与业务无关的内容的邮件:花园整理得怎么样了?收到我的信了吗?双胞胎什么时候从学校回来?

The reason is that the email address for sending mail to the entire division was—naturally—”DAD”. But it so happens that many people have a nickname for their father in their address book, named—of course—”dad”. People thought they were sending email to their dad, when in fact it was going to DAD.

原因是给整个团队发邮件的地址——很“自然”地——是『DAD』,然而很多人给自己的父亲在地址簿里存的名字也正好是『DAD』。人们以为邮件是发给了自己的父亲,结果却发给了DAD这个团队。

The email address for sending mail to the entire division was quickly changed to something like “deskapps” or “dappdiv”.

后来给整个团队发邮件的地址很快改成了类似『deskapps』或者『dappdiv』这样的写法。

TONT 33753 有关日文版和韩文版 Windows 里路径分隔符的故事

原文链接:https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051014-20/?p=33753

Why is the path separator on Japanese Windows the ¥ character? And why is it the ₩ character on Korean Windows? I’ve been prodding Michael Kaplan to delve into the history of this quirk, and he finally gave in to my repeated badgering. (Additional discussion on the Korean Won sign, the Japanese Yen sign, and currency symbols in general.)

为什么日文版 Windows 中的路径分隔符是 ¥ 呢?而为什么韩文版 Windows 中的路径分隔符又是 ₩ 呢?我已经催促 Michael Kaplan 解释一下这个历史小奇观很久了,在我的不断烦扰下他终于把这则故事写了出来。(这里还有一些关于韩元符号、日元符号,以及货币符号的概括性的讨论。)

(译注:以上文内链接已全部失效,以下是文中的重点内容『he finally gave me to my repeated badgering』在 Web Archive 上的存档译文)

原文链接:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/09/17/469941.aspx

When is a backslash not a backslash?

在什么情况下,反斜线不是反斜线?

The character in question is U+005c, the REVERSE SOLIDUS, also known as the backslash or ‘\’. It is the path separator for Windows, which is encoded at 0x5c across all of the ANSI code pages.

问题中的字符是 U+005C,REVERSE SOLIDUS(反转的斜线),也以『反斜线』或『\』的形式为人所知,它是 Windows 的路径分隔符,在所有 ANSI 代码页中都被编码为 0x5C。

Since path separators are a pretty important requirement, the title of this post may seem a little scary — how could it not be a backslash, a reverse solidus?

鉴于路径分隔符是一项重点需求,这篇博文的标题似乎显得有些吓人——反斜线怎么会不是反斜线(反转的斜线)呢?

Well, on Japanese code page 932, 0x5c is the YEN SIGN, and on Korean code page 949, 0x5c is the WON SIGN.

那是因为,在日文代码页932里,0x5C是日元符号(¥),而在韩文代码页949里,0x5C是韩元符号(₩)。

Which is not to say that 0x5c does not act as a path separator — it still does. And which is also not to say that the Unicode code points for the Yen and the Won (U+00a5 and U+20a9) do act as path separators — because they do not.

不过这并不意味着0x5C(在显示为日元/韩元符号时)不能作为路径分隔符使用——它仍然有效。同样,这也不意味着 Unicode 中日元和韩元的代码点(code point)(U+00A5 和 U+20A9)可以作为路径分隔符使用——因为它们并不是路径分隔符。

Of course the natual round trip mapping between U+005c and 0x5c happens on all code pages, and both U+00a5 and U+20a9 have one-way ‘best fit’ mappings to 0x5c on their respective code pages. This requirement technically went away with Unicode, when the characters were encoded separately.

当然了,像这种在 U+005C和0x5C之间的循环映射在所有的代码页上都会发生,而 U+00A5(日元符号)和U+20A9(韩元符号)则在其对应的代码页上都有到0x5C的『最佳』映射。像这样的需求在技术上都随着 Unicode 的部署使用、使得每个字符都相互独立进行编码后一去不复返了。

However, the issue is not a simple one of there not being space in the old code page and lots of space in Unicode, where customers will instantly move away from the not backslash path separators.

