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Jef Raskin On OS X: "It's UNIX, It's backwards."
drfalken writes "Interesting piece here about OS X from Jef Raskin's point-of-view (he was one of the wizards behind the original Mac GUI). He thinks that even the concept of an OS is a hold over from an older era, and that work should be done to get the user closer to the app. I dunno if I agree. "
Get with it! You think Aqua (which, IMHO, is rather pretty) is a bad UI? Wait until you start using Windows! ESPECIALLY anything using the NT kernel. I'd rather use CL only Linux over that monstrosity.
One other thing, have you ever used Aqua? I haven't myself, but if you're passing judgement based on what some other shmuck says, who, BTW, makes a living on b*tching and little else (you respect this guy?), you need to get a life. And a copy of Aqua, so you can actually try the system.
I have no tag line
There's another raskin interview here at Computerworld from last week. Briefly, Raskin gives an overview of what's wrong with current GUIs -- Linux, Mac, Windows -- and how zooming interfaces will just bring the components of what's needed to the fore. If you think about it, 20 years is a long time to have had only small improvements in the GUI ...
He is not saying get rid of the OS, just it should be transparent. Yes it provides services and does it's job, but at this time it still gets in the way. People don't sit down at a computer to access devices and multi-task, that should not be a concern of theirs. It should happen but not visibly. People sit down at computers to process orders, or to communicate with someone, or to write that nasty fax to a problem supplier. They don't sit down at the computer to try to find the right button (where was it, the start menu, the system tray or the taskbar? I just saw it). They don't sit down to deal with wrong dll versions or incompatible hardware. The process of maintaining a computer should not enter the equation. Right now these are facts of life and not easily curable, but I think he is trying to say that this is the important stuff that needs to be focused on. (I know this is microsoft based, but it happens with most os's in one form or another)I think he is just saying that OS manufacturers instead of continually pushing "new integrated features" should focus on making themselves as invisible to the user as possible.
What he is describing, in essence, are machines that the computer has tried to replace. You could sit at a typewriter and start punching keys, and words would start to appear. Put paint on a brush, and you can start painting. The essence of the computer is that is complex enough to adapt to a variety of task. In fact, often task are combined (desktop publishing).
The reason the machines he has pointed out work, is that they have been limited to certain functions, and while those are being exploited to their fullest (I keep finding new functions for my Palm everyday), the fact remains that they are simple in design. I think you could make a machine with the OS somewhat transparent, but the user would be limited, and hacking would be started to re implement the functions that have been made transparent. Look at the many hacks developed for the Palm to implment control of the file system, or settings, etc.
Just my opinion.....
Who is the master of foxhounds, and who says the hunt has begun? -Pink Floyd
No, the idiots are the one's that he's aiming for.
This guy is talking about computers in a similar way to what the following statements talk about their subjects.
Imagine if you get in your car, push a button, and it drives to your destination without you even having to tell it where you want to go.
Imagine walking into your kitchen, turning on the light, and the kitchen automatically makes whatever meal you are in the mood for, without you even having to chose what you were wanting.
Imagine walking into your shop, pushing a button and your shop creates whatever you were just thinking about without you having to even lift a finger to accomplish it.
Imagine wanting to read a book, pushing a button, and someone else reads the book and gives you a two minute synopsis of it so you can avoid the work involved in reading it yourself.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see the point of making computers into push button "you will do what the computer wants" type of machines where humans become slaves to the machine. Drool, push button, drool, is it done yet? Especially funny is the idea that this guy says he would be doing this to "bring the person closer to the app" as if this is some benificial thing.
Imagine waking up, pushing a button and your entire day is lived out for you as you stuff your face and fall back to sleep to avoid doing anything at all!
Sorry, but this whole idea of simplifying things to the point of absurdity is just plain stupid. Sure, single use devices could be OK for some things, but it will not remove the need for more complicated devices that others (like me) would need for more complicated tasks. Programming and listening to MP3s each may be "simple" (well, maybe not the programming), but together would present too much difficulty for a single use device. This just seems stupid to move computers back to the single-thing-at-a-time type of scenarios. It frustrated me to no end when I had to run one program at a time. I would hate to see computers go that route again.
Single use devices are just that. They won't replace the PC. Perhaps for single-use people they will be great. But for normal computer using people, they will not replace a standard PC with an operating system. It just won't happen.
The OS may change, but the day it does my work for me, to the point where all I need to do is sit down and push one button, is the day I remove all computers from my house. It just wouldn't be worthwhile to me.
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You fail to comprehend the magnitude of this new paradigm in computing.
The servers you speak of are actually "slightlly thicker clients" connected to "almost fat clients" connected to "so close to servers that you can't really tell the difference clients" connected to Bill G's personal desktop. Think Amway and you're almost there.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
"One of the reasons the Mac has such a well-loved interface (how many PC interface zealots do you know?)"
The reason you dont often see PC (by PC I presume you mean Windows) interface zealots is that the interface isnt this great thing we (I dare to speak for other Windows users) hold up high as our reason for living (Im speaking from experience of knowing several Mac fanatics). The interface is just their and it allows us to get work done. I find the interface enhancements in each new version of Windows useful but it isnt the sort of thing I sit and wonder over.
I think its because Windows users see it as simply an OS not the greatest invention of the last century as many deluded Mac users seem to suggest of MacOS.
Jon
With all due respect, Jef Raskin is completely out of the current loop, and looking foreword to utopian ideals. With that said, Steve Jobs himself spoke at the last keynote (regarding iTools, etc...) directly about shifting away from the operating system to manage files, etc... and letting the programs do the work in a manner which is convenient. Anyone whose cracked open the OSX Beta Developer tools (free download, and well worth exploring for newbies) will see this successfully at work with programs like project builder. From a programming/UNIX newbie, it's very well designed- an interface to rapidly design applications.
From an an old-school graphics/video editor/ general mack-jack, much proops to Raskin, though he's definatly not using the tools for any 'practical' uses today, especially in the consumer realm, and is out of the Apple/GUI concept loop. As usual, apple is sufficently handling several process concepts simultaneously.
Isn't Xinu that Scientology guy who was the Emperor of the 90 Worlds?
I think your ideas about computing are inflexibly integrated with the concepts computers are currently based around: operating systems, processes, tasks, GUIs/CLIs, etc.
The purpose of a computer, fundamentally, is to do work, or to provide entertainment, or do whatever it is you want it to do. In an ideal situation, no OS would be needed because the OS serves no purpose but to start and manage applications. From the user's (not the engineer's) perspective it does no real work. You don't write documents with MacOS, you don't play games with Windows, you don't surf the Internet with Linux; you do all of these with applications.
I think the man's ideas are interesting and provocative. Let's not worry about how computers could work without operating systems--perhaps there is no better way. But maybe there is. Maybe we're too constricted by our current metaphors.
I'm not convinced that the operating system concept will prove to be ultimately the best way to manage a computer system. We can provide consistency and manage applications without all of the baggage that comes with an OS. For all I care file systems, icons, installation procedures, taskbars, and applications can just go away and never come back. All these things just get in the way of getting things done. They are metaphors that don't directly result in anything being done.
Think about it this way: did they use anything like a modern OS in Star Trek? No.
And which would you rather use: the computer from the Starship Enterprise, or Linux?
Quality without creativity is pompous; creativity without quality is infantile.
You know well you can't make it alone... you can't make it alone.
KDE and Gnome are the two interfaces on Linux. Once the increasingly few programs that don't use these interfaces have finally moved out of the stone age then things will be one standard or the other. Still, two interfaces is one interface too many, but both interfaces have their pros and cons, and for the slightly advanced user there is no problem.
Most people seem to be able to deal with the multiple interface changes on Windows anyway, and they could deal with Netscape 4's non standard (and crap) interface.
I have a hard time understanding what Jeff is complaining about. Mac OS X is doing exactly what he wants. In fact, others have written about it.
...
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What's up with Steve's drawers?
By Michael Gemar, 30 January 2001
"It's like, reality, man..."
And this seems to be the point of drawers, and image wells, and banning group boxes - moving the interface closer to a physical analogue. In a recent Ars Technica article, John Siracusa pointed out that Aqua moves away from the explicit "desktop" metaphor to something more abstract. That's true, but as the author also notes, iMovie and iDVD (along with QT Player) seem to involve a much more physical metaphor. Siracusa argued that these brushed-aluminum, single-pane interfaces were rather independent of the principles of Aqua, but I think it should now be clear that, on the contrary, Aqua very much moves the Mac OS toward an appliance model of applications - one "console"; a pane in which any documents appear (as opposed to separate windows for documents); documents from which trays slide out for frequently-used controls; and with little required use of any control elements that aren't physically attached to the main console (remember, "Favorites" and "Bookmarks" can just as easily go into a fixed-location menu).
It's not just that the interface appears more realistic - sure, Aqua has some powerful graphics processing behind it, can do all sorts of fancy tricks and can present more detailed UI elements. But that could have been done with the traditional elements of the Mac OS. What is striking here, and what we have seen with QT Player, iMovie and iDVD, is that Apple is moving toward a vision of appliance-like applications that are perceived and and used as physical objects, with little contact with the rest of the OS UI. These applications don't spawn window after window across your screen but instead appear to contain almost all the interaction in one physical object. (Also consider that this single-pane mode was, until recently, how the OS X Finder was to operate as well.)
Components everywhere, OS nowhere
Now in a sense, this conclusion is not news, as many folks had similar speculations following the release of QT Player and the similar-looking Sherlock. But with Steve proclaiming that the "Digital Hub" is the strategic direction of the Mac, these interface changes make much more sense. While Mac pros may be comfortable with a gazillion windows and palettes sprayed across their screen, regular folks who just want to edit their home movies, rip some CDs or send some email don't want or need such complexity. What they require instead is an interface that is simple, intuitive and much like the kind of things they interact with in the real world. In the Digital Hub model, Apple is not appealing to people who are necessarily computer savvy or who want to learn a new metaphor, even one as seemingly intuitive as a "desktop." Heck, Steve pretty much spilled the beans at the MWSF keynote when he said that the Finder itself will in principle be replaceable by other, simpler ways of interacting with the OS, ways that didn't involve the necessity of full-blown file access - and an e-mail application was explicitly mentioned. (Now which OS X app from Apple uses drawers and a single-pane?) In other words, a user wouldn't interact with the OS, but would interact with various stand-alone apps. The OS would become invisible, and the apps would be all the user sees.
If this doesn't make sense, reread those last two sentences.
This means that we will no longer require an OS. To use an OS on such a simple system is just an additional layer of complexity and a security risk. Its best just to run the browser on the metal, and elliminate these difficulties
Hmmmm... it seems to me that in some case someone would DEFINITLY win the OS war. Since the "browser" is running on the "bare metal" than the "browser" IS the OS! So, whoevers standard that browser conforms to has won.
OS's will NEVER EVER be obsolite. You can claim to have a browser instead, but one would hope that that browser would have memory management, disk caching and multitasking... so it's a OS.
Justin Dubs
All OS's will be redundant
Thus explains Microsoft's fear of Netscape. Bill had this .NET thing planned out years ago. Monopoly in OS market gets internet browser onto every machine. Monopoly in internet browser market gets .NET onto every machine. .NET on every machine means another generation of MS monopolies. As you say, the future is .NET.
> Where's the step where you entered it into a text document
/usr/docs/misc/mine/stuff/blah.txt /home/me/blah/misc/docs/bio
The > is an output redirector. It redirects the text from the display to a file or other device.
> I can do a listing like you did simply by double-clicking the mouse. No keyboard needed.
In a race between a command-based OS and a GUI for tasks like a directory listing, a reasonably fast typist at the command line will win. How about copying a file (blah.txt, let's call it) from a 5-layer deep directory to another 6-layer deep directory? First you have to open 5 directories, hunting for the one you need each time, open the other six, and drag the file to the other directory. That vs.:
cp
Simple. Quick. No messy windows.
I had a PC JR for a while when I was a kid (got it slightly than my C=64, although that was kept running next to it) and I don't understand how it's anythingl like what you're describing. From a software standpoint, the Jr was a completely ordinary IBM-PC, that ran MS-DOS and any software you happened to have. True, it had a bizarre hardware setup and much weaker support for third party hardware addins (which is also true of the later PS/2 models from IBM, really), but the JR could run all the standard PC/DOS software that ran on the earliest DOS machines.
you buy a wacom tablet and photoshop and illustrator. Then whenever you press the pen to the wacom's setup field, it asks which graphic program? you pick, and off you go. You don't have to worry about photoshop files overwriting other files either since they're all secretly .psd or something.
you buy a card reader with some card reading software and it just works when you want to log in.
I do think this is great; but its VERY similar to the idea of the start menu (which has no real innovations though); Basically I know users who arn't aware that you can browse for files outside of the app you made them in because they really don't know what the OS can do for them. -Daniel
Define for me: Internet browser.
"The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it." - Brian Kernighan
And under OS 9 the function keys can be mapped to launch applications. Ta-freaking-da. And, since a compiled Applescript is an application, then you can... oh nevermind. Raskin's target audience thinks script is what the read out over the phone while at work :-)
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
PS you CAN have a computer without an OS... it's called writing Apps to hardware, what they used to do back in the day. If you want to code every program in assem, and implement all system functionality in hardware, you can have a comp without an OS. 'Course one could argue then that the application IS the OS at that point, and you'd be a pedant for doing it.
~~~the Pedant.
When it comes to manipulating text, no platform really competes with the UNIX family... although it looks like Mac users will soon have the best of both worlds.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
A major point as well... if you consider command line completion I can move that file *TONS* faster than someone clicking through folders. That's why enabling Command-Line Completion is a necessity for Win2k (1 minute registry hack, very cool). Bash still does a better job, but command line completion in the W2k command shell makes it that much closer to the Real Thing and I can Get Stuff Done so much faster.
