Leaky Abstractions
In the late 1990s, the Windows Shell and Internet Explorer teams introduced a lot of brilliant and intricate designs that allowed intricate extension of the shell and the browser to handle scenario…
Hasnain says:
Legacy code taken to a whole new level.
“First introduced in the Windows 98 Plus Pack and later included with Windows Me+ directly, Compressed Folders allows billions of Windows users to interact with ZIP files without downloading third-party software. Perhaps surprisingly, the feature was itself was acquired from two third-parties — Microsoft acquired the Explorer integration from Dave Plummer’s “side project”, while a company called InnerMedia claims credit for the “DynaZIP” engine underneath.
Unfortunately, the code hasn’t really been updated in a while. A long while. The timestamp in the module claims it was last updated on Valentine’s Day 1998”
Posted on 2021-06-03T03:29:34+0000