Comment Articles

Longhorn's longer odds

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 02 Sep 2004 11:50 BST

And then there's the basic problem of metadata -- where does it come from? People aren't going to spend their lives carefully describing documents so that WinFS can find them blindingly fast. We can do that already -- Word can search on many different metadata fields within documents, and it's reasonably efficient -- but when was the last time you did anything for a file you created apart from try to think up a half-decent name? Anyone with a large MP3 collection will know how much hard work you need to do to make tags useful: the thought of your entire operating system depending on such attention to detail is not thrilling.

There is a way to make finding files very fast, and that's to come up with stonkingly good free text searching. By all means add as much metadata XML stardust as you like: developers will love you for it and over time it might come good. But while our PC experiences are so much worse than our Google experiences, the wrong questions are being answered. Is Google itself contemplating the problem? Well, what do you think?

So, Microsoft is asking you to make a bet. If you're going to develop for WinFS, you'll have to bet that the big gaping search-shaped hole in Windows won't be plugged by anyone else for a good two to three years. In fact, you'll have to bet on WinFS coming out at all: I wouldn't give you good odds. If you're going to develop for Avalon and Indigo, you'll have to bet that while they'll limp like a dog on crutches at first, the performance will eventually be better than .Net and the display API. And you'll have to bet that Longhorn without WinFS and with its other components available elsewhere is going to be a substantial product. Roll them dice.

Jim Allchin, Microsoft group vice president for platforms, has said that people are "super happy" about the Longhorn triage and "dancing everywhere", which certainly puts a new light on the Notting Hill Carnival. Let's hope that this exhilaration doesn't blind people to the need for a plan B: one with no lock-in, plenty of developments on the way, widespread industry support and a history of high performance, perhaps. Any suggestions?