IMO He's VERY confused because he associates the operating system/device drivers with the behaviour of the UI. The two are so completely at a different level that it makes my nose bleed just thinking about it. Still there is a connection there, and he has a point, but I'll see if I can clarify it.
;-)
The point is that of configuration control over an operating system and installed applications- i.e. interdependency checking both between applications, but also between applications and device drivers and applications and devices and drivers, even between kernels and applications.
e.g. I would like to install say, a wordprocessor. Let's say that the wordprocessor is only supported on 2.4.2 kernel with a particular 3D accelerator device driver. In principle I should just be able to go to it, and click on an web page and it should download and run it without ANY further intervention. However if this would introduce an incompatibility between ANOTHER app and the kernel or some device driver, my system should tell me and let me decide whether I really want to do this.
Another example how dependency checking can be made better: suppose I am running, say, bind, and it turns out that bind has a security issue. The security issue may not be publicised, but a new patched copy is available- the system should automatically find it and ask if I wish to install it. (Yes, I know that Microsoft already does that kind of thing, Linux needs it too! Only we'll do it better
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"There is a reason computers don't do this. I might want to write an email, a web page, a weblog entry, a shell script,a letter, a resume, a book, a technical article, a C++ program, a recipe, a garage sale flyer, a get-well card, I might want to type a phrase to "logoify" in an image editor. Does Wordperfect, or MS Word, or emacs, or notepad, or LyX open up? What if I'm posting on Slashdot, and I suddenly get an idea for something to put into a letter I'm writing, and I start typing. Do my words go in this "comment" field or does my wordprocessor magically open up?
There's a reason computers don't think for us, they can't. Even if they could, it's still our thoughts that they're there to filter. I wouldn't trust a secretary to figure out what to do with my words if I just started talking without any context. How the hell is a computer supposed to do any better?
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Fine. Where's the step where you entered it into a text document? That's what the original poster used as an example.
./001076 010064" by accident. No? Seems to me that making user errors less likely and less destructive also has value...
It's already done. The "> dirlist.txt" portion of that command line created the text file with the needed info. No muss, no fuss.
Folders are confusing? Do you find drawers and closets confusing also?
(ignoring the flamebait portion of that comment) Folder structures rarely confuse me, but you'd be amazed at how often Joe User gets a deer-in-headlights look when viewing directory trees. Ever view a directory tree in Windows Explorer? How about one that's about 10 levels deep? Go ahead, expand a few directory trees (make sure you're in 1280x1024 resolution first) and select a folder. Now, click somewhere on the background in the left hand side of that window. Notice that the folder you are in, is no longer highlighted. Now, grab a friend and have him glance at the screen for just a second or two and see if he can tell you the name of the folder/directory you are viewing the contents of.
Ever drag and drop a folder into another folder by accident? CAD operators at my work do it all the time. Then they come whining to us that some job number "isn't on the server anymore." It's there, but one simple misplaced click/drag has now rendered it unfindable by that user, and all the other CAD people here. So we (IS people) type a simple command line to find the job in question, and type another to put it back where it goes. Total time spent: 10-20 seconds. Now, as a test, I go to an NT box and click Start|Find|Files or Folders, enter a known good folder name several layers deep, and click find. Now I move that folder to where it goes by dragging and dropping it. Total time spent: 45-60 seconds after 5 tries, according to my trusty Bulova. And I'm purposely doing this as fast as possible. That makes this common task quicker by a factor of about 3-4 when I'm telnetted in to our Linux server, or sitting in front of it. Same goes for *BSD, Solaris, AIX, etc. Sure, a time savings of 20-50 seconds doesn't sound like much. But multiply that by the number of times things like this have to be done (to repair the damage done by people misusing click/drag/drop interfaces, I might add), and the company I work for saves several hundred to several thousand dollars a year because I, a lowly technician, know a few simple command lines, which take maybe 60 seconds to learn.
Now, ask yourself if you ever type "mv
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I have an awesome Atari 800 sitting here on my desk, and that thing of course has an OS, but it has something else too, cartidges!!! We should bring this awesome stuff back. We need these because they are awesome looking. Forget about beige computers or even bondi blue! I want a Brown computer like the Atari 400 that has a membrane keyboard that sounds like the top of a snapple cap when you type. Just stick in the cartidge of the App you want to use. And you nay-sayers out there will ask "How are you supposed to multitask?" Well, the Atari 800 has 2 cartridge slots! blade I want a MP G4 Atari 8000
http://www.ohlssonvox.com
I think Jef's actually correct -- the OS does tend to get in the way too much for the average user. But I don't think we're near the point yet where we can just ditch the OS metaphor on PCs. This stuff is still evolving too rapidly. Attempting to box it in before its had a chance to mature will stunt its growth.
Criticizing OSX because it is an OS is rather pointless, in my opinion. OSX is what Mac users (and arguably, the industry as a whole) needs today. In ten years, the world may look more like Jef's view of it, but there's still al lot more work to do. Appliances will probably become more like PCs, and PCs more like appliances until we find some sort of happy medium that works for most people.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
But I empathize with some of his opinions. To my mind the whole system of managing files needs to be revised. I have an elaborate system of folders and symbolic links and customized menus to allow me to get to various frequently used files. The problem is when I start getting the urge to wander through my vast accumilation of files.
And then there are my directories for applications and configuration files for the operating system. I want something that can be as transparent as possible and yet also allows me to call up as much information as I want to configure it as possible. Transparent when I don't care yet I can pop the hood and look whenever I want.
That is an issue that the GNOME and KDE people are going to have to solve eventually. The idea of components is a really neat one but how does one keep track of and manage dozens of components? Not from a computer level, a computer has a nigh infinite capacity that way, but from a human level. It's a related issue to how does one organize a bunch of disconnected pieces of data of varying types so that users can manage it simply.
I'm not talking about an 'appliance', not really. I'd just like to see our top brains in the computer field work on the problem of how to manage vast amounts of heterogenous data in a seamless and transparent fashion, and to do the same for managing programs. And as Raskin says, to have as little between the user and his data as possible (one step beyond Raskin, after all, a program lies between a user and his data).
IMO having an OS facilitates ease of use by providing all that "common interface" jazz we like so much. If my computer's look and feel changed completely as I changed apps, I don't think I'd consider it nearly so friendly. Without a base OS, vendors' ideas might differ so much from one to another that switching from one app to another could be as drastic as moving b/t my Linux/Winders machines/partitions. I don't like the idea of that.
-Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
Or writing code, an email. How do you start a CAD program, hit the special T-square button on the keyboard.
The concept seems pretty ludicrous to me. I agree that OS should be as simple as possible. It should mask most of what it is doing, yet it should have the ability to allow the user to get under the hood and provide a _basic_ loosely defined common interface for application developers.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
From Burg's article:
What "recent interview"? I'd like to see Raskin's comments in full, but Burg doesn't cite where this quote came from - for all we know he could be quoting out of context, or even making it up! How do we know? Not very good for a professional journalist.
Why are you all taking Burg's unattributed quote of something Raskin may have said so seriously? Sheesh!
jmp
go to properties for the command line window in WinNT/2k. For bash, it's the tab key.
No, it would merely never occur to them. They have low expectations in general.
This is considerably different from thinking of something and then being unable to do it due to the fact that someone hasn't already figured it out for you.
Unfortunately, developers aren't psychics and often don't cover all the possibilities. At that point, a little perl or bash can be remarkably useful while still being relatively simple.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
He's almost home. The aprt he's m,issing to the puzzle is that a "general purpsoe computer" has to do too many different things to easily do what he's preaching (be totally invisible.)
OTOH appliances, being tailroed to one task, do exactly that. Can nay consuemr name the OS in a Play Station? No. Why not? because its unimprtoant to them oin the same way the part number of the graphics processor inside of the box is. They just put their game in and play.
Similarly a word processing appliance would word process justby turning it on and maybe putting a 'word prcoessor disk' in it.
What has held such appliances back up til now has been the expensive of the screen. You could not afford to offer a device with a large enough, high enough resolution screen to be a serious word processing tool. With the drop in prices of both SVGA monitors and flat screens though this is fast becoming a non-issue. The only remiaining issue is finding a model that encourages developers to write as ful lfeatured apps for such a box as they do now for a PC.
Many of you might not like Raskin's idea's. But any of you have been using such a beast for years: it's called palm OS. Many of the principles that Raskin describes in his book "The Humane Interface" already exist in Palm OS, any a lot of the guys posting negatives about Jef's remarks certainly have no problem using their Palm. You press the power button, it instantly turns on. You press the phone button, you instantly get addresses. Press the memo button, you instantly get memo's. The storage of the user's data is transparent, so the only navigation a user really has to do is tap an application icon. Okay, maybe there's a few drawbacks to Palm OS (like being limited to 2048 bytes of stack space), but the Palm OS interface allows it's users to use applications in a highly efficient and intuitive manner. Jef sounds crazy when he talks about his humane interface, but then again, people thought he was crazy 20 years ago when we he started the macintosh project.
Amiga is right in line with Raskin's thoughts - the OS is a layer that the user should not have to deal with. It's the applications that are important.
Amiga isn't there yet, but they are bringing us one step closer. Amiga DE will be the tool that separates the user from the OS - breaking the dependency.
But the Digital Environment concept they are working towards long term - whew! Hold on to your hats folks.
The standarized OS WILL disappear. If not with Amiga's implementation, then with programmers including their own "OS shell" with each application.
Quark is more difficult to use than notepad because it can do more!
Maya is more difficult to use than Bryce because it can do more!
Myth is more difficult to use than minesweeper because it can do more!
Hp scientific calcular is more difficult to use than a throwaway calculator because it can do more!
A helicopter is more difficult to use than a car because it can do more!
Linux is more difficult to use than a Windows because it can do more!
love is just extroverted narcissism
If that sounds complicated to you, then stay far away from all electronics. You are against gui's? I suppose you use Lynx as your only browser? I guess when you do any graphic work, you just do it from the command line? ASCII art does rock I'll admit. And if you do any sort of system management work, you just look at a bunch of scrolling text all day, instead of a simple map with some green/red lights? The CLI has its place, but as a window in gui, not as a primary interface.
But, your example is nonetheless a good one for demonstrating the flexibility of the Mac.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Two very funny Anonymous Coward posts in one thread. I think I should mark this on my Calendar, so in the years to come, I can raise a glass to the Day It Happened.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I can't really say I agree or disagree with Raskin. I do think he makes a good point about how a normal user shouldn't have to deal with the irrelivant details of the OS, however I'm not quite sure if I follow or agree with his method to address the issue.
I was always under the assumption that a well designed OS should be intuitively layered in a way that allows different users and developers to take advantage of the services it provides in different ways.
This approach has always allowed a third-party to address an issue with the kernal, operating system, and design a solution without having to break the underline operating system, which usually results in an operating system that is designed around components which are the best of thier breed (A Darwinian Approach).
I think as long as we layer the underline technologies (kernal, filesystems, drivers, etc.) elegantly, the rest should eventually fall into place.
Thanks Darwin!
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Oh! I wasn't aware of that. That's despicable considering you must license per connection. We use a standard Metaframe here w/ ICA client, which I think is pretty trick. My only N-Fuse exp. was the demo on the website which impressed me. Sorry. I cannot agree with you more about the lack of reliability, however, since it's primary basis is NT Terminal server. Which I think is rather despicable.
:)
.NET? heheh. (just more stuff I like to talk about despite my lack of knowlege. :)
Also, on the management side, They just love using it for things it's not meant for... (i.e. half-assed vpn's and launching terminal sessions to WAN servers that can accessed just as easily as the Citrix box.
But, is it not better than
"Ummmm..."
<stepping onto soapbox>
At the rate software "technology" is going, it will never happen, as word processors and browsers keep growing in their memory consumption, at about the same rate as the prices decrease.
Consider, if you will, running Netscape 1.1 and MS Word 4.0 (admittedly only on the Mac). Netscape 1.1 ran on PCs with 8 megs of RAM, perhap better than today's 4.x and 6.0 versions, and MS Word 4.0 worked quite well about 1.5 megs of ram allocated to it. These apps were about as responsive, perhaps better in many ways (on 486/68040 CPUs) as today's versions. It's amazing that today's word processors and browsers aren't any faster (often slower) and exceed the computer's memory capacity, despite a 20 to 40 fold increase in CPU speed and 6 to 10 fold increase in available memory.
<steping off soapbox now...>
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The only problem, of course, is that when you type your letter on the typewriter, you had better not make one single solitary typing error. Especially one which you don't notice until wayyyyy later down the page. Then it's step 2A: remove paper, throw away, go back to step2 and try again.
It's not the really the OS that gets in the way of the applications but all the "extras" that are included with it. WinXX is perfect at providing a fuzzy bloated feeling. Give me the good ol' days of DOS. I don't remember seeing the extra feature BSOD back then...
The last thing Aqua is is Usable. It is a usability disaster. Read Tog's comments or the Ars Technica reviews (this one, for example. Aqua is not a usability wonder, it is marketing schlock...
(disclaimer, i am a loyal Mac User, and you would have to pry my powerbook running Platinum from my cold dead fingers. This said, When Aqua hits, i will be running windows...)
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
They are all BOFH's with the same MO. They flip on the "dummy mode" by telling people that everything they are doing is wrong, because it doesn't satisfy some set of outrageous criteria. Then they package some common sense ideas into a book and pimp it wherever they can. Like any other business subject, this is bestseller gold, because every PHB will want to read all those "expert opinions".
If Jakob Nielsen is such an interface expert, why doesn't everyone rave about how wonderful their Sun workstations are, and how much better they are than PC's, like the Mac folk do? Why do the Mac folk still think their nearly unchanged, decade old interface is better than Windows/GNOME/KDE?
