I can't really comment about mentions on the I/O model or the early instability.
We should give credit to the early architectural decisions made by Cutler which allow for niceties like the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that came about recently.
I third the recommendation for "Show Stopper" as well. :-)
>We should give credit to the early architectural decisions made by Cutler which allow for niceties like the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that came about recently.
i think most - 99.999% - credit here goes to Linus :) Given the modern power of Linux the WSL would have happened anyway - independently of whether early NT architectural decisions help it or preclude it.
For the POSIX, Win32, and OS/2 subsystems that existed at the birth of NT, the kernel capability was all Cutler, and Linux was in no position to contribute.
I really enjoyed ShowStopper when I read the original release in 1994.
In particular, I really admire the people who worked on that project, because they had a lot of field-tested reasons for the things they were doing.
But the whole subsystems concept basically cleaved the logical domains in a way that was obviously, even at the time when I read it, not going to extend well in the future. While the POSIX and OS/2 stuff can be seen as a kind of hubristic base-covering (the one kernel to end all kernels), it should not have made the cut in a disciplined engineering organization.
We should give credit to the early architectural decisions made by Cutler which allow for niceties like the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that came about recently.
I third the recommendation for "Show Stopper" as well. :-)