It must have been in the early ’90s that I got briefed by Microsoft about their next-generation operating system, code-named “Cairo.” It was going to be a complete re-write. It had to be, because it was going to be “object-oriented.” Between what Microsoft told me (as the marketing guy for a “strategic partner”) and what my desire-fueled imagination assumed, I thought we were heading for an OS that at last got rid of files.

Just in case you’ve been using Windows so long that you’ve forgotten just how bad an idea files are, consider:

Things that should be treated as separate objects but are instead smushed within a single file:

Email messages

Attachments to email messages

A file in a zip file

Things that should be one object but are instead a mere set of files:

A web page with its associated graphics and CSS file

A word processing file and its backups and previous versions

Files rely on user-editable names and extensions to indicate how they are to be associated. Bad idea. They should instead be like the tracks and sectors on your hard disk: something you never have to think about.

So, whatever happened to Cairo?

Google to the rescue: In March of this year, Steve Ballmer announced Microsoft is returning to the Cairo idea.

(If in carpentry, the idea is to measure twice and cut once, in weblogging I guess it should be: Google twice and write once.)

Categories: Uncategorized dw