--
Besides, most humor relies on delivery more than content.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Having few applications would have the advantage of having less clutter on the desktop. It could be cool to have MDI style appliations (no, not the MS way, rather the Evolution way). Or you could have BeOS style task bar buttons in that one task item opens a menu listing all windows belonging to one app. Another idea would be to have a virtual desktop per application, which then could have multiple windows.
First of all we would have the file manager (think Nautilus) that allows us to manage documents and other files, when a file is (double-)clicked then it opens inside the file manager with the added possibility to open it in the office suit. This file manager would also be the browser BTW.
The office suit (think GNOME Office) would be a collection of word processors, spreadsheats, image editors et al. The idea is that the office suit is used to edit documents rather than view them which is done by the file manager.
All communication could be done using a PIM (think Evolution), E-mail, IM, IRC, Newsgroups, Fax, etc. would be managed by the PIM in an intelligent manner. People, computers, other devices could be far better stored and managaged in a tool that is specially designed for it rather than a file manager.
Another category would be configuration tools, these would be used to manage the computer and network.
Of course games can't be forgotten, an Mame32 (haven't tried XMame) interface could be used for this... if improved of course.
There are of course lots of other programs that don't fit in the categories listed above. For some of them more groups could be made, other would have to stay standalone.
Just some thoughts, anyway.
Monkey sense
Chroma is right.
We all take the drudgery of 'file, window, and application management' as an acceptable practice.
I'm old enough to remember line based editing. At the time it didn't bother us because we knew of nothing else.
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nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
And at a deeper level, you're really throwing away the idea of user expertise. This is the think that bothers me about a lot of the ideas presented by MacOS developers. They seem to think that it's worthwhile to spend a huge amount of effort to develop systems to make computers easy to use, when a few hours of training will do the job. It's not as though learning to push the start button, going to programs, MS Office, Excel is really so complex that somebody can't pick it up with a bit of training. Most people who use a computer enough to want something more than a single-purpose appliance are going to wind up spending a lot of time using it. It isn't unreasonable to expect them to spend a few minutes learning the basics.
Besides, I've got an even more radical idea. Instead of pushing a specific button to get the program you want, we'll have a special area of the screen. When you select it, you can just type the name of the program you want to run, and the OS will pop that program right up. I think I'll call it a command line interface.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
- Embedded special purpose systems
- General purpose computer systems
There is a place for both approaches to computing, and the growth of PDAs may be suggestive of a way of "melding" them in a useful way.Such as an "address book," an "email system," a "web browser," a "word processor" and such.
There do exist appliances of these various sorts.
Unix is the "granddaddy" of this sort of thing; with the "duct tape" of scripting languages, you can readily hook together a Unix box to do a vast assortment of different sorts of stuff.
PDAs like the PalmComputing platform provide somewhat "dumbed down" interfaces, and are nevertheless useful. Due to limited screen, memory, and storage, they are largely kept to more "appliance-like" applications.
The long term might well move towards having homes that use a paradigm somewhat reminiscent of this, with a "server" in a back room that provides Internet access, storage of documents, and a repository for "scheduled stuff." It would be entirely sensible for this to be something like a Unix box.
There would then be "satellite" systems around the house, including:
These would be well-suited to "document processing."
Virtually all of these could be implemented as "general purpose computers," but you're then left with the job of having to manage all the computer systems.
It would be rather more attractive for most of these to instead be "appliances" that connect to a central "home server."
Various of them make more sense if you integrate a PDA into the appliance, and have a wireless local connection so that they can get at the data on a local server.
I would think it a slick idea to have a PDA running Linux, but that doesn't mean that I want to use a stylus to write in cd ~/addressbook; grep -i browne * | grep -i david | phonehome to dial my brother's phone number. The merit of running Linux would be that of having a well-understood robust portable platform for the developer. Given those things, to make life easy for developers, I'd be more than happy to have hardware where I press a couple of buttons to search for names in an address book.
I would think it a suboptimal thing to just use a bunch of completely independent appliances, as with "MailStations" and such; the step forward is to have the appliances, and have a way for them to interoperate usefully with a "home server."
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Apple is doing everyone a service by giving us the best of both worlds. I just with the new Finder was more of a shell; I wish I could choose to boot into BSD.
MyopicProwls
MyopicProwls
My homepage
As for those who say that Internet-distributed apps via Mozilla-XUL or MS-.NET are the future, you are omitting an important human element: Territory. My workstation is my territory; I want to control it's config to suit my tastes, I want to determine its design tradeoffs (e.g. speed v. portability), etc. I would not be comfortable with getting all my apps via the Net no matter the speed, for it would just as weird as living in barracks and getting my toiletries by ration every morning.
It's ironic that you accuse Raskin of having "A Limited Vision" when yours is just as limited!
Why not wait and see what it's like using these distributed types of applications before slamming them? To me, being able to have my desktop and all programs available from ANY WEB BROWSING DEVICE is unbelievably cool. It will probably take 2-3 years for the speed of the net and the quality of these types of applications to become really satisfactory, but have some patience, and a little "Vision," why don't you?
-thomas
"And like that
The race analogy only holds true if you *remember* the directory paths. Luckily the auto-completion makes that easier, but for the most part you'd better have few directories or a great memory. Especially in dealing with files you haven't touched in a while. I sure find myself typing 'ls' a lot...
FWIW, the "folder view" (for lack of a better description) on MacOS and Win usually makes for a lot fewer "messy" windows and a much faster file manipulation.
just my blog and pix
In the *real world* companies and even Open Source projects are going to create applications that use their own metaphors for movement, action, and so on. Currently, the OS is the only thing keeping interfaces even remotely consistent.
Yes, but that's just by default. The OS currently provides consistency, but that doesn't mean consistency has to disappear with the OS crutch gone. Developers just have to get organized. Besides, you can still have a platform owners settings. Their ability to do that is not determined by whether they create a file system manager app or not.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Are you sure it is a metaphor? A phrase like "drowning in money" or an icon with a gear denoting work being done -- these are metaphors.
I know it's been referred to for years in that manner, but I never understood why except that "graphic computing analogy" doesn't sound as cool.
What I got out of the article was that he was upset that you couldn't just use the keyboard itself to do must of the functions you use all the time. I can walk up to my computer in sleep mode, hit space, and then hit a hot-key that I've defined to launch whatever app I want. I can do this on most of the available OS's. I can program a hot-key to open up a file folder, and if I want to install a program, at least in Winblows, I can be lazy, pop in the cd with auto-insert notification turned on.. And hit the enter key as fast as I can to whip through the install, maybe pausing for a moment to type in my user info and a registration key. Which I can whip through with tab. If he doesn't like the buttons that numerous applications provide for people who dig the mouse, don't use it. Don't blame the OS for the lack of wanting to customize your environment. The power of computers in general is just that, make it do what you want as long as you know how.
All my apps are already available from any web browser in the world. It's called VNC, and the VNC java applet viewer. Without the general-purpose operating system, this wouldn't be possible.
.NET puts the program on the client side for fast response, it's just that the program is lightweight and stored on a remote server (along with the data, presumably).
VNC performance is slow, response is sluggish, even on a ADSL or cable connection. This is because the processing is all done on the server end. This distributed technology like
VNC also requires that you have a VNC client, which although ported to many OS's is not as ubiquitous as a web browser.
Oh, and I've been doing this since 1998 on backwards Unix systems.
Big whoop, I've been doing the same thing on Windows computers with PCAnywhere since 1996 or 97... that's not the point.
"And like that
Not really.
Both completion and wildcarding will significantly reduce the need to remember convoluted pathnames. Although with recursive file system standards (and enviroment variables), the need to remember convoluted pathnames should be relatively minor.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
to get a directory listing into a file you:
Find the directories exact name, there is at least one 'ls' (if not more, depending on how long the name is and how deeply rooted it is)
route the directory listing into your file
open the file in a text editor
save the file to a location that you desire (if its not already so, or of course you could have specified the files exact location while making it, but that's not exactly intuative, and you may need to change it's location depending on it's exact contents)
Of course in GUI's you have to open a text editor first, but thats a trivial task.
I normaly drop to the consol to do file listings anyways, so I don't know why I am complaining. CLI's are much more efficent for file maintence, but they are not a 2 step proccess like you said.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Improved a bit, but hey, consumers are already used to this. CD-players, VCR's, DVD-players, Sega, Nintendo, etc. etc. Put what you want to use in, and power up.
All he's suggesting is refining it a bit. Updating it.
Neat idea, and there's probably a market for it. The fancier "console" computers would probably have several slots, and allow you to switch between the applications. The starter model, or portable, takes one cartridge. The fancier ones have 8, with some sort of mega-external-chained cartridge handler. Think of an external unit with 32 cartridges in it.
The guy's got a point. We want applications, not operating systems.
Raskin is talking about a system that would be preconfigured to do exactly what the user wants to do, but he fails to mention, and possibly fails to consider, that such a system is nearly impossible to produce, simply because there are too many different kinds of user with too many different preferred modes of work
I could be wrong, but I don't think Raskin is suggesting the the OS disappear entirely, but it's just not the appropriate method for 75% of the populous to be dealing with their computers. The more technically-minded will always want to have more control of their machine.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Forgot to mention PCAnywhere also has a java client that works on all java browsers (been out since 97 or 98).
"And like that
The 'old OS-style ideas' still work here. In that case you could merely search for all files of a certain type last accessed around a certain time.
Unix find already does this.
OTOH, if you store your files sensibly you don't even need a find utility of any kind "old" or "new" style.
...and NO people are NOT capable of explaining to another person what they want the computer to do. If they could, the CLI would be no big issue.
That's all a CLI really is.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Example 1 .html extension and GIF files with a .GIF extension. You want to select all the .GIF files and move them into a folder called "pictures". How do you do that on all the Finder-clones I've seen? Select each file individually holding down CTRL (I think, maybe it's shift) to select multiple files and then drag the selected group into the pictures folder. If the folder contains hundreds of files, that's no small task!
You have a directory that contains two types of files, for this example, I'll say HTML files with a
Finder-like apps should have a way to select files based on patterns AND based on MIME types. Current ones really don't. The closest I've ever seen are various "Find File" utilities, which do the job, but are often logically separate from the App. I should probably mention the last version of MacOS I've ever used was somewhere around 6 or 7, so that feature may have been added. (Depending on the cost of G4 Cubes when MacOS X comes out though, I may pick up a Mac...)
Example 2
This one is a much better example, since I know for a fact that it cannot be done easily under Windows Explorer. (The above is weak since "Find File" is an option under Windows and probably MacOS. It's just not quite as obvious a choice to make as "Filter Files" might be...)
You have a directory of files with a ".mpa" extension. The extension should be ".mp3". You want to change all the files in one operation. As far as I know, impossible under not only Windows Explorer, but ALSO under UNIX shells! (Scripting as always does not count, only basic shell commands.)
This is downright trivial in DOS, though: ren *.mpa *.mp3. This type of task should be easily accomplished though - but it's not - in most cases, it invovles individually changing each of the file names!
Those are just two examples that I've thought of (or encountered... Example 2 is something I've actually encountered, luckily on a DOS machine...) that demonstrate lack of functionality in all the Finder-clones I've seen. (Not sure about Nautilus, it STILL won't run on my machine.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Gee, I was going to leave the toiletries rationing analogy alone until I saw you worshipping it like that...
I would not be comfortable with getting all my apps via the Net no matter the speed, for it would just as weird as living in barracks and getting my toiletries by ration every morning.
How exactly does this make sense? Living in barracks versus being able to access your programs and data from ANYWHERE that has a net-connected browser. Are they even close? Nope.
And getting toiletry rations every morning versus being able to access your programs, any time of day, anywhere in the world, for as long as you like.
Just because Microsoft has one business model for distributed server-based applications doesn't mean it's the only model available.
"And like that
I, for one, could hardly be happier about the new interface of OS X -- it integrates the functions of two utilities I have been running for >5 years (specifically, Greg's Browser and Malph) as my main interface to the Mac because I found Finder lacking. From what I hear, the response to Aqua from people who use it for more than a couple of days is mostly positive.
"about 3D graphics" is rather hard to pin down actually. It may or may not be an obvious thing to sort out. Full content searches may be impractical or impossible.
Vendorlock formats certainly tend to make it more difficult to index data using 3rd party tools.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually I was there. Just as importantly I worked in a computer museum and did this stuff all day.
What I wrote about refers primarily to PC OS evolution (& thus primarily Win & lesser extent Mac) but it's accurate as far as it's relevant.
Got a point or just a snipe?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
for i in `ls *.mpa`; do mv $i ${i%.mpa}.mp3; done
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
read this guy's book.
you'll understand his point of view a lot better.
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"I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers." __ IBM Chairman, 1943 __
It seems to me that if you're going to change the interface, whether software or hardware in some specifically fundamental way (i.e. the joystick problem you describe) you ought to give the user the ability to change it.
Why shouldn't you be able to specify what control does what? Why shouldn't you be able to move your toolbars around and add/remove icons to them? The simple answer is you should.
Don't want your users doing that? Then DON'T MUCK WITH THE PARADIGM! If there's a standard way of doing things already, don't chuck it. That's a simple law of UI design. If there's never been a comparable interface then you're more than welcome to do whatever you want. Forcing people to readjust is bad bad BAD!
I see no problem with adding new abilities or interfacing methods so long as the user still has the ability to go back to the old way (whether YOU think they're being backwards or not). Granted there are exceptions to these rules but as someone who designs UIs and has actually studied this stuff I think I speak from some level of authority.
Mordred
>Sounds like a complicated task to me. >Where's the ease of use there?
>Here's how I did it:
>1. Type "ls > dirlist.txt"
>2. Press Enter.
