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> Windows in the late 90s was an entire environment based on composable components, linked together via discoverable interfaces. It had a software composition story far superior to Unix pipes.

I’ve never heard anything about this (probably because it was before my time); could you elaborate?

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I think parent is talking about the COM interface.[1] powershell still has a legacy of object oriented manipulation as opposed to text/line based manipulation. I’m too much living in Unix world to give more insight as to how well it functioned though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model

Sounds like COM. Comparing a programming framework to pipes seems a bit over the top though. I don't know anyone who'd seriously advocate building a large application solely from small programs piping their output to other small programs.

I've already complained previously about the new Microsoft though, so I have sympathy with the underlying sentiment :)

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