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To me a huge loss from that time is that you could still completely understand what your computer was doing and what the software running on it was. Bloat has solidly killed that possibility, you could not even understand all the code on your phone these days if you wanted to, let alone your desktop machine.


"you could still completely understand what your computer was doing and what the software running on it was"

I can see a potential return to those days for people who want to be really sure that their systems are secure.


I recommend you keep a close eye on the work of the VPRI:

http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf


Nowadays a phone and a desktop computer are at about the same level of complexity in terms of code.


Sorry, got any sources to back up that claim? Smartphones are indeed complex but I highly doubt Windows phone has the same LOC as Windows 8 (despite them sharing the same core), same for iOS -> OSX


The download is certainly bigger for OSX Mavericks (5.3gb) vs iOS7 (750mb). OSX seems a lot more open in terms of understanding what's going on though.




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