Where's the ease-of-use in typing "ls>filename.txt"? When I say ease of use I mean obviousness - no offense, but ls> is so arcane I know I'd refer to the manual the first twenty or thirty times I did this just to make sure I wasn't accidently typing some other extremely arcane command in. CLIs are much simpler to use once you learn them, but so are abacuses. Adding 3,000,900,784,123 to 4,067,000,000,724? Flip a few beads and you're done. Much simpler then typing those numbers in a Calculator a couple of times - clearly simplicity alone is not ease-of-use. Ease-of-learning is also a major factor and a GUI has that hands-down.
>I didn't have to find some hotkey >combination, didn't have to move my hand >from mouse to keyboard and back,
In a way, a hot-key combo. is merely a form of the command line you used - you're command seemed fairly obscure and virtually useless for most people, so I have the feeling they would read the manual straight through to find your command; whereas anybody who's worked in Text Editors on a Mac knows all about cutting and pasting.
BTW, you can hit Command-Tab to switch between apps so if you really hate your mouse you can do this without it.
>didn't have to maneuver through >often-confusing "folders".
Folder, singular. No manuevering.
>I can't help it, I'm prejudiced against GUIs (or >WIMPs, as I call them - Windows, Icons, >Mouse-Pointing - much better acronym for it >IMO). GUI people are always talking about >how their systems are easy to use, then list >dozens of steps to do something I do with a >single command line on my Linux and >FreeBSD boxes.
How long did it take to learn that command? Sure any one command is easily learned, but when learning an OS one has to learn the whole shebang. As I said, an Abacus has fewer steps, but that does neccesarily not make it easier to use then a calculator. One of the reasons GUIs are easy to learn is that you have learn a few commands to do everything. In the sequence above you used the Select All command, followed by a Cut/Paste sequence. The CLI had one obscure cammoand to do that one specific thing. The learning advantage is clearly for the GUI, learn two concepts that everybody has to learn to get stuff done (both of these commands are useful for Word Proccessing) and then you know exactly how to do it without asking anybody, reading the manual, etc. whereas the with the CLI you have to know you'll want to do that beforehand or end breaking out the manual or asking somebody.
>Seems like GUIs are a step backwards to >me.
Depends on what you want to do. I pity the fool who tries to use a GUI as a major ecommerce server. The staff is pad to learn computer stuff so they might as well learn a CLI; but a CLI is not going to work for graphic design, the education market, or the 95% of the population that thinks Intel chips are faster because the pretty number on the box is bigger. Those folks won't have a rat's nest of folders to deal with (maybe the graphics folks would, but they're already visual people so they won't have a lot of fun with LINUX), so learning to type well (much less learning what ls> means) is just not worth it to them.
Nick
Put paper into typewriter.
Type it all over again, being careful not to make any new mistakes.
vi fuckyoukatz
:g/john/s//jon/g
Some features are worth the trouble.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Oh, I'm not talking about fully-blown programs. Just things like database searches and command invocations. When specified in spoken language, there is definitely an element of ambiguity ... but spoken language deals with this by adding more detail when needed. e.g. "find the document I was reading last Thursday lunchtime" ... computer displays 3 documents ... "ok, yeah, it's the one about 3D graphics" ... document opens up.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
KEYWORD: command-line
:-)
By the time I left school, these programs had GUI interfaces. Certainly they were easier to use than their text-based forbears. Well, IMO, anyway. YMMV.
Oh come on now, my Grandma (who is 101% computer illiterate) has enough games she plays on the computer to make the task of memorizing a different gesture/button/whatever for each game impossable. My mother is constantly switching between applications while doing art work, and file management is critical for her. She needs to be able to divide up her files to different directories, zip them up, compress them, and select different install options for her paint programs (no, I do not want boarders, yes I want the font pack, no I do not want the animated helpers, etc). One button installs would fill up our HD so friggin quickly.
I have over 2000 files.
In my largest directory with only 1 sub directory of depth.
YOU try accessing over 6gigs of files with just one command, it would be impossable.
Push a button and I start typing?
Click NOTEPAD
type type type type type
Click SAVE
ok, so its THREE movements, big friggin deal. If the administrative staff (also known as Ye Ol' Secretaries) can figure out how to type on a computer, then it can't be all that hard.
Now then, if someone would do something about LOADING time, that is the major problem. Streamline, Streamline, STREAMLINE IT ALREADY. No more friggin memory bugs, no more pop up banners, and no more unwanted help, that would make the user experiance easy.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Many web pages look the same from Lynx... hives of [spacer] and [Click Here!] and [USEMAP:buttons.gif]. Nobody should be allowed to design web pages without viewing existing ones (and previewing their own) in Lynx. Ever notice how many pages are broken by SortaSGML parsing mode?
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
I've read Raskin's latest book - The Humane Interface. He's very idealistic. For example, the user interface of which he seems most proud is for a product called the Cannon Cat, which applies many of the principles to which the osOpinion piece alludes. But I bet you've never heard of the Cannon Cat and certainly no one other than Raskin himself has cited it recently as the epitome of consumer-grade user interface design.
Much of what Raskin has to say is intriguing - even practical, but for the work-a-day UI designer a lot of it is equally useless. For example, he talks about adding "Jump" and other specialized keys to the standard keyboard and throwing out file systems in favor of one really big file in which documents are delimited by special document characters (similar to the way that lines in text files are delimited by \n). Visionary and provocative stuff, but pretty much without value if your goal is to allow someone to read and compose email messages comfortably on a web page or a cell phone.
Raskin has clearly worked ahead of his time (and the Cannon Cat is actually a good, albeit historical, demonstration of the man working his magic), but he's too willing to ignore the inertia that applies to society, economics and technology. He's a great what-if thinker (e.g., What if Apple could afford to make its applications completely incompatible with the rest of the coomputing world?); if you read his website, it's even clear that he's a great how-to guy. Unfortunately, I'd take any "throwback" comments with a grain of salt.
One of the reasons the Mac has such a well-loved interface (how many PC interface zealots do you know?) is that it's consistent from app to app. Basically, you buy a new Mac app, you launch it, and you figure it out on the first try.
Jebus! Is this still 1986? Uh, I think you'll find that that's pretty much the same on PCs. And to a certain extent, all GUI-based OSes.
In fact, there are some ways in which Windows is *more* consistent than the Mac, the prime example being the file browser windows. If you want to save or load something, the load windows you get are exatly the same as the file explorer windows you get in the rest of Windows. You can view them how you like (large icons, small icons, details, etc...) and do all the the things that you can do in a normal explorer window (rename things, delete things, create things, change the properties of things, etc.) I find it exceptionally useful. Mac file openers are primitive in comparison (although I admit, I've not used OS X yet...)
Oh, and yes, I suppose I'm a PC interface zealot. Most of us no longer have a tiny monchrome screen. We can afford menubars on a per-window basis now.
cheers,
Tim
This is pretty much why communism doesn't work. The state (in this case the sw developer) can't possible foresee every possible combination of user and operation (in communism it is consumer and product). Thus we have systems that support a lot of basic operations (basicly CPU ops) that can be combined into a system. (in communism, the answer is the free market). This is what gives software its strength: flexibility. The ability to build something beyond the dreams of the developer (did Intel have to imagine windows2000 or linux to make it happen? no, they just made the cpu and other folks built on it). It is also what makes software so sloppy: sometimes the pieces don't fit together corretly. I wouldn't blame the paradigm here, but the programmer or the methods.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
An OS is an Abstraction Layer between the Apps and the Hardware.
Remove the OS, and you have to custom-write all your apps for each piece of hardware. What he is almost talking about is a return to DOS, that is, DOS + a hotkey based Program switcher.
He is confusing the OS with the Window Manager.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Raskin is smart. And MacOS is nice. But when it comes to GUI's, I think people overlook BeOS and NeXTSTEP and are too quick to shout MacOS. NeXTSTEP had the closest thing to what Raskin is talking about. It was Clean, simple, uniform, and your favorite apps were never more that a click away. But, the best designs aren't always the most popular. Oh well, thank god for the FSF, Linux, GNUStep and the GTKStep theme for GTK+!
--
The difference is that you are using linguistic constructs to effect an action; UNIX command shells have a syntax approaching that of a simple yet powerful language. On the other hand, most people deal with computers through mechanical constructs, e.g. "Press this button", and the GUI/OS edifice merely serves to confuse them, especially those who can't visualize operating system constructs (files, directories) into internal representation of physical objects. They simply press a button "download this" and don't understand what happened to the file. They expect a concrete, finite amount of knobs and tools that produce a finite, limited amount of results.
So for those users, the idea of a magic box with magic buttons that just do what they want it to do is in fact what they really want. I fully expect that for this reason, we will see a simplified PC where applications are no more complex (or piratable) than a springboard module for the Visor. Such a device will be hugely popular; it also avoids the mistakes of the "network appliance" or .NET models. People expect and want concreteness and physical availability.
These devices are more likely to run linux in some embedded sense than anything else. It's a perfect toolkit to produce these machines, eventually.
But for those of us who use these devices for any reason outside the 90% that most people do - cutting edge gamers, programmers, people who work with databases, etc, the flexibility of a multi-purpose device is paramount. It must do magic, and we will learn the proper incantations. The PC will not die, but it will become ossified and optimized into such devices to such a degree that most will no longer need to be aware of it's inner workings - and in my experience, they close their eyes to it already.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I agree. It would make the computer in gereral much harder to use. Why do you think there is currently such a buzz around technologies like KDE and Gnome? It's because they attempt to unify the disparate interfaces that plague open source applications.
Perhaps he means one could build a sort of "lite" OS that simplified file access, application installing and launching, and still provide consistency in the user interface, but this just seems like the "thin" clients that so far have failed miserably.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Internet Browser : Someone who cannot decide between AOL and MSN
----- One piece short of Legoland
It sounds like he says there should be an OS to control switching around the apps, but it shouldn't get in the way.
So, he wants you to be able to power-on right to an app, like a Palm does - ie faster bootup, and he wants the illusion you are using one app - so maximize the window and remove the title bar.
Problem solved.
The computer from the Starship Enterprise has a LOT of buttons. The processor and memory required to run it are not even an option yet. The day I can verbally communicate with my computer will be a great day. Until that point it isn't worth trying to do computing without an OS :)
Besides which I think the enterprise does have an OS, but it is always on (no need to reboot - probably built on the linux kernal) and is damn good
An OS like windows on the other hand does get in the way because simple things like installing a game or app or something require the user to reset the entire operating system so that it can be updated and made available to the user.
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
than they can talk.
Voice command had its heyday 4 years ago. I know. Computer Shopper ads full of voice enabled systems.
It died because you had to know GUI to use voice.
Instead of saying "Save this" you had to say "File menu, save."
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I think the article really doesn't track well at all. In my mind, on the Palm you most defiantley have an OS - after all, you have to launch apps from somewhere and you have only so many buttons!
What the artcle seems to miss is that as screen size decreases, to make things usable the OS should give way to the app to present as much working space as possible to the user. Even there the PalmOS does not give up everything, as some screens like the app launcher and other system configuring screens let the OS have the whole screen.
As screen size grows, you gain the ability to have multiple apps working at once and with that, enough screen size so that the computer can help manage the use of multiple apps.
What I think he's really arguing for but doesn't realize are the following:
* Interface that provides for sub-second loading times of ANY application.
* Easier ways to focus more on one app but still make others accessable.
For the second item, what I think I'd like to see, is a way to keep a focused app full screen. Then with a chording action or possibly a toggle key be able to see all my other apps displayed on top of that.
Imagine writing a letter, then pressing a special "Shift key", seeing a translucent spreadsheet pop to the foreground, copy a bit of text and when you let go have it pop right into where you were in the document. That seems like it would be more efficient to me than current window management interfaces, and is sort of what virtual rooms try and do for you.
In fact, I think I'd like to be able to define groups of apps as belonging together and be able to cycle amongst them in that manner.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All the same, this _is_ the guy who couldn't spell "Mackintosh" properly when he was registering the code name for his new project with the honchos at Apple... can we take him seriously? (all of Apple's internal r&d projects in the early 80s were supposed to be named after strains of Apples.) If Jef had known how to spell, it could've been the "iMack".
:)
Ask a Mac or Win user why they'd ever need to do that, and they wouldn't know. This is of course because many of them would never need to do such a thing, and if they needed could easily be done through some sort of scripting language.
UNIX, spelled backwards, is "XINU", which is simply a corruption of "Xenu", the name of the intergalactic tyrant about whom an obscure religious figure named Lafayette R. Hubbard had a vision one evening.
We have to thank Mr. Raskin for uncovering this fiendish, suppressive plot on the part of an enemy from whose depredations we have been suffering from for seventy-five million years. I say that UNIX should be accorded "Fair Game" status.
hyacinthus.
Why do you get to decide what kind of interface I have to work with? Most of the user interfaces out there suck.
However, I don't agree with Raskin, either. And OS *can* let users change their interface and still give a good API abstraction to applications to work with most user interfaces. Too many (e.g. Windows) don't do the right thing. Mac isn't very great for that, either.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Now, I think that being able to check your mail via an wireless-capable PDA is the bomb, but would you want the entirety of your computing experience to be that way?
Ummm, why does it have to be all or nothing?
Things I used all the time, MP3, for instance, or Quake3, yes I want them local. But I write about one Word document a year, so I'd rather not install a bloated office suite to do that.
There are many reasons this type of thing makes sense, some people will want all their stuff on their PC. Others will want all their stuff remotely so they can access it anywhere. Others (like me) will want a mixture of both.
"And like that
I think he did exactly as asked.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Mac spent so much time on this concept and it really did not get them to where they wanted to go. Therefore his idea has failed and he has to get to grips with it. Looks as though Jobs did....
