Hi,
Thank you for your rapid and comprehensive response to my query and my (quite unjustified) alarm over the expiry of the beta test version of Scrivener 3. If I can make a suggestion, perhaps you could summarise your reply in the release comments, should you need to post another beta version? I’ll suggest:-
“A warning pops-up when starting the beta version, showing the expiry deadline for that beta version, but a fresh beta version will be available prior to the deadline, which you can update to using the Scrivener version update function. Note also that there is a data conversion from version 1 to version 3 that is irrevocable, so consider this if you decide to trial the beta version.”
My other comments are that I’ve found the beta version of release 3 robust; I’ve not noticed any bugs in the (fairly basic) use I’ve made of it. If anyone is eager to try version 3 for Windows, I can suggest you install the beta version. I’ve not experienced any problems in running version 1 and version 3 on the same PC (with one of my projects converted across to version 3). But note one thing; version 3 is 64-bit and installs in the ‘Program Files’ library, whereas version 1 is 32-bit installed normally in the ‘Program Files (x86)’ library, so be careful if you are using a 32-bit Windows PC still, as there might be a conflict in that situation!
I see that the current bug fixes are mostly about the compiling function, which I have not tested, so maybe trialling version 3 is not a good idea if you want to compile projects before the final version is ready.
Otherwise, version 3 is certainly an improvement, but not especially critical (I like the expanded search functionality, the ‘Writing History’ log and the general classier functionality and looks. But if you are holding back on getting Scrivener until version 3 is available, my advice is don’t. The upgrade from version 1 to 3 is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It won’t require much effort to transition to version 3, and version 1 is worthwhile using to get accustomed to the way Scrivener works. And there’s won’t be any extra charge. I am fairly new user of Scrivener, so this advice is aimed at similar non-expert users…
But congratulations to the developers because the new version seems (and runs) pretty good!
It is long overdue for Win to go 64 bit only. Hardware has been 64 bit for a number of years so running 32 bit OS on it is wasting potential. I don’t knowhow much extra work is involved in maintaining 32 bit and 64 bit versions of apps.
Yes there are possibly the odd 32 bit apps that haven’t been updated to 64 but if Apple can go 64 bit only MS should get moving on it. All the resources they use for 32 bit code and drivers could be used to clean up 64 bit Win.
That is not how it works. The vast majority of software for Windows is still 32 bit, for one. But more importantly, running 32 bit software does not require “32 bit code and drivers”. It requires the win32 subsystem which has been stable and not requiring any active maintenance for decades now.
MS will not “get moving on” anything. That would kill off Windows once and for all, for one. And second, it would free up exactly zero resources. Windows is not maintained in the way MacOS is.
32 bit drivers are required for hardware and that holds back development of newer technology, and yes does require additional resources. For instance newer tech such as 10g Ethernet only works with 64bit drivers from the last reports I saw.
This backward looking maintaining compatibility with obsolete tech is one of the reasons Windows is such a bloated mess. If most of the software is 32 bit that points to a failure on the part if developers (and MS) for not pushing the issue further. And yes it Does require further effort for software developers to maintain both 32bit and 64 bit versions.
You only need 32-bit drivers if you are running the 32-bit version of the OS, such as many of the lower-end cheap Windows tablets. And since those are low-cost and don’t implement the higher-end (higher-cost) system buses necessary to actually realize the speed of 10GB Ethernet and other fast I/O standards…there’s no point in writing a 32-bit driver for them. There’s literally no way a 32-bit system can take advantage of that.
However, WoW (Windows on Windows – the 32-bit layer which runs on top of the 64-bit Windows core) does still need upkeep. As the various Windows APIs change, they have to be implemented and extended inside WoW. As new optimizations are made to the underlying 64-bit core OS, the proper virtual wiring has to be put in place. There is a development cost, but it’s not as much as you might think, since much of that work has to happen for the 32-bit version of Windows as well. It’s no more of a development cost than you would see if there were a truly viable version of Windows for ARM, which is a completely different processor architecture (at least 32-bit and 64-bit can share a lot of the same codebase).
And maintaining that backwards compatibility with 32-bit apps is part of the Windows marketing advantage, as messy as it can be. That totally bitching planet/map creation program I bought back in 2002 will still run on modern Windows 10, even though the company is out of business. My employer doesn’t have to give up a couple of critical Office plug-ins that never got translated to 64-bit, so they can continue deploying the 32-bit Office binaries. Etc., etc., etc.,
I myself have not been able to afford a new Windows portable machine for a long time. I use my desktop, which is 64-bit, at home. But when I am mobile, taking the kids to doctor office visits and suchlike (I have a kid with medical needs, so I get a fair bit of writing done in these places), my one and only option for writing in Scrivener is a Toshiba NB-305 that my mother-in-law bought for me nine years ago.
