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Re:OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out by snowwrestler on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @07:44PM (#17139530)
A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-)

I joke, but it's important to remember just how far behind Windows in basic operating system architecture Mac OS 9 was when Apple launched OS X. Apple absolutely had to replace Mac OS from the ground up. It had no choice.

Is macOS (the artist formerly known as OS X) in the same position today? I would argue no. Most of the "problems" with macOS are either UI complaints like window snapping, or ugly bugs--which are more likely the result of development workflow issues than fundamental shortcomings in the technology of the OS. When Microsoft made the big shift to address their security issues, it was mostly a sea change in how they developed Windows, not a ground-up rewrite of Windows.

Re:OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out by __sr__ on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @07:54PM (#17139601)
> A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-)

No, but it does need to be brought on par with the state of the art in UNIX world — things like process sandboxing, container support, process limits (like cgroups), a modern development environment (like .net is for Windows), better package management (App Store is a bad joke), cross platform development between for iOS and macOS, stability, performance enhancements etc. In fact, I am OK with the UI — it could do with some modernisation and new features, but for the most part, it is very usable.

And the tooling could definitely do with an upgrade. They are still using an ancient version of bash, for example. If they can’t use newer bash because of GPL, they could write their own shell, for example. The fact that something like Homebrew is the go to package manager tells the story of a major gap.

Re:OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out by _bxg1 on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @08:00PM (#17139636)
Maybe the needed changes could be made without a total rewrite - I'm a web developer, not a systems developer - but they can't be made without a major shift in attitude on Apple's part, and they do go deeper than the UX, as other people here have elaborated on