Bizzare how this was posted more like an anti-OSX thing than a general view of current bloated OS's (which DO include Winows, MacOS, Linux)
Another try in that direction was the Xerox Star. Imagine a machine with a great mouse-oriented user interface that runs a word processing/spreadsheet/mail/database app and nothing else. That's the Star, Xerox PARC's attempt to build the ultimate office computer. Clobbered by the far-dumber but more flexible IBM PC.
That said, the UNIX interface is a holdover from the teletype era. Command-line interfaces have been done far better. X is a horrible approach for a local GUI. And the text-file approach to system administration needs to be trashed, not papered over.
Ease of use probably peaked around the end of the 68K Mac era. By then, the Mac had been perfected. It finally had enough engine behind it to be useful, but the apps hadn't yet been run over by Microsoft. If Apple had stayed with the 68K, and pushed Motorola into improving that product line, it might have been a win. But they got sucked into the IBM PowerPC deal, which basically cost them two years and their lead over Microsoft. (There's also the fact that Apple botched about five new OS projects in a row. The jury is still out on the latest try.)
I look forward to watching the arguments between folks who think OS X is better because of it's ease of use vs. those who love it because it is BSD underneath.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
Well, since I happen to be a painter the answer would have to be every time I work on anything of value. I demand the most out of my tools -- I use them intimately. I stretch their possiblities as far as I can. And for that purpose, I must be completely aware of every physical aspect of their functioning.
Example: A brush that is 1/2" thick is better at drawing a 1mm line than any tiny brush. How? You just use one bristle. If I got handed a 1mm brush, even if that was the tool I was *supposed* to use for the job, I would be quite upset.
The Mac fails because it tries to mask its nature from you. For certain problems it is very user-unfriendly. You have trouble with the OS, and you have no information and no hope of isolating it (without the aid of serious Kung Fu). This makes it completely unsuitable for those who demand the most out of their computers. (ever tried to code on a Mac? No wonder they are dependant on MS for application support....)
The OS currently provides consistency, but that doesn't mean consistency has to disappear with the OS crutch gone. Developers just have to get organized.
Okay. And after these hypothetical developers "get organized" around a consistent UI, what would happen next?
Well, of course they would then agree on a common implementation toolkit for the UI (in order to save work, promote reusability, etc.).
What next? They would then have the bright idea of shipping the implementation toolkit with every copy of the computer (in order to make life easier for the customer).
And what do they have then? Why, it's an operating system!
Shocking, isn't it?
-- Brian
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
He did start out spelling correctly, he just didn't finish that way.
The version of Windows that is most likely being used by the Windows users of this forum is indeed still based on DOS.
Mere consumers are actually discouraged from running the current version of NT, so your comment is hardly relevant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Type a letter on a typewriter.
/.
Put paper in typewriter, type letter.
Put another sheet in typewriter, because you made typos all over the first.
Get up, go to bookshelf, get dictionary.
Look up how to spell words you should already know.
Re-start letter.
Extract cat from typewriter.
Put cat in closet.
Clean up the correction fluid the cat spilled.
Wait for high from correction fluid to subside.
Go to the bathroom to get tweezers.
Use tweezers to get cat hair out of correction fluid spots on letter.
Continue typing.
While you were getting the tweezers, the kids have poured oatmeal into the typewriter.
Find kids.
Apply duct tape as necessary.
Put kids in closet.
Retrieve cat, which got out of the closet and is eating oatmeal.
Put cat in closet.
Pick up typewriter.
Throw typewriter away.
Resolve never to have any more children.
Drive to Best Buy. (In this scenario, you have no clue)
Find computer with snazziest-looking packaging.
Purchase computer.
Take computer home.
Check on kids in closet.
Laugh as you close the door.
Retrieve cat, which is in garbage can eating oatmeal.
Put cat back in closet.
Do not RTFM.
Attempt to set computer up.
Fail.
Call helpdesk.
Whinge.
Hang up in fury when they tell you to RTFM.
Call up Customer Service.
Whinge.
Hang up in fury when they tell you to call the helpdesk.
Call your brother, who is "a computer person".
Whinge.
Ask him to stop laughing.
Offer him beer or money to come set your computer up.
Go to store.
Purchase beer.
Go back to store, return beer.
Your brother does not consider "Coors Light" to be "Beer".
Purchase an adequate kind of beer.
Return home.
Your brother has the computer set up.
You were only gone 10 minutes, you cretin.
Look like an idiot.
Give beer to brother.
Ignore his derision.
Type the fscking letter, already.
Open web browser.
Go to
Try desparately to make a First Post.
Fail.
Post a troll.
No one falls for it.
Make a goatse.cx post.
Fsck it up somehow.
Look like a moron, worldwide, free of charge.
Oh, the embarassment.
--
I *invented* pants!
You need the OS to provide the provide solid base. If all applications had near total control, think of how often you would crash. I don't see how this could be secure. Does this mean the meat of a program would have to re-written from program to program instead of using an API type interface to the OS?
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
Folders are confusing? Do you find drawers and closets confusing also?
--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
It's BSD based, but uses the Mach kernel and their own VFS and driver APIs.
/etc/host /etc/resolv.conf). Better but strange and confusing until you figure out what is going on (sort of like NIS - try playing with the config if that is running and you don't know it).
The latter are probably better, but C++ based and not easy for someone to use even if they are familiar with BSD or Linux. There are some ioctl() shims but not everything (at least not a 1:1 to the current Linux/BSD set). It also needs dlopen (shared library or even ELF binary) support but that looks like it is coming. And Netinfo. Great from the GUI, not nice from the CLI, and the manpages were wrong (and this overrides all the familiar, standard
So I don't know if I love or hate it. Maybe when I figure out how to copy audio CD streams to a file via IOKit calls I'll start loving it. Or when there are a large number of opensource examples so I can figure it out myself. Where is the O'Reilly "Darwin/OS X for BSD users" and the companion Quartz for X11 users?
It's almost not completely unlike BSD.
Excuse me. But isn't that the POINT of *nix operating systems? To give you as much control as possible over the application you're using?
I fail to see how adding layer after idiot layer of abstraction brings a user "closer to his app".
Then again. Maybe I'm the idiot.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I think you are missing what Rankin is saying..
He does not say "get rid of the OS". Obviously you need an OS for the reasins you listed (device acess, task management, etc). What Rankin is stating is that OS's have become an application in and of themselves, and that is the problem. That the OS is an application is kind of irrefutable; whether it be Linux, Windows, MacOS, or OS/2, the OS has a great deal of functionality to it besides just acting as a kernel. We need kernels. They are good. But do we need the hundreds of programs that come with Linux? Sure its infintely customizable (something we tout), but is that a good thing? I personally enjoy it. Yet it does get in the way of running applications, and I do not think anyone here can argue against that. Having to "deal" with an OS is exactly what Rankin is saying is bad; the OS should be transparent, it should merely exist and work, but it should not be an omnipresent object we have to work around. I agree with him that this is the future of personal computing (although obviously server/high end will need functionality).
On the point of consisten user-friendly interface, think about it this way. WindowMaker provides a consisten user friendly interface, but not much else. I tend to like that. Enlightenment / Gnome / KDE on the other hand, well thats kind of getting excessively "friendly" for me. Rankin is advocating for a more WindowMaker (but to a much greater extreme) style GUI; simple, elegant, and thats all. No fancy pants stuff, for it would get in the way. Like Palm OS. Not like Windows 2000. Ever seen how much extra crap is bundled in there? it's ridiculous. | ian shaughnessy | conraduno at binxdsign dot com
Use the < to redirect to a file.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
*NIX are for kids.
;). Your support costs just to answer the phone will crush that concept.
seriously though, to avoid being redundant - i'll ignore the technical problems we just got away from when we moved from machines where the app owned the system. i'm sure they've been posted by now.
what kind of statement is this guy making? how in the world is a machine going to understand the contextual difference between typing a text document, typing a spreadsheet, typing program code, typing an url, typing a check, etc etc? i mean, that kind of context comes from at least a couple lines of typing, and why waste time pulling up the wrong interface and switching over after a minute when the user can just specify with a quick click. and what about perusing documents? looking at source code without wanting to actually type? we'll still need an environment to select interfaces.
And aren't those neat 'buttons' he was talking about to pull up your documents and applications, just those cute little configurable software buttons we call icons? And with the proliferation of USB keyboards i see more and more that have 'email' 'browser' and 'word' buttons on them (not to mention countless others)
Aren't computers easier to use now than ever before because people have demanded the consistant interface design that comes from the OS?
as for easier installations - well most of them would be brain-dead one-click affairs - except that users have demanded flexibility and control in the form of changing installation directories, selectively installing components, etc. try releasing software with one click installation(well, two for those damn EULAs
There are personal computers, and there are appliances - and never the twain shall meet. Demanding one to merge into the other is like asking television or movies to become interactive.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
It's called reality TV, and it's been around for quite some time now.
This means that we will no longer require an OS. To use an OS on such a simple system is just an additional layer of complexity and a security risk. Its best just to run the browser on the metal, and elliminate these difficulties.
All OS's will be redundant. Noone will win the OS war. Whether you see this future as good or bad is up to you, but the corporations are thrusting it upon us already. I have seen the future, and it is .NET.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
He's not advocating an appliance or convergence device. In fact, he's advocating something this community should love: the GUI equivalant of a command line interface. The basic idea is that there is only one interface, like a document, and in order to do things like spreadsheets or images or whatever, you use a cimple command. These commands would be plug-ins, so the "application" isn't static and inflexible.
His book fleshes it all out in better detail, and he deals with the problems of games, multiple documents, etc. It's all quite visionary. It's all probably a ways in the future too. Making a system so generic and transparent is contrary to the branding strategies of most companies. So is the idea of selling small "commands" instead of monolithic applications.
P.S. The whole "extra keys" deal only means a few extra keys (load, save, undo, command, maybe one or two more), not 20 extra keys for each application. Plus he advocates getting rid of a lot of useless keys (function keys, ScrollLock, CapsLock, etc).
It seems like Apple *is* following Jeff's basic philosophy. The user doesn't even have to know that the underlying OS is BSD in MacOS X, do they? The only thing that can get in the way of the user is the GUI environment, Aqua, which certainly isn't a throwback to the 70's.
Cameron
I agree with the tenant that he is saying, the problem is that he doesn't realize how big the statement is that he is saying. An operating system should be able to facilitate some method of interaction. However, it is important to remember that not everyone interacts with the computer via a GUI. And as creating a general purpose GUI is very difficult the only correct thing to do is have a general purpose command prompt variant of the OS (E.g. as Darwin is for OSX) and a gui portion (E.g. Aqua for OSX). If he says that the user needs to be able to have an interface (GUI) to do what the user needs - yet to ONLY provide a GUI is a flawed concept - because not all users are alike. Some (if not all) of the most powerful command line interfaces are exclusively UNIX based. I believe that Aqua is going to evolve into a very powerful general purpose GUI. Both will try to give the user as much control over the system as he needs - it's not backwards - it's correct for the market they are going for.
Have you seen how developers work together with simple things like protocols or file formats? Everybody wants their own for different things. Everybody wants to be proprietary. And these are areas where software vendors are FORCED to work together (you don't want to have your AppleIP only talk with Apple computers). Asking people to conform for aesthetic or usability reasons? It'd never happen.
Mordred
It wasn't even until MacOS 6 (someone catch this if it's wrong, my Mac Experience starts with 7.5.2 (which makes one wonder why I like them as much as I do (but I digress))) that the OS would even run more than one program via the MultiFinder.
Perhaps, then, this explains the context of the argument: one of the framers of the original MacOS has seen his pure, one user, one task system turn into multi-user and multi-tasking (though not yet pre-emptive), along with all the clutter and complexity that comes with it.
Do not touch -Willie
All you need to use VNC is a browser with a Java VM and network access.
.NET-style distributed computing.
No, that's not true. You also need access to a machine maintained by you or someone you know, with the programs you like to use installed.
Look I use pcanywhere (just like VNC) all the time, I'm not dissing that type of computing. It rules! However, it's not really comparable to
-thomas
"And like that
You mistake what Nautilus is trying to achieve. They are embeding components so you don't have to deal with another app...
ie. if you want a web browser, you don't install a web browser and run it under Nautilus. you get only the components that Nautilus doesn't have by default that are required for web browsing.
it is a bit like having one of those screwdrivers with plugin heads, you only have to have one handle, instead of each one requiring its own.
Nautilus will step over the boundary into multilayering and bloatware when it embeds something that doesn't share any components with anything else...
my 2 cents
marty
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
These are two very different things. The OS is something that the user never sees; it is what manages memory, peripherals, input, etc. When the user types a key on his word processor, it is the OS that ensures that the key does not get lost in some bit limbo somewhere.
The UI on top of the OS is totally irrelevant, as far as keystrokes go. It does its own thing - clicking icons, moving folders, animating paperclips... The OS is not aware of any of this. The OS just pushes pixels around.
That's the primary difference between Windows/Macs and UNIX: In Windows/Macs, there is no way to change the window manager. The UI is part of the OS. In UNIX, it is not. If you don't like the way your windows look in plain old 2d, you can download Berlin or whatever and make them all 3d.
A better subject for the article would be, "How come all modern UIs suck so much ?". The article has nothing to do with OSs.
>|<*:=
And now let's include all files in subdirectories too. with complete relative pathnames from the directory you've started from, sorted by alphabet.
find | sort > dirlist.txt
how are you going to do that in you nice looking gui ?
---
Unfortunately, Apple's revolution faltered in the marketplace. It was a great vision, but I think too many application developers had been burned in the past to follow Apple through the fire of yet another architecture change. Once burned, twice shy and all that.