It still works like a charm. It’s a little slow to bring up my work, but if I bring it up while I’m getting ready for the office and keep it charged until I leave, it’ll wake right up with the program already loaded and very happily give me about five hours (on battery - though I like to bring the cable just in case) of working time.
If Scrivener 3 came out for 64-bit only, I would not be able to use it with my netbook anymore!
My first novel is in the editing stage now, working with an actual editor and an independent publisher to get it ready. I am hoping that I might make just enough profit from it to perhaps buy a new portable Windows machine in the same size/weight/battery range as that old netbook. But until then!
By the way, those old Toshiba netbooks? Amazing machines. Durable. Tough. They go the distance.
You’re conflating two different things. Being able to run 32 bit binaries is one thing, keeping 32 bit Windows distributions around is another. They are not (significantly) connected. And even if Microsoft were to cease developing 32 bit Windows distributions, that will have no effect on the ability to run 32 bit applications.
What “issue” is there to “push further”?
And sure, Windows is a bloated mess due to lots of layers of backwards compatibility. Are you saying Microsoft should tell everyone “sorry, 80% of the software developed for Windows, including pretty much all legacy in-house and business software is now obsolete, and you will need to develop it again.”? That will go over well, I’m sure.
The amounts of legacy software for Windows is staggering. And the core reason for that is not 32 bit support, but Microsoft developing and abandoning frameworks all the time. The same frameworks that people in comments here recommended L&L to use because they are supposedly a better choice than the long lived and stable Qt. And now you call them “bloat”.
And here you add a third thing, which also bears no relation to the previous points. First of all, unless you need a lot of memory or heavy processing power, you can simply develop and distribute a 32 bit application. That is a feature, not a problem. 32 bit applications are smaller, take up less memory, and the only disadvantage is they need the 32 bit subsystem loaded and perform heavy calculations a little bit slower.
And if you need lots of memory and processing power, there generally is no reason to provide a 32 bit application. Thus most demanding games today are 64 bit only.
As someone who has lived through the development of 16, 32 and 64 bit Windows (including the abomination that was Win 1.0 ) and the resultant bloat of backward compatibility I stand by my original comments.
Apple has managed to cut off backward compatibility a number of times both in hardware and software. Their market share is less, however it just a matter of scale.
Every time there is a discussion of cutting off backwards compatibility there is a hysterical reaction and after the fact, everyone just gets on with it.
Of course there is another option that I have for one 32 bit Mac application I still use - I have Mojave on an external boot drive ready for the upgrade to Catalina.
I sold my first piece of software in 1984. I have worked professionally with development since before Windows existed. I know exactly where the bloat of backwards compatibility comes from, and it’s not from keeping 32 bit capability around.
That is blatantly incorrect, to the point of being ridiculous. The difference is not a matter of merely scale. There are almost no legacy business logic applications or control system applications what so ever written for the MacOS, of any version. There are some, but they are rare as hens teeth.
For Windows though, that has been the main market for decades. You buy a piece of medical software, it runs Windows with a specialized application on it. You buy a container crane, same thing. You buy an industrial machine, very often - but not always - the same thing. Pretty much anything which has a UI and a control system will contain Windows and legacy software on it.
And the same goes for business logic. Look at any company, and they will have business applications developed by consultants or in-house people, which are business critical. Often these are developed organically by in-house people with no formal education in software development or engineering, which means they make use of lots of the “bloat” which Windows contains.
Cutting Windows backwards compatibility would mean killing off the one thing that makes sure companies keep using Windows. You may not consider it a big deal if everyone abandons Windows, but Microsoft are not very keen on that scenario. And that is the smallest effect it will have. The cost for businesses to migrate business critical software is already enormous, with the huge effort Microsoft spends on backwards compatibility. Remove that and the economic impact will be truly staggering. And all for nothing, since the software works fine now, and the only reason to upgrade the underlying OS is to ensure cybersecurity and give Microsoft some money.
It’s not just a matter of scale. It’s also a matter of what kind of markets they’re in. There are entire verticals where you never see a Mac because of this very reason. In my 25+ years of IT support and architecture, the number of times I have seen Mac servers in a datacenter is almost less than than the number of times I have seen a real live unicorn – and the only reason I saw those Xservers was for one specific app that only existed on MacOS.
