Comment 42484

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted June 27, 2010 at 12:11:32

I was talking about the quality of programming, not the market share. Though with Linux growing by 40-80% per year in personal computer market share (compared to windows, which is falling). Microsoft didn't hit it big because of good programming - they stole all their half-decent ideas from others like Macintosh, and wrote out all the decent parts of their system years ago (like the MS-DOS prompt) in favour of flashy graphics, like Vista, which really served no practical purpose other than to force people to buy new computers fast enough to run it. The only reason Windows still runs the market is because a few decades back Bill Gates signed the mother of all sweet deals and it's still nearly impossible to get a PC without windows on it. This kind of inertia does not last, however, and soon enough they'll go the way of AOL.

And as for the wheel, it is far from the most important invention. It was virtually absent in most of the wold until a few hundred years ago, especially the Americas. Contrary to popular scientific mythology, societies didn't lack the wheel because they "hadn't invented it" (as wheels often existed in toys and whatnot even in societies which never used it for transport), it wasn't used because THEY HAD NO SUITABBLE ROADS (some did exist in Central America, with the Mayans for instance, but they were centrally planned by people with little local knowledge and so weren't very practical for most people), and on uneven terrain animals (dogs, horses, donkeys etc) or sleds were always much more effective. I'm bringing this up because it really hits at the core of the issue - an invention only exists as a part of a larger technological and social system, without which it's just parts and blueprints.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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