Eeeewwwww!!! DOS!!!
An About Visual Basic reader had some strong objections to the way I wrote about "DOS" in the recent article, The .NET Framework Tools - Introduction and ILDASM. He wrote:
Could we please get away from referring to the command line in Windows as DOS? The Microsoft Disk Operating System (MSDOS) was a 16 bit operating system used on early PC's that hosted a command shell. That command shell was migrated to be a set of 32 bit programs running under Windows almost from the start of 32 bit Windows (Windows 95). Maybe you never liked that command shell. Yes it was limited in some respects and appeared to be modeled on the DEC VMS shell.
However it has grown a lot since then with better scripting etc. But it has nothing except heritage now to do with DOS. Referring to it as DOS tends to perpetuate the urban legend that Windows is somehow still built on top of DOS. ... You can ... execute a VBScript, Win32 or .NET executable from the command line. Lets call a spade a spade and not confuse newcomers to Windows by continuing to imply that the valuable command line environment of Windows is somehow archaic.
He's right, of course, and I'm guilty of loose terminology. (In my own defense, I did note that "DOS" is actually "run the Command Prompt" program these days.)
I thought other readers might benefit from this additional insight. One thing I clearly did not intend to do was to imply that DOS ... uhhhh, excuse me ... "the Windows command line environment" ... was "archaic". I always liked DOS and I still do. In fact, I thought I was poking a little fun at programmers who might feel that way. In the most recent article in this series, I point out that writing the scripts and batch files that use the command line driven tools featured in this series is usually a task performed by specialized gurus.
Thanks for the correction!
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