The only place I see Macs in businesses today are on the desks of creatives, executives, and the people who support them – not as a company-wide option, but only for specific categories of people who already get personalized support from IT staff. Everyone else gets Windows or (for devs) Linux, because those are much easier to remotely configure and support.
You don’t see ATMs running MacOS, or any of the back-end banking code – the platform is too unstable because of how quickly Apple will abandon hardware and software versions. Same for back-end insurance. Machine control and industrial – hell, I’ve seen Windows 95 boxes still shut up in a cupboard running mission-critical machine control software, with spares of the various motherboards and controller cards purchased carefully on eBay, because that was more cost-effective than trying to upgrade to something newer. You don’t see that with Macs.
Devinganger, there are a number of companies who use nothing but Mac as servers, with rooms full of them in fact an amber of hosting companies use them exclusively. In my 36+ years in IT (pissing contest) I have and continue to see hundreds of companies outside of creative that use Mac product every day.
I sold and installed a Mac network at one of the major sporting organisations here in Australia. Installation and configuration with an existing Win server was a doddle . I’fe Installed, configured and supported both Mac and Win installations and can tell you which one I prefer by a long way.
And before you suggest I’m a Mac fan who just fiddles with the odd Win install, I have just sold my business that provided worldwide 24/7 support to one of the world’s largest medical emergency call companies all Win based.We even had to get clearance for remote access log on to US military systems on more than one occasion.
Hell even IBM acknowledge Macs have a lower TCO and have installed in excess of 100,000 as of a year ago, don’t know what the figure is today. IBM and Cisco state that Macs are easier and cheaper to support than PC’s. That old one about difficult to support is a myth.
The reason why you don’t see Mac OS in ATM’s is a lowest cost and a market Apple have stayed away from.
Apple do not abandon hardware or software quickly, however when logic suggests, they are not afraid to move on. Floppy drive, CD-ROM, flash, old outdated RS232, parallel printer… eventually the world follows.
Which is exactly the point. There are pretty much zero such legacy systems using MacOS (I would say zero, but there may be one or two), which is why Apple can keep making major changes to their platform and break it, without large consequences.
Microsoft have specifically targeted exactly that market, and that is why they can not break their platform.
Actually they can break that, simply by announcing on x date we are moving to…
Win 95 is no longer supported but systems are out there running it. The same would be true if they abandon 32 bit. Some legacy systems would remain but the market at large would move on. I am aware of quite a number of PowerPC Mac systems still out there running Leopard.
Irrelevant. What is relevant is that Win95 software runs fine on Windows 10, which IS supported.
This is key. In-house, business critical software developed during the last 20 years, often with no current source code available, or with no understanding of requirements or how it was designed, is still running perfectly fine on the most modern OS. And this is what Windows is used for in businesses, large and small. I have spent most of my career developing customer specific applications, and of all the hundreds, if not thousands, of applications I have developed maybe half have been on industrial systems, half on Windows, and one (yes, exactly one) on a Mac. And that was back in the OS6 days.
Windows is used in a completely different manner than MacOS is used. That is why Microsoft neither will nor can remove their backwards compatibility. It would mean the death of Windows.
Ahm… excuse me for interrupting this oh so interesting sub-thread about different operating systems in different sectors of society, but…
In what way is this related to the question in the opening post?
Don’t you think you’re debate fits better in some other part of the forum? Although this kind of pissing context can sometimes be fun to read (“Ha! I began developing software in the 1890s, long before I was born, in a time when even buildings seldom had windows and macs were only used in thunder storms!”), don’t you think ’And now for that latte…’ is a better place?
Three old programmers were sitting around the break-room drinking coffee and comparing war stories.
The first programmer said, “I miss COBOL! It was modular, self-documenting, and a joy to learn with its near English syntax!”
The second, slightly older programmer, puffed on his pipe and said through tobacco-stained teeth, “BAH! Fortran was Da Bomb! It allowed for very precise mathematical formulae.”
The third programmer, the oldest of the three, said, “You children! I remember machine language, where you had to keep track of your registers yourself and program directly in a series of ones and zeros!”
Just then, a programmer just days away from retirement, walked into the break room, and said, “You had zeros?”
Good one, StarDog2! And I’m with lunk – let’s go back to the original pointless back-and-forth; it was like watching tennis with balls made of dung that the players thought were hand grenades.
