Subject: Unix, Win32 & Posix subsystems [was: TeX implementations?]
From: [email-masked] ("Mr. X")

29 Oct 1996 22:07:17 -0800
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> between making NT look like Unix by talking to the win32 API and 
making NT look like Unix by talking to the POSIX API.

On the surface, it sounds like Graham is asking a naieve question,
but at another level he's not.  He assumes that the NT executive can
be thought of as policy-neutral, that the "protected subsystems" are
peers to one another in some sense.  They might have been -- and might
yet be -- that would be cool, but they are not.  

My observation is that the Posix subsystem was simply a half-hearted
attempt; a show necessary in order to win certain contracts.  The OS/2
subsystem, never more than a contingency plan.

IMHO, Microsoft designers never really grasped the concepts of
network transparency and policy-neutrality.  Others have said they
understood them and rejected them on marketing grounds.  The mish-mosh
of display primitives and fundamentals such as container objects in
the MFC is merely an example.  The internals appear to be in very much
worse shape.

But anyone who agrees with Andrew Schulman about undocumented
interfaces between Microsoft operating systems and their applications 
will assume that there are undocumented interfaces between the NT
executive and the Win32 protected subsystem.  

What's going on with that?
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