win32 dates back to 1993. OP doesn't know Windows history. Maintaining backwards compatibility was always a huge priority for Microsoft, even if it couldn't be perfect.
If a program didn't work on a newer version of Windows, there's a good chance it was doing something unsupported.
One major thing is the mandatory MS account. And it's (or more precisely its laxing / removal) not listed in the improvement list. Optional online account is fine and I might even use it. But mandatory online account is a big NO. This is disrespectful and an invasion of my privacy and control over my computer. I bought a PC / laptop and I want to use it the way I want, without any permission from some fucking server.
> The same trick can also be used for the other direction to save a division:
> NewValue = OldValue >> 3;
> This is basically the same as
> NewValue = OldValue / 8;
> RCT does this trick all the time, and even in its OpenRCT2 version, this syntax hasn’t been changed, since compilers won’t do this optimization for you.
The author loses a lot of credibility by suggesting the compiler won't replace multiplying or dividing by a factor of 2 with the equivalent bit shift. That's a trivial optimization that's always been done. I'm sure compilers were doing that in the 70s.
I wouldn't go that far, but yes, no compiler will leave that on the table today or even twenty years ago. They do even more impressive transformations than that on basic math.
The author is partly right here. If those values are ints, you'll get something like this:
sar eax, 0x1f
and eax, 7
add eax, edx
sar eax, 3
You get 4 instructions instead of one because value >> 3 rounds towards negative infinity and value / 8 rounds towards zero.
And while this wouldn't apply to C++, in languages with checked arithmetic, the left shift won't necessarily set the overflow flag, so the compiler often can't use it.
You're thinking of Lotus Notes, a completely different product.
IIRC, originally it echoed one glyph per character typed, but later it definitely echoed 1 to 3 glyphs at random so it wouldn't leak your password length.
The password thing was pretty cool, but it's literally the only good thing about Lotus Notes, which was the most archaic and primitive piece of commercial GUI software I've ever used in 45 years of software experience. I last used it in 2003, and even then its UI was so archaic, it didn't adhere to behaviors (like keybindings, and other basic UI elements) that had been standard since the 80s.
In the U.S., I feel like the primaries are the place to vote for and work for the best candidate possible. That's the time to be idealistic and pursue the perfect candidate.
At the general election, you need to be pragmatic, and decide who is the least worst and vote for that candidate, because the nominee will probably never be someone who is your ideal choice. But in a two-party system, a vote for a third candidate at that level ends up being an effective vote for candidate you _don't_ want. That's not politics, that's game theory.
There's a lot more subtlety to it in a parliamentary system, and I can see some advantages to it, but at least here in the States where it's First Past The Post with a Two-Party system (which is mathematically inevitable with FPTP), sometimes you need to place strategy or ideals.
There was a TV show called "The Mighty Isis" in the 70s. What were they thinking?! (Well, with Joanna Cameron around, I wouldn't be able to think too clearly either.)
If a program didn't work on a newer version of Windows, there's a good chance it was doing something unsupported.
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