What a great id.. except for the fact that would alienate normal computer users even more.. Besides isn'nt MS getting closer to dumbed down interfaces with whistler i believe. so if revert to hotkeys for everything, you take away the substance and feeling of the computer... i know too many computer novices that love thier damn animated cursors and folders.. if went back to a quarterdeck memm manager stlye(anyone member that one?) most ppl today would find it revolting and scream for their windows GUI or mac GUI back.. an OS is a great thing because it provides an interface(ok the GUI or CLI shell does but bare with me here) for people to INTERFACE with thier system and provides a COMMON look they can reconize and be familiar with... if you had hot keys for every app you wanted there is problems..
1. no interface standard... ppl get confused
2. I personally have way to many apps to always use hot keys.
think about it........
One of the pioneers in this area was probably Smalltalk, which provided a tightly integrated set of applications and let applications easily share data. Data in Smalltalk is, in a sense, "self-describing", so it can be exchanged easily between different parts of the system. And because Smalltalk is a safe language, errors in one application would usually not kill another application. That made it possible to build fairly large systems of closely interacting parts.
UNIX, of course, came more out of a mainframe tradition. For its applications, it made sense to isolate processes well from one another. And that's why programming languages for UNIX and mainframe systems do not have to be particularly safe (the operating system will prevent the worst disasters from happening), and because they can't easily exchange data, data doesn't have to be self-describing.
Apple copied the look of the Smalltalk interfaces but tried to build them out of what amounts to mainframe languages without even the benefit of mainframe process protection. The result was a system that was quite unreliable, leading eventually to the adoption of memory protection. But I guess some people at Apple, like Raskin, eventually figured out their mistake.
The yearning for a Smalltalk-like system is also expressed by de Icaza and Microsoft, who come up with all sorts of complex COM-like systems.
The fact is that the industry is still in a state of confusion. Many programemrs are too conservative to give up their mainframe style tools, but they still want to build Smalltalk-like dekstop systems. The result of using the wrong tool for the job is desktop software that ends up being both bloated and complex, and still is lacking in integration and extensiblity. This is, sadly, true for MacOS X as much as for Windows, Gnome, and KDE.
Of course getting your apps by web is convenient. It's also convenient to get your shaving kit handed to you, so you don't have to actually have to wake every morning wondering if you'll run out. The trade off, of course, is the freedom to do with your shaving kit as you damn well please. Sharpen the blade, chuck it, run it over with your car, what have you.
Now, I think that being able to check your mail via an wireless-capable PDA is the bomb, but would you want the entirety of your computing experience to be that way? I want my email and my work and my music to reside on my machine, and nobody else's. I am merely pointing out the possibility that many people, not just I, have this sense of territory, privacy, ownership. This sense of having a "home" in cyberspace will never change, as backward as techno-evangelists find it.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
Seems as tho any PC without a command line is "ancient" .. well, so is the wheel. Sometimes the best way IS the old way.. sure, GUI is nice.. but without being able to script or get under the hood ,a user is quite crippled (albeit saved from their own stupidity). (kinda like M$ "ME", Windoze NT, etc..). Mac made an excellent choice in using freeBSD in OS/X hope they stick with it and allow for kernel updates/etc. -Celtic
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Refuted. A pretty basic RedHat 7.0 install.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Crappy article. I fear Mr Burg may have missed the point in some places in the article. I wonder if Raskin is happy with what Mr. Burg has come up with. If not, where He is found below, He = Mr. Burg, else He = Raskin.
It's a lot of words to express (in my opinion) his distaste for the design of OS X. He thinks it gets in the way. (I'm not saying whether it does or not. Nor do I care.)
He touts the PalmOS in its ability to be transparent. BeOS in eVilla, too. These things are too simple- try to do something fairly complex on one of these devices? Say, code in a new language using man pages or HTML as a reference. While making sure the bug you just fixed in a totally seperate project doesn't crash it. And watch a kernel compile. And monitor irc. And idle on ICQ. And listen to MP3s. And maybe visit napster once in awhile.
The badly named section "Adopting new ideas" tries to say that everything should be done at the click of a single button AS WELL AS there should be buttons (hot keys) to do every single task. The author strikes me as someone not too keen on learning new things. An OS being a tool, it requires you to learn how to use it. A Tool (caps intentional) that doesn't require much learning USUALLY won't do much more for you than if you were Tool-less.
Mr. Raskin: if it gets in the way, don't use it. BUT if it's easiar to deal with IT getting in the way than to deal with the problem ANY OTHER WAY, then make a damn decision.
These people amaze me. I mean, once we all get seriously jacked in, like do away with the meat entirely, will they choose to be run under some wrapper simulating constant pleasure? Like out of a Vonnegut tale.
--
Don't you like fscking Google and slashdot better than stupid Flash sites that get you lost and take away your back button? What many UI poo-pooers don't understand is that UI dorks (like Neilsen, but yeah he's WAY over the top) like Raskin and, hell, me, what we are into is the idea that computers are here to ENABLE TASKS to be done MORE productively.
Sure, we of /. dig linux. But if someone offered me a box and a RedHat CD versus an iMac and i have to write a 50-page, formatted report by tomorrow, guess what? I'm gonna take the iMac!
The old engineering adage of "Solution for problem" is still true, truer than ever in fact in the case of UI. Raskin simply advocates that the OS should NEVER be the focus of a user's attention. And that is undeniably true. the IDEAL computer (possible currently or not) is one that requires no thought to be put into the bullsh*t of a task---that's what the computer's job is!
I agree with an earlier post that said the author of this article is clearly uninformed and has a major axe to grind. Raskin is not a bad guy, and, while many of his ideas haven't been applicable, his overarching concerns are exactly what user-oriented software development should be about: making the TASK the focus of the attention, not the DOING of the task.
--
"I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers." __ IBM Chairman, 1943 __
On the osOpinion piece, I'm not sure how practical what they propose actually is. If one just needs to start typing to get a word processor, how does one do nippy calculations, and distinguish between entering calculations and writing a mathematical thesis?
--
Keep attacking good things as "communist"
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Who cares? Just don't kill each other over it.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
They don't need to know about:
Lest you think that I am prejudiced, UNIX/Linux systems are also severely deficient in these areas.
IBM had a good idea with their document centered user interface that was introduced in the OS/2 workplace shell. You didn't "run" the word processor, you manipulated documents and new documents were created by tearing a sheet off of a template pad.
The user should never be forced to understand or deal with the details of how the system's abstractions are implemented in hardware and software.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'm not a big fan of intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces. The first time I ever used a Mac it took me about 20 minutes to work out how to save a file to a floppy disc. It was only that quick because I swallowed my pride (as an IT perfeshunl I know all about these things) and asked someone. Something like "mount /dev/fd0 /floppy; cp file /floppy" is so much more obvious, useful and efficient.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
But the real problem is that it's not clear how many of these difficulties can really be solved with an optimal human interface. As long as people want a machine that is capable of performing multiple functions (and the trend certainly seems to be more in the direction of increased, rather than decreased functionality) the choice of available capabilities is an essential difficulty. You can't get around it. You must present the user with an interface that allows him to choose what he wants to do, and if there are 100 choices you have to have a system that lets him pick from those choices efficiently.
The same thing is true of documents, resources, web sites, etc. If I'm going to use a word processor, I have to be able to pick the document I'm going to work on. If that means choosing among thousands of documents, the computer has to have an efficient system for letting me sort through thousands of documents. You just aren't going to get around a need for some kind of filing system (even if it isn't heirarchical like most existing today) and a way to access it.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I'd like to see pictures that reflect the language of computer use. Apps are more like verbs, Documents are a sort of noun. Devices are proper nouns.
I'm enthused with some of the 3d windowing projects. I'd like to be able to move view ports away and toward me, and angle them if I chose to. We should be able to have view ports of non-running apps if we wish. Then the corresponding app can fire up when we decide to interact with it. Having a 3d interface could eliminate a lot of desktop 2d clutter.
Mice could be replaced by a tiny cordless ring that is put on the finger. That would be a HUGE improvement.
Anyway, OSX isn't really that great. I like the productivity of KDE2.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
If you take away the extensibility of computer then you end up with a very frustrating device that is always second guessing your actions (like auto-replace in Office).
The applications should be easy to use, but the OS, at least in my opinion, should not try to hide the machine behind a pretty curtain. I like OSX you can get behind the curtain when you need to.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
I'm sorry, but unless the piece is grossing misrepresenting the point of view being put forth here, I have to disagree totally.
An OS is *not* something that gets between a user and what they want to do. Instead, it's the tool that provides consistent services to both the user and the applications running on it.
An OS provides:
- device access
- task management (multitasking)
- one or more interfaces for the user (yes, I think interfaces are becoming a part of the OS. Live with it.)
How would Rankin's ideas be implemented if *not* for an OS? How would a system be consistent and user-friendly without an OS+interface?
I just can't see it?
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
The Palm is a perfectly useful, wonderful device, but it isn't about to replace any of my desktop machines, or vice-versa.
There are several good reasons to keep an OS in an 'application' style around:
-Portability: not everyone makes the same hardware, and you want your app to run on as many systems as possible.
-Security: without an OS, there is no security whatsoever, except that built into the application; though, windows is ahead of the curve in this case - it has no security models and very little protection against a runaway app determined to trash the system. Most (all) other operating systems provide protection in the form of permissions against poorly-written or exploitable apps.
-Ease of programming: without an OS to provide an additional abstraction layer, programming must interface directly to the hardware, a nightmare of excess code that should only need to be written once.
Tiny little embedded systems designed to serve only one purpose might be better off without a true OS. A complex piece of hardware will never operate without a full OS. Think of the complexity that goes into the linux kernel, and think about the fact that only one application could run at any given time without the OS to run them in separate virtual machines.
--nick
That said, this article seems like another peice of flamebait in the "UNIX is still cool/no it's not" war.
The fundamental problem installing programs under windoze is the registry. Windows will never solve this problem as long as the registry exists. Sadlly, the registry is so ingrained that it probably can't be gotten rid of.
Whats wrong with the registry?
The registry tries to do too many things in one place. It contains system preferences, application preferences, system information, and only Satan and Bill Gates know what else. The problem is that it separates information critical to applications from the application and maintains the only copy of that information. DLLs have this problem, too, because they all get dumped into a common system directory. How does windows try to solve the problems created by storing DLLs in a central location? By maintaining reference counts of the DLLs inside the centralized registry! I want to cry.
So, when you move or delete an application, the registry and DLL information, being separate, often do not get updated properly. Especially the shared DLL reference counts. I fear uninstalling on my windows machine more than I fear installing.
Mac OS X has a better solution
Mac operating systems breaks up the type of information that goes into the windows registry into different places. File information is automatically read from the applications and consoldated into the desktop file. Delete an application? OS X detects that through the filesystem and updates the desktop file. Desktop file gets corrupt? Delete it. OS X will create a new one. (just try deleting your registry file)
The power of this is that the OS maintains this information as an index to the real information that resides with the application, rather than trying to be the authority on that information by having the only copy itself.
OS X also handles preferences better. Each application's preferences gets put into a separate file. Therefore, you always know where to find an applications preferences. In addition, each application is required to be able to run even if the preferences are missing. So, you can always delete the preference files. The application will simply make another one.
Mac OS X also has an elegant solution to the DLL problem. Again, they use the same solution. You do NOT put your DLLs into a central spot. (try counting the DLLs in your Windows\System directory.) Instead, it builds an index of them and leaves them with the application. So, when you remove an application directory, you also remove its DLLs.
The de-centralized indexing approach that Mac OS X uses is much better than the centralized authority approach that windows attempts. So, OS X tries not to be the program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application and does try to put the emphasis on the applications as much as it can.
Either this guy is a complete fool, or he was entirely misunderstood. An OS doesn't get in the way of the applications, it facilitates them. It makes it so the application doesn't need to know how to draw every single pixel on the screen to accomplish its task. And really, the last thing I need is more keys on my keyboard. Single click access is certainly not a revolutionary concept. Taking away what people know and giving them an entirely new way of doing things is a flawed idea in itself, getting in the way of progress in precisely the manner which the gentleman seems to think is such a bad idea.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
You have a directory of files with a ".mpa" extension. The extension should be ".mp3". You want to change all the files in one operation. As far as I know, impossible under not only Windows Explorer, but ALSO under UNIX shells! (Scripting as always does not count, only basic shell commands.)
You may argue this is a script, but I think it's basic shell.
And this one you can't refute, although mmv is not that popular nor commonplace:--
If a PC gets cracked, that hits one person.
If a little-known server gets cracked, that hits, say, a few hundred people.
If a megaserver (MSN/.NET, Yahoo) gets cracked... millions of people are screwed. Since popular servers can afford more advertising, they can grow faster, quickly becoming a juicy target for crackers everywhere.
To me, this makes the NC (Non Computer) totally worthless: you pay $500 for access to a server that is outside your control, presumably with monthly charges as well, when you could've gotten a second-hand PC that could kick the crap out of any NC for that same $500. After all, I/O bandwidth is limited... compare 7 SCSI disks shared among 2,000 users to a local EIDE disk.
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
But in a modern OS, the "desktop" or whatever interface of choice you'd like to implement is really just another application, with perhaps two added features:
-
a contract for the desktop application to fulfill (it must be able to open documents, launch programs, make links, and so on) so that it can be reimplemented or replaced
- a class library or framework rich enough to enable desktop/activity/data nugget/component communication, whether it be SOM Workplace Shell classes, COM-based Windows shell, desktop and OLE interfaces, CDE specs, or the set of MacOS desktop interfaces that have been built up over the years. Note that at this level, windowing systems are really just a boring implementation detail. Really, for the most part, what we would strictly call on "OS" is not the interesting thing here.
