Apple now taking pre-orders for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

[TheAnimus]

Oh, and a further point about Vista - I note that Slashdot highlighted an article headed, "Vista Runs Out of Memory While Copying Files", which is kind of scary.

Indeed, if only MS just said no to all those developers, those very naughty little people at Kapersky (who from my understanding are actually to blame for the 'invoking' the bug) and stopped them writing software for their OS.

Come on bob, at least read the stories before you post slashdot.

[Bob Crabtree]

Indeed, if only MS just said no to all those developers, those very naughty little people at Kapersky (who from my understanding are actually to blame for the 'invoking' the bug) and stopped them writing software for their OS.

Come on bob, at least read the stories before you post slashdot.

TA,

With the very greatest of respect [translation: nah, nah, nah, nah, nah! ;-) ]), I think it is you who may not have read around the subject.

Go to that link that I included and scroll down through the comments.

All will be revealed.

Kaspersky is not to blame. All it has done is use a feature that is supposed to be an integral part of NTFS but which would appear to be broken in Vista.

Oh and if you do read through those comments, you'll notice that Microsoft has a hotfix for the problem - something it wouldn't have bothered creating if the fault lay solely with Kaspersky.

Currently, though, by my reading of what Microsoft says, the hotfix would appear to be a bit like Vista itself, ie work in progress.

[dangel]

Bug: Dumb File Copy



Reported by: Anonymous



Duration: 20 years



Supplier: Apple



Alias:



Product: Mac OS 9, X



Bug: Files are slowly copied (rewritten) even when there is no difference between the source and destination.



Class of Error: Failure to detect and skip time consuming operations that do nothing



Principle: Don't waste time performing operations that result in no change, when it is easy to detect that such useless operations are unnecessary.



Proposed Fix: Third party utilities have been around for years to do smart copying. This should be built in.



Discussion: Backup utilities mostly would not be needed if the file copy operation used by the GUI worked correctly.



Bug first observed: 1980's



Bug on list since: Jan 2005

http://www.asktog.com/Bughouse/bhOS-X.html



Until humans stop writing code and skynet takes over then no OS will be perfect. Of course, we'll all of been eradicated by then.. Bummer. Really, I've nothing against OSX (or Apple) but i've no need for it (personally) so I don't use it. However, I've used macs since the days of yore and can remember the fizzing bomb as well as the bsod I'm pretty sure Apple patch their software too - of course, with the luxury of a tied-down hardware platform and a far reduced set of third party apps to boot.

OT - i've just played around with a new ipod touch - neat interface, very sexy

Edited for accuracy:

Currently, though, by my reading of what <developer name here> says, the hotfix would appear to be a bit like <product name here> itself, ie work in progress.

[TheAnimus]

TA,

With the very greatest of respect [translation: nah, nah, nah, nah, nah! ;-) ]), I think it is you who may not have read around the subject.

Go to that link that I included and scroll down through the comments.

All will be revealed.

Kaspersky is not to blame. All it has done is use a feature that is supposed to be an integral part of NTFS but which would appear to be broken in Vista.

Oh and if you do read through those comments, you'll notice that Microsoft has a hotfix for the problem - something it wouldn't have bothered creating if the fault lay solely with Kaspersky.

Currently, though, by my reading of what Microsoft says, the hotfix would appear to be a bit like Vista itself, ie work in progress.

Actually i've come accross this one myself, for fixing some intresting issues with the large object heap in .Net (waaay of topic now) i've been playing with Vista as a service hosting platform, naughty i know.

Its one of these bugs that isn't a problem. Right now i'm just testing something thats a perfect example of this i'm leaking. My code is leaking, i know where, i know how much. This is a only going to be a problem after a few million have run, even then we're only talking ~50meg. I'm leaving it, moving on, because its not important. However, this leak could really be exasherbated by a plugin through my plugin module interface (as any good .Net developer knows, you can't unload types/assemblies, only appdomains) now, this effectivly means my leak can get multiplied up horrifically. If someone else came along tommorow, wrote one of these xml huristics thats used by my app, they could make it leak, rather than <1k a few hundread a time. This will become fragmented, and bloody difficult to compact (they are pinned).

Now, i'm happy to release it in that state, because no software is perfect, i'm hardly a bad programmer, i know whats going on, its just not a priority to fix compared to say making a wizzy looking report that will get me a bigger bonus.

This is exactly the same as that. Its bug, its not worth getting upset about (its not as if there aren't oodles that are!), that isn't a concern until someone starts invoking the problem in kernel mode. Yes its against specification, yes its wrong, but its not a trival bug that would of easly presented itself during testing. Its nothing to be embrassed about, as its not going to effect most users (knowing a former Kapersky dev, i expect them to hack around it too, some seriously smart guys there).

Its not as if you run BSD copy a few hundread thousand files, leave it running for a week have virus scanning going, and expect its memory footprint to be the same as before you started?

As i tried to explain to a java nut, even java can effectivly waste (leak?) memory by preventing compacting.

edit: I didn't try to say it wasn't a bug, its just a bit of a dull one, thats hardly worth lampooning MS for (instead consider the lack of vista premium freebees).

[charleski]

Bug: Dumb File Copy

Except that it doesn't happen. That 'bug report' is the product of a user who doesn't know the difference between mv and cp.

dangel, do you honestly believe everything you read on t'Intertubes?

[charleski]

There is no 'upgrade' option - where is the link to allow you to buy it cheap if you already have a mac (between 1st Oct and now)

Here

[dangel]

Except that it doesn't happen. That 'bug report' is the product of a user who doesn't know the difference between mv and cp.

dangel, do you honestly believe everything you read on t'Intertubes?

No, but it was an amusing read nonetheless - and as someone who gets very 'creative' bug reports shoved on my desk it's not far from the mark. But, in all honesty, it's really the side issue - I only meant to point out that all software is inherently bug-ridden. Of course, having now posted this on t'Intertubes you can't be sure i'm telling the truth - dammit!