Why is the DOS path character "\"?

http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/06/24/432386.aspx

by vladimir • 17 years ago

58 7 17 years ago

$Preview of Why is the DOS path character "\"?$ blogs.msdn.com

wayne• 17 years ago

Microsoft does some crazy things for backwards compatibility. Here's one of my favorites related to the Display Control Panel: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/01/10/511201....

tdavis2• 17 years ago

What bugs me is that in the case you link to, they've added more crap in an effort to support drivers which weren't written properly in the first place. Windows would be a far better product if they hadn't decided to adapt to so much improperly-written software and oft-needless backwards compatibility.

I much prefer Apple's approach with the switch to UB: they put in an emulator for PPC apps which basically sucks, thereby creating motivation for switching apps to the new format while still technically supporting legacy software. Now, in the upcoming version of OSX, that emulator cruft is being removed (last I checked).

wheels• 17 years ago

Apple APIs are a huge pain in the ass to work with in the commercial world though since they're so volatile. With every 10.x release they seem to wipe out some huge subsystem and send everyone off to rewrite their code. As someone who used to maintain a set of cross-platform APIs built on top of Carbon, I learned to have quite a bit of respect for the cruft that sticks around in MFC.

jballanc• 17 years ago

An excellent case of backwards compatibility above all else, including common sense!

Why is the DOS path character "\"?

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