Although there are some ways an OS could make details like object storage more like whatever the metaphor of the day is. For example, MacOS supports file types and creators, which really frees users from having to respect naming conventions. The Palm OS uses little databases and doesn't even have a Finder feature. The web extends Unix-style paths across the Internet (although I would argue that we've wimped out on real locators for resources that are spec'ed by content identity, not just location).But I digress. As for MacOS X, what's really interesting is Cocoa, and that's already a powerful but unobtrusive framework. Too bad Mr. Raskin didn't address the relation of such frameworks to UI philisophy, where I think I might have actually had a point.
Ah yes, I can see it now. I hit F9 and five-thousand documents suddenly pop open. I don't understand what Raskin's proposing. What interface should we use for dealing with a large number of documents?
I'm talking about an ideal world here ;)
My approach would be to have "3D graphics" index a list of 3D graphics words and if the Word document contained a lot of those words it would guess it was 3D graphics. A neural net could be used to determine categorization with each word's prescence being an input and each output being associated with a category.
The great thing about a truly vocal UI is that if the computer isn't sure (which it never is) it gives you the chance to narrow it down, or correct your input. Full natural language is excellent at this. "No, maybe I read it Thursday."
Anyway, this is all fantasy for now ;)
I didn't pay for my operating system either
I respectfully disagree completely. :-)
Seriously, truly persistent document storage with automatic infinite undo, the ability to play with any version you want, automatic indexing and a built-in relational view of all your other documents...I'd be in heaven. The true value of persistent state isn't just saving a few keystrokes here and there. The big win isn't in the data; it's in the metadata, the linkage, the automatic indexing and all the stuff that is truly tedious to do yourself.
In the olden days, this didn't seem practical, but next year I can probably get a 200 gig hard disk for under $300. Which probably only means more empty disk space unless somebody figures out that it's okay to blow a meg of storage on every text file I ever create if that's what it takes to provide all the real services people want in a file system (or document system). The capacity of that 200 gig disk is convincingly larger than the entire unindexed capacity (in bits) of the human memory that will serve you so conveniently for decades, and may (finally) be big enough to hold the index, too.
Now, lest any of you believe I'm condoning some kind of device for idiot, keep in mind that I've said nothing about the beautiful query language I have in mind. The use of that is what will separate the experts from the novices...
Babar
That makes me laugh ;)
I didn't pay for my operating system either
An exaggerated version might be: the OS user interface is a single screen. It has four, differently coloured buttons on it:
[WORD] [SPREADSHEET] [NET] [OTHER]
Now, that would personally shit me to tears and I would get rid of it as soon as possible - but I could, because I was an expert user. It's only when you want to use the shell or multi-windows that the OS as an application becomes useful, otherwise it's just confusing. Even once you want to use some OS-UI features you mightn't want to use them all.
It's true. If you are a master of the command prompt you have far more verstility and power at your findertips. This is not for everyone. I will note here that, the one problem I have with say an NT system over a *NIX platform is that NT lacks the command prompt versatility. I am often left staring blankly at an NT screen for up top 1 min trying to remember where the little icon was in the Administration window... i would much rather just type 'apachectl restart' (for example).
Mac OS X will now stand some nominal chance of reaping the benfits of open-source development strategies -- strategies that have the largest OS maker in the world wetting their pants. This is "A Good Thing"(TM).
Chuckles here is missing the functional forest for the pretty desktop trees. Pay him no more mind.
Isn't this just OpenDoc on steroids -- as the shell and only way of creating data ? Everything becomes contextual, a document is just a soup of connected objects, and so on. Not that it's a bad idea, I just this that getting the UI to follow along with the user's freeform intentions is really difficult, most people don't really seem to care about this ability anyway. I watched hundreds of developer days being spent on really implementing ActiveX and OLE right at Lotus, but the fact is that most peope I see using Windows applications that are good OLE contains, which could approach this concept (albeit crudely) don't really take advantage of the power of these features.
The folly of evolution and absurd mutation style ideas is that they keep lumbering forward with the idea that life prefers innovation and flexibility to predictability and stability.
Actually, considering what Raskin wants to happen to OSes I'm inclined to think that MS-DOS was headed in just that direction... ;-)
After reading the articles, and reading the responses, my only thought is:
I wish people would figure out that sometimes there is MORE THAN ONE RIGHT ANSWER. Why does it seem everyone reacts with "there can only be one way to do this, and gee, it happens to be the way I prefer things"
Jef is right. Tog is right. the CLI bigots are right. the gnome bigots are right. The kde bigots are right. AOL is right, even.
What's wrong is thinking that any one of those is right to the exclusion of everything else. there's a wonderful advantage to appliance-computers -- for some people, like my mom. there's a great freedom to Linux as a desktop -- but my mom would never touch it.
It can be a floor wax AND a dessert topping. We'll get a lot more done once people figure out there is no One True Way, and quit fighting over which way is the only way. There are lots of right answers. Really.
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome = When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell
This has been tried several times before. Basically he is saying that we need console type systems that come pre-configured and are controlled by the company that sold you the thing. IBM tried it with the PC-Jr. Radio Shack had a PC out in the early days that pop up their own little shell when you turned it on and tried to reign the user into their own little arena.
They all fail for the same reason. Joe Blow gets the thing home and uses it for a week just like IBM et.al. intended. Then he heads over to CompUSA and sees how the $10 calendar program lets him put his own pictures on a calendar. "Why can't my computer do that?" he ask. Then he gets mad at whoever it was that sold him the computer in the first place, and starts looking to buy a real computer.
Computers are complex and get in the way, because people want to do complex things that go in so many different directions that no matter where the OS is it is bound to be in the way eventually.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'm drunk, and I read this thinking 'what does this fucker know!?! I'm a person who hasn't coded anyhing except first year cs shite, and he thinks the new os of my fav computer company is bad? fuck him!' just thought i'd mention that! hahahahahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
For example, a games console does not require you to grovel around in config.sys or whatever. This means that you stick the game in and play it, and stick the next game in and play this.
If you consider the shell as some sort of launcher, you can start different games as if the machine were speficifally configured for it alone. When done, it swaps back the system kernal.
You could then make rooms (computers) where you install different apps together in the same room. If you do lots of office stuff, swapping between wordpro and 1-2-3 and approach, you could cut and paste between them.
Rooms could be made secure, so that you could run your mail client and the browser in its own room, this would not trash your system a la ILOVEYOU.
The idea is that you should be able to test, install and run applications in separate configurations, from the same desktop.
You can add and replace hardware, because each VM would connect to a `sound card', not a SB16 or an AWE64. Your VM seeks a `soundcard', and the OS maps suggests AWE64.
When a device runs as a FS (eg a Zipdrive or a cdrom or a network), this is part of the FS, and the app does not need to deal with drivers for these.
The terminal concept should be supported. An app should be able to run another app, and pull off the data from it. For this, we could have roles. Example, ZIP, RAR, TAR and ARJ are all file archivers. You may want to manage the contents of these from some other different tool, like a file manager, or a folder on the desktop. If there is a certian role for archiver file systems, then the two can talk.
What is needed is not to replace the OS, but realise that the bloat in the OS is due to the OS becomming more a shared library. We need to work on some sort of shared role interface, and demand it. You don't need a big exec file to run RAR, but if the interfaces existed, you could open rar files in File Commander, ZTBold, as directories in 4OS2 (eg cd /a archive.rar), or whatever.
With a shared GUI layer, you could write a game that looks to see if the video on the other end has the grunt, and then start playing it in full screen mode. It basically swaps out the OS and plays with its own config, and swaps the OS shell back in when it's done.
Think differently. Think OS/2.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
It looks to me like a one-man rant, which uses a few quotes and paraphrases from one of the Old Prophets of the community to lend extra credibility.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
>>As for those who say that Internet-distributed apps via Mozilla-XUL or MS-.NET are the future, you are omitting an important human element: Territory. My workstation is my territory; I want to control it's config to suit my tastes, I want to determine its design tradeoffs (e.g. speed v. portability), etc. I would not be comfortable with getting all my apps via the Net no matter the speed, for it would just as weird as living in barracks and getting my toiletries by ration every morning. Wow! There's been something I haven't liked about the MS-.NET idea that's really been irking me. And it's not because it's a MS deal being crammed down people's throats. I think you nailed it with that one paragraph. Territory and toiletries really gives me the impression of communism and a vision of too much control by one company. I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, now I realize it won't work.
The apple is spelled McIntosh. A Mackintosh is either a rain coat or a producer of musical theatre depending on whom you ask. I'm sure Apple Computer used neither spelling in the effort to make something trademarkably misspelled, after the manner of the Prevue Channel, E-Z whatever, and other such tripe.
aaaaaaahahahahahhaha heheehheheeeee ohh boy. that's rich.
Think about PalmOS or NewtonOS. In devices like that, the OS is really distant. With the NewtonOS, you could enter data into any number of 'apps' but the data was in a 'soup' that can be accessed by other 'apps'. Maybe this is what Raskin was talking about?
I drank what? -- Socrates
One thing that the original MacOS (for better or worse) tried to get away from was file-centric computing. The goal was to get a bird's eye view of your data, just pick up the thing you want.
The reason he refers to OS X as a throwback is that you can't get much more file-centric than *nix. While the readership of /. may enjoy finding the fastest way to copy all the files containing string "foo" into folder "bar", to most people that behavior reminds them of those people who drive 70 mph down backstreets in order to reach their destination one minute earlier.
Desktop shortcuts, start menus, apple menus, double-clicks, they're all ways of navigating faster through hierarchical file systems. I think he's mainly trying to point out that better product design could intuit what the user wanted to accomplish, starting with the first thing touched or said.
Think about when you're trying to teach your grandmother how to use email. After some time, the conversation will probably progress to this:
granny: "So I, what's the word, click on the green thing to write email?"
That conversation would probably go a lot faster if you could say "pick up the pen" instead.
One of the reasons the Mac has such a well-loved interface (how many PC interface zealots do you know?) is that it's consistent from app to app. Basically, you buy a new Mac app, you launch it, and you figure it out on the first try.
The other side of this is, there really was only one big app on the Mac - desktop publishing. Everything else is just minor detritus. When other OS's caught up on this app, Apple nearly went under - the only reason they didn't was marketing by you-know-who. And even that still might not work.
The article didn't really say much. It's basically an illustration that out of the specific killer app, none of those Apple folk know jack about computers.
Regarding interfaces on the web and so forth, as things are now no one does it right. They just all copy each other, running back and forth like wildebeests. I hope that eventually someone will actually use some ergonomic correctness based on accurate physiological research and the herd will notice and follow - but not likely.
Oracle and unix guy.
Ask an old fart about the hasci (SP?)keyboard.
Oh wait, Jef Raskin created the Canon Cat.
of course there are plenty of computers that just do what you want and keep out of your way. DVD players, Cell Phones, most new cars, and my watch all have computing power that dwarfs the original Mac. It's just that we don't think of devices that are "transparent" as computers.
"Would such an appliance -- a home browser, word processor, spreadsheet, and game console -- be a popular item that would replace the PC in the household? Wildly so, especially if installing new programs was made simple, such as inserting a disk, selecting its activator key, ejecting the disk and running it, installed on your system until you remove it. "
Sounds like a commodore 64 with quick brown fox.
Actually, if you read The Humane Interface, Raskin talks about a system using his zooming interface concept that was actually done for a hospital database. The ZUI is a strange way of doing things (at least for those of use used to conventional GUIs, let along CLIs) and I'm still not convinced it's definitionally the best approach--but his points are certainly worth thinking about.
The idea that the interface should be "data-centric" rather than "application-centric" strikes me as pretty sound. The browser-as-OS is often derided (including by me), but it's a tentative approach toward that metaphor. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds, when you consider plug-ins: they're effectively transparent applications for handling new types of data. Right now they're just for displaying that data, but it's not too difficult to imagine an interface which allows "creator plugins" as well. If this was developed, you could arrive at a "smart appliance" which was actually useful--it'd be as easy to use as current IAs, but would be nearly as adaptable to new tasks as a current PC.
At the very least, I'd like to see the operating system "get out of the way" more than it does. One of the things that often torques me off about the current MacOS UI is that the "Finder" is presented, effectively, as another application which is always there. When I switch applications with Cmd-Tab I don't want to have all the windows go in the background while it makes the desktop active, and the GUI shouldn't need its own menu bar. (The "one menu bar to rule them all" schtick also torques me off--even though it can mathematically be proven to be a "better target" than a menu bar attached to the top of each application window, the visual reinforcement of what commands go with what window strikes me as an adequate tradeoff. For sick fun, watch an utterly computer-ignorant user floundering around with MacOS when the finder menu bar has taken over even though their AppleWorks document window is the only thing that appears to be on screen.)
Of course, the MacOS kernel torques me off much more than the MacOS UI, so I'm looking forward to MacOS X despite my feelings about Aqua being a step backward in usability engineering. Sigh. :)
There is not really any reason why you can't have an esentially transparent operating system, and still maintain a large degree of flexibility. I hate to bring this up again, but in my experience the best example of how this can be done is the Newton. Instead of having a distinct difference between the operating system and the applications, the line is very blurry.
Much of the software available for it simply works as an extension to the operating system, rather thn as a distinct program. A good example is the email program SimpleMail.. rather then having a separate program to read and write the mail, you can compose the message in the the note pad, then send it using an email address out of your (global) address book. Receiving works the oposite way, and the email address and name of the person who sent you the email is added to your address book, if you don't already have an entry.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Though you still boot to the 'desktop', OS 9.x has a hotkey setup which will open a specific app, file, folder (e.g.- the "Documents" folder), control panel, etc. when you press a predefined F-key. It is setup in the Keyboard control panel. No, this isn't 'obvious' to the new user, but it is in the Help Center which is the first item in the Help menu when you start up. If you search under 'one key' or 'f key', you can find information and instructions on how to open the Keyboard control panel and set the F keys (all with mouse clicks, BTW).
