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pdf, ePub, and mobi.

As for the passing it around part, technically you may loan it to someone else if you do not retain any other copies, according to the oreilly site.

That was an interesting video.  The late sixties was an amazing time to be working in the tech industry ... Bell Labs, the other national labs, NASA, the tech universities, etc.  It was such a different environment (fostering technology development) compared to our "service economy" approach today.

The video also makes it apparent how dated the UNIX design is.  Many of the UNIX fundamentals (everything is a file stream, pipe all your data around between snippets of code, scripting everything together) made a lot of sense and solved a lot of problems in the environment of the late sixties -- when everything was text based and command driven, and all computer users were trained technical users.  Those concepts of computing don't fit well into modern computing -- GUIs, events, non-technical users, etc.  UNIX (and LINUX which followed the same model almost exactly) has tried to adapt by patching things on here and there, but that has produced a system that is still really suitable only to technical users that are largely working the same way they did three or four decades ago.  (I admit that I fall into that category at times.)  For the average user, it still ends up being clumsy and awkward.  Certainly Windows has its crusty corners too.

I guess a half century down the road it's time for someone to start with a clean sheet and build a modern OS.  Lots of people are throwing ideas around out there (like MSR).  We'll see if anyone is willing to really make the leap and build a product.  MS will probably just evolve Windows.  Linux (i.e. Linus) has little reason to start over.  Apple?  Who knows?  There aren't many little guys willing to compete with the big players anymore.  You invest a lot into a project and get sued or swallowed.

17 hours ago, Charles wrote

@ryanb: I'm not sure this is correct, actually, but I'll ask Herb...

C

You're right Charles.  I realize now that I was thinking about partial classes, not extension methods.  I retract my previous statement.  And I should have been more clear about all of this as things that MIGHT be coming in the standard at some point.  Never mind.  Nothing to see here.

Herb has mentioned several times that extension methods are coming soon in the standard.  One of his recent talks showed off an example of [currently Microsoft only] extension methods.  (I forgot exactly which one that was ... )

EDIT -- Never mind -- I was thinking of partial classes, not extension methods...

I'm not sure the portable class library actually applies in this case, but even so you still need an application to call that library.  All of the info I have seen leads me to believe that you can't create a desktop app with WinRT and that you never will.  There are a bunch of things in WinRT that only apply to a Metro environment.  At some point, we may see a desktop equivalent of WinRT that contains the relevant parts without the Metro stuff.  That would be nice.  It seems we are going to have to wait for Win9 to see what the plan is going to be for the future of the desktop.

One of these days Felix will probably uncover what is going on ...

If you want it to work like PDF, why don't you just use PDF?  That can do everything CHM can do, and is a whole lot less ugly.  CHM is pretty awful.  And you are a lot more likely to have viewer issues with your customers with CHM than with PDF.  If that isn't acceptable for some reason, HTML is probably the next choice.

What "interactivity beyond linking" are you looking for? (Other than searching.)

Oooo ... a minty LNG and a PMC ... very nice Larry!  Is that an RG550 in the back?

53 minutes ago, wastingtimewithforums wrote

Damn, I am sick of this word. Anyone else? Everytime I hear "apps" I want to strangle someone.

Yup.  Me too.

@figuerres:  Good post.

I think MS has created a fair amount of PR damage through the rather careless use of the term "legacy" in reference to desktop applications.  Though it may not be the "cool new thing", using the term legacy brings lots of bad connotations and an expectation of impending deprication.  Other than maybe Sinofsky, I don't think that is really the intent.  This is just like the "Win8 apps will be programmed in HTML" fiasco that preceeded Build.  A few misplaced comments cause a stir, and then complete radio-silence from MS allows fears to fester.  MS may not want to share plans (or may not even know them yet), but it wouldn't take much for a vague hint at a product roadmap.  If you don't have the confidence of your developers, they aren't going to provide the software that is critical to the success of the new platform.

No doubt there are a lot of things that will be changed along the way.  I wouldn't be too surprised to see a lot of changes even for Win8RC.  They certainly are hearing a lot of feedback, whether they are publicly responding or not.

It will be interesting to see what comes next for the desktop.  The obvious thing would be to see WinRT extended to desktop applications, but it's not clear if that really makes sense.  The Metro/contract/sandboxing parts of WinRT wouldn't apply.  Efficiency in the runtime would be nice, but the main issue is creating a modern windowing API for the desktop (that works with native code as well as managed).  That might be a very different animal from WinRT.  All we can do is wait and see.

How is that domain squatting?  They set up a very appropriate domain name that they will actually use.  It's not like anybody else was using it.  Even if MS wanted to create their own show, it wouldn't collide with that domain.