[bitwize]

The essence of Unix is not in the name of Unix, nor in the code of Unix, said Master Foo.

And then Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked him in the face.

Point being that if by Unix you mean an OS running a Unix-inspired kernel, then yes, Unix won. But if by Unix you mean the design patterns and philosophical principles that have long inhered to Unix development, then Unix is, if not dead, then on its last legs and soon to be discredited.

The "Unix philosophy" has long favored small, easily composable tools each with a specific purpose, orthogonal APIs which were as small as possible, and textual transmission formats which are easy for humans to read and write. There were exceptions (X, Emacs), but these exceptions tended to support and play well with the Unix philosophy even if they didn't 100% espouse it.

By contrast we may propose a Windows philosophy which favors large, do-everything applications over small tools (because that's how people are accustomed to using PCs starting from the DOS days when only one program could be up at a time), heavyweight frameworks and oftentimes entire inner platforms (because in a world where time-to-market is paramount, developers shouldn't have to think very hard to begin cranking out apps for the new technology of the week), and binary file formats (because the damn thing has to run in 640k, a text parser won't fit).

Look at the platforms you mentioned. Mac OS X, iOS, and Android are all app-centric, not tool-centric. You can treat Mac OS X as a Unix box if you want, but it's hard to do so with the other two. Furthermore, when you write an app for these platforms you are not targeting the Unix kernel or libraries but an inner platform built on top of them. Which brings us to binary file formats -- like HTTP 2.0.

The Windows philosophy has won.

[lstroud]

Wow. I don't see that at all. You must not use any of the platforms you mentioned.

If you look under the hood on OSX, iOS, or Android, they are all composed of smaller single purpose components. If you are arguing that they do not use interprocess communication to join these component together, then you are correct. However, that is not the Unix philosophy. A great example is Outlook vs OSX/iOS Mail/Calendar/Contacts/Notes. On OSX and iOS, those applications try to do one thing well. On Windows, Outlook tries to do everything.

Beyond that, just about every embedded device and the vast majority of servers now run linux (or a unix variant). Just look at a list packages on those linux devices and you will understand that it clearly is built around combining small single purpose components.

Given that, it is hard to argue that the Windows philosophy has won. In fact, Windows seems to be struggling (as evidenced by slowing interest and reorg/rearch/rebrand thrashing in Redmond. Looking at the market, I'd argue that the Unix approach won quite some time ago.

Am I missing something?