不过,这件事并不是像旧的字符集里没地方、Unicode 字符集里地方多那样简单的事,如果是这样的话,客户们早就立刻从不是以反斜线作为路径分隔符的环境里离开了。

In practice, after many years of code page based systems in Japan and Korea using their respective currency symbols as the path separators, it is believed customers were simply used to this appearance. And there was therefore little interest in changing that appearance (when the system settings were Japanese or Korean) to anything but those symbols.

实际上,在日本和韩国用过多年基于代码页、以其相应的货币符号作为路径分隔符的系统之后,据信客户们早已经习惯于此了,因而也就对将路径分隔符的外观(当其系统设置为日语或韩语时)修改为除此之外的符号这件事不再有什么兴趣。

To support this expectation, Japanese and Korean fonts, whenever the default system locale is set to Japanese or Korean, respectively, will display the currency symbol rather than the backslash when U+005c is shown.

为了响应这种习惯,日语和韩语的字体在系统的默认语言设置为日语或韩语时,也会相应地在显示 U+005C 字符时显示其货币符号,而不是反斜线。

But whether or not this is really what customers want is still an open question. Andrew Tuck of PSS here at Microsoft noted:

不过这是否是客户的真实诉求,仍然有待讨论。微软 PSS 的 Andrew Tuck 提到:

When one of my customer’s from Korea was visiting here, I asked him if it bothered him that the backslash doesn’t appear as a backslash. It did bother him, and he believes it bothers most of his countrymen. However, he was fatalistic about it, “What can we do to change it. It’s been this way for a long time. We are used to it.”

有位韩国客户来访问的时候,我问他是不是对(路径里)反斜线不显示成反斜线这件事感觉烦恼。客户回答说是,并且表示大概他们国家的人都这么认为。不过,他对此已经听天由命了,他说;『反正也做不了来改变这件事了,都这样这么久了,早就习惯了。』

Hardly a glowing recommendation, is it?

这可不算是什么热情的提议,对吧?

And as Norman Diamond noted in his comments on this very blog (in this post), there are plenty of people in Japan who may not care for the convention, either.

同样,就像 Norman Diamond 在这篇文章(译注:请自行前往阅读)下的评论中提及的那样,在日本也有很多人并不在乎这种惯例。

Of course there is no ‘right’ answer here, and I would imagine that you would find plenty of people who would be unhappy with such a change, just as there are those who would be unhappy with the status quo. Which perhaps explains why the status quo seems to be as it is — those people who would like a change are resigned to the idea that it may never happen. And so they are now used to it….

当然了,关于这个问题,其实并没有什么『正确』答案,我也可以想象得到你能找出一大堆对这种修改不满的人,大约会跟对现状不满的人一样多。这大概也解释了为什么至今为止情况一直都能维持现状——抱怨要做出改变的人,大概已经勉为其难地接受了这件事大概永远不会发生这个事实,干脆就接受了。

TONT 33983 可我的 Visual Basic 是专业版!

原文链接:https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050930-10/?p=33983

Back in 1995, I was participating in a chat room on MSN on the subject of device driver development. One of the people in the chat room asked, “Can I write a device driver in Visual Basic?”

1995 年的某一天,我正在 MSN 的聊天室中参与关于设备驱动程序的开发。聊天室里有个人问道,『我能不能用 Visual Basic 来写设备驱动?』

I replied, “Windows 95 device drivers are typically written in low-level languages such as C or even assembly language.”

我回复他,『Windows 95 设备驱动通常是用底层语言来编写的,例如 C 语言,甚至是汇编。』

Undaunted, the person clarified: “But I have Visual Basic Professional.”

此人则毫无畏惧地澄清道:『可是我的 Visual Basic 是专业版。』