Programmer Humor

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submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

some legacy software checked if the OS name began with "Windows 9" to differentiate between 95 and future versions.

This is a myth. Windows doesn't even have an API to give you the marketing name of the OS. Internally, Windows 95 is version 4.0 and Windows 98 is 4.1. The API to get the version returns the major and minor version separately, so to check for Windows 95 you'd check if majorVersion = 4 and minorVersion = 0.

Edit: This is the return type from the API: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winnt/ns-winnt-osversioninfoexa

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Maybe it's a myth, but it sure sounds plausible. The software that checks the "Windows 9" substring doesn't even have to exist for this to be reason they chose to skip to version 10 — they just had to be concerned that it might exist.

Sure, maybe there's no C function that returns the string, but there's a ver command. It would be trivial to shell out to the command. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ver_(command)

This doesn't prove anything, but there are a TON of examples of code that checks for the substring. It's not hard to imagine that code written circa 2000 would not be future proof. https://sourcegraph.com/search?q=context:global+%22%5C%22windows+9%5C%22%22&patternType=keyword&sm=0

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

but there are a TON of examples of code that checks for the substring

oh no

There's code in the JDK that does that??

I really wish I didn't see that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yup!! Never look under the hood in software, you'll just be disappointed ☹️

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've been a software developer for 20 years and this comment is too real. Some days I'm amazed that any software even works at all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Having worked in both food service and software, I encourage you not to visit the kitchen of any restaurants you enjoy either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Please don't show me how the sausage is made