Once apps are running, hitting their F-key again brings them to the front. There are also 2 other ways of switching between running apps.: command+tab cycles through them (just as alt+tab does in Windoze); and the 'Finder Menu' in the upper right corner of the menu bar shows all open applications - clicking on one there brings it to the front. OS 9.1 adds a new menu to the menu bar in the Finder (desktop): Window. It lists all open folders on the desktop when you are in the Finder - clicking on one there brings it to the front.
Does OS X support all of these as well? I would guess so, but haven't used it enough to know....
True.
;-)
I look forward to OS X, since I'm considering working in the print pre-production world. Perhaps I can use bash to control QuarkXPress?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
is that what the world really wants? a simple pad to activate your apps, a disk (cartridge) for a simple install and no real flexability? I can see my grandma or mother using it, but me, my father, my sisters, or really anyone whos not "afraid" of that off white box would disregard it as another applience. I really hope this is not the future of computers.
#include sig.h
Doesn't this remind anyone of the Amiga?
I find it annoying there both the /. headline and the original article's headline focus on MacOS X when the article is clearly about OS's & interfaces in general (though brought up in context of MacOS X.) It would have been more honestly headlined as "Former MacOS developer wishes OS's would fade into background".
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Storing files sensibly is a problem for many people ;) Anyway, it might not even be a stored file - it might be a file you loaded from an FTP site. I'm always losing pages in my web browser, and when I browse a lot it's a bitch tracking through the history to find the one page I want.
And the problem with a CLI versus a natural-language input is that the CLI forces the person to think like the machine [it's easy for us, we know how the OS *works*] whereas the NL stuff forces the machine to think like the person. In an ideal world, I prefer the latter.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
Hell, install your programs on bootable DOS 3.3 floppies, and have them autoexec to launch your own damn app, Jeff..
... and that way - be it an "application" - whatever the hell that means - is the Operating System, stupid.
/.ers) could tell you the name of it because it was so useless.
Raskin... shut up.
How in the hell do you choose what you want to do on your computer? Hitting the keyboard? That sounds like how a 4 year old child uses a computer.. it just starts batting the keyboard. That is not a useful way to get things accomplished, and i pray we can ask more of the user than cavemen-like antics to operate their machine.
And i know that this doesn't track with Raskin, but many people want to do more than word processing or drawing on their Koala Pads. But in Raskin's mind.. that's all anyone does. And never more than one at a time.
And however you go between the two apps, its going to have to have some kind of means by which to separate the two applications.. else your 3D models would get all mixed up with your emails.. and that means will ALWAYS be an Operating System...
For Godzakes... even Palm has an OS.. which has a UI, which you have to go to choose what app you want to run.
Unless he wants every keyboard to have a button for every possible app your going to install, then you're going to have to have a way to choose what to do via software..
And while i'm talking about it.. a buddy of mine at Apple got to see Raskin's post-apple project - and it was basically a pice of shit, useless overpriced Casio-pocket organizer.
His big chance to poke his finger in Apple's eye, and not 1 in 1000 people (okay, 1 in 10
There will always be OSes.. they will just get better. That persuit is being taken on by Apple, Microsoft, the Open Source community, Be, and others... and either you're trying to be part of the solution..
or just a has-been hack whiner who's not doing anything to put up...
so i'd ask him to shut up.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Brilliant! I agree, we should move to direct apps.
Hmm...but I want to run more than one...hey wait a minute, I have a great idea! Let's get rid of the OS and just make an app. We'll have the app hold a bunch of shared files, and then we can fiddle with it so it allows multiple instances of one program. No wait, let's make it so we can run a bunch of different apps at once and change between them. And let's make our app "special" so that if one of the mini-apps breaks, the big app can just kill it without the mini-app taking out the whole system. Man, this is going to be GREAT!
Oh yeah, that app would be an, uh, OPERATING SYSTEM. Oops.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Oh, I think he'll have to be patient for a lot longer than 2-3 years. Look how long Windows took to evolve into something useable (and no, I don't consider 3.x useable). Look at the relatively slow pace of GUI advancement in the Linux world. Considering the relative simplicity of creating a decent _local_ app compared to making a fully functional, useful, and useable distributed app, I think it'll be far longer than 2-3 years before the types of wonders you describe will be at a point where they'll appeal to the average Joe.
---
Simply put -- the incredible variety of software out there means users can tailor their computer's capabilities to fit their needs. That fact is what makes the PC fundamentally revolutionary:
In the days of mainframes, only large corporations and research universities had access to computing power. With the PC revolution, that power was put into Joe Public's hands. This radical democratization of data processing meant that ordinary citizens could harness heretofore unheard-of computing power to do whatever they wanted. Having this kind of choice is a fundamental democratic principle -- it's YOUR computer, YOU decide what it does. And no company can force a particular capability (or lack thereof) down your throat.
(I need not point out that Free Software only carries these principals to their ultimate and logical conclusion)
So, being able to decide what programs to run, what peripherals to attach, etc. is fundamental to computing in a democratic society, right? Well, Raskin's suggestions seem to fly in the face of that. Would your "computer(tm)" come preconfigured with "Word Processor(tm)" and "Web Browser(tm)" and whatever else the vendor deemed saleable, giving the end user no choice over software at all? Would the user still purchase/download/write software and then be subjected to a long and drawn-out but "intuitive" configuration process?
Those sound like horrible options. A computer, like any other tool, requires a certain amount of learning to be able to use. That's a fact, and users must accept it. Would you buy a car with no steering wheel, just a set of buttons that said "supermarket" and "grandma's house"? Of course not. But with some instruction and a fair bit of practice, most people become proficient drivers fairly quickly. They won't win a NASCAR race, but they can get to the supermarket or Grandma's house on their own. And Apple proved that the same principle could apply to computers: you still have to learn how to use them, but given a well-designed and intuitive OS you can achieve a working level of proficiency quickly, without much difficulty.
The best OS-alternative I've heard of is the web-appliance-type strategy, where the browser is the OS and every app runs in a JVM. But such things have been tried, and have almost universally failed. Perhaps their time has not yet come; personally, though, I'll stick with OS X on a G4.
- "Raskin goes on to illustrate that a computer should be as easy to use as to start typing on a keyboard to open a word processor -- with no lost keystrokes, or to put a stylus to a tablet and start drawing in a graphics app."
This is all very nice and good, but what if you wanted to use a spreadsheet instead? Not everyone wants to only use a word processor. You have to decide what you're going to do mentally, then tell the computer "I'd like to do this now." Just because I start typing numbers doesn't mean I want to create a spreadsheet, but then again typing words doesn't mean that I'm continuing with my novel - I could be typing the headings for my spreadsheet.- "The idea of walking up to a PC in sleep mode and hitting a button, which would instantly activate a specific app, is compelling. The OS would manage all the applications in the background. If you wanted to switch apps, you hit another hot key. Work files could be stored in yet another "button." Interactivity between the apps could be facilitated the same way they are now, with a GUI shell, but without the preponderance of icons, start menus and switchers, and without the tedious effort of installing apps via the GUI or customizing your environment."
Okay, so now I need a keyboard which has an extra 20 buttons for the apps that I want to be able to access. Great. Saving state on exit is a good idea, but that can already be done. You may have already seen it - it's the 'document changed; save?' dialog box.You're not giving anyone more usability through this. You're giving people something close to PalmOS on a computer, which a few might like, but many would disapprove of. What happens when I want to have two spreadsheets open? do I have two of my keyboard buttons allocated now, or is this even possible? Multitasking on a user level gets thrown out the window with a system like this, and that's a loss in functionality.
- "'One big mistake is the idea of an operating system... It does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary'"
This is where I laughed the most. The OS doesn't "get in the way", it provides basic services that all applications need. The whole reason that Windows or Linux or the BSDs (even PalmOS is big when you consider the total amount of storage available to the devices) are big is that they don't just act as system kernel, but they come bundled with tons of standardised libraries that make your life as an app writer easier. Probably the most dumb thing I've ever seen someone in the industry say.I wouldn't be following these guidelines too much if I was a system designer.
Sounds like a world just like the web, where each page has its own interface. Sure, you click on links... but that is about all that remains constant.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
This guy has a warped idea of what an OS is. An operating system is many things, but an OS is NEVER transparent.
I see my OS and the successes/failures of it's design anytime I try to do something. It doesn't matter whether the OS is the ghastly Windows or the Beautiful BeOS. The all-encompassing GNU/Linux or the embedded QNX.
Let's just take one function of a modern OS as an example: Opening a file with an application.
In Windows, you double-click on a file to open it. It opens it with the one and only default application. If you want to open it with another app (say to view instead of edit it), it's a bit of a pain. If there is no default app and you double-click, you are faced with guessing what app should be the default app. If you guessed wrong, you're file associations are messed up and sometimes it can be difficult to fix.
This is a definite short-coming of the OS.
In MacOS, the default application is on a per-file basis. whichever app last touched the file is the default app. This works great as long as I want to do the default task with the file. ie Always edit or always view. I don't want to start up Photoshop to view an image. This also is a short-coming of the OS.
Linux doesn't have any one way to handle this. each window manager takes a slightly different tack, and if you are at the CLI, you are on you're own for picking the correct app for a file.
In BeOS, there are fourlevels at which an app can register itself for a filetype. An app can be the default app. an app can register that it can interact with the file well. an app can register that it can interact with the file to some extent, and an app can register that it cannot handle that file-type. The default app will be used on double-click. on a right-click (or hold-click), a context menu comes up. At the top is the default app. then come all the apps that can handle the file well, then those that can handle it so-so. This is the most intelligent way I have ever seen.
I don't know how this guy would implement this with a transparent OS? would you have an app to open an app? and how is that different from having the OS perform this function.
This is just a small example of why an OS is not transparent. There are many more.
Maybe this guy is getting at this from the average computer user's point of view. These guys don't even know what an OS is. They think that windows is an app that lets you use you're apps.
Interesting idea. A pointer (optical?) that would click when you tapped it, etc.? Or perhaps one worn on the finger tip (width - 3/4" (the finger pad), length about 1" (tip to first joint)) - Basically a reverse trackpad worn on the finger tip.
"It's UNIX, it's backwards." Does that mean it should be XINU, and we've been wrong all along?
batwood@hactar:~$ cat /usr/share/games/fortunes/* | grep "functions of a computer" -A 1 -B 1
Operating-system software is the program that orchestrates all the basic functions of a computer.
- The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 15, 1987, page 40
Can anyone really say that operating systems are obsolete? Think about it. Computers are built on abstraction - otherwise, we'd all be writing assembly and using Emacs. The OS is the next logical step beyond the programming language. It's what makes programs usable - they're all guaranteed to work based on a set of rules, rules defined by the OS! Without that guarantee, there would be no telling how to work a given program
Raskin seems to think of a computer as a sort of glorified calculator, or a VCR. After all, it's just a tool, with specific functions, right?
Wrong. The guiding principle behind computer design has been that the program is the data. Without operating systems that expand our ideas of what the "functions of a computer" are, the digital age would be at an end. It is crucially important for computers to be able to define their own behavior, sometimes dynamically - To put it in technical terms, "programming" the computer.
Computers are not like VCR's or calculators. You can't "hack" VCR's. You can't run a worldwide dynamic growing network of calculators. This view may have been valid 20 years ago, but it is clear that now and in the future, the proper base level of abstraction for end-user and developer work is the Operating System.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
And with a few simple presses on the arrow keys, you can start tetris and already have one block in the lower left corner. Or will it start sokoban? And God forbid if you even dare to touch your mouse, because suddenly you're in the middle of a quake deathmatch, no matter if the boss is looking at your screen at the time or not.
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
Oh, and I've been doing this since 1998 on backwards Unix systems.
If he wants a device that does everything from word processing to emailing to gaming, he's going to have to settle on an OS to handle managing these tasks. His idea of a transparent OS has no merit when applied to the current PC paradigm, the paradigm to which he seems to subscribe.
We've had devices where one could sit down and start typing with no loss of keystrokes, they are called typewriters. We've had drafting devices that allowed one to sit down and draft without an OS getting in the way, they are called drafting boards and pencils.
The device that comes closest to an all-purpose device that Raskin is intimating is a game console. However, to switch between games (or theoretically applications) we still need to pop open the machine to swap media. Essentially the OS has been moved out of the machine into the user's brain. However, the device ceases to be an all-purpose device once an application is selected. How would I be able to check email while playing Tekken Tag? Without an OS to handle multiple programs simultaneously, to handle peripheral control, and to handle booting, I am SOL.
If he is interested in devices that do one job really well (toaster, lightswitch) then he'll have to settle for a plethora of devices tailored for a specific task. If he wants a transparent OS that allows him to run multiple programs on his PC, he'll have to sell his snakeoil somewhere else.
It's one thing to make an OS as non-intrusive as possible, but it's a whole different proposition to remove any semblance of an OS altogether.
Dancin Santa
Nothing could be more true. We spend all this time fighting about what OS is the best when we should be praying for the demise of the operating system altogether. Applications are what you buy a computer for -- for the things it will do for you. For me to even know what operating system my computer runs is a testament to how far we have yet to go in making computers usable. The OS is a necessary evil standing between you and your work...
---
Tell me that I need to produce a 50-page formatted report by tomorrow, and I'll take the RedHat CD so I can have a decent LaTeX platform. :)
His crime was referring in an offhand way to OS X as a "throwback" during a recent interview, saying "Look at OS X, that Apple's coming out with: everybody who works on it says it's a throwback to the 1970s in terms of structure. It's UNIX, it's backwards."
Then he proves that he has lost his mind: Raskin goes on to illustrate that a computer should be as easy to use as to start typing on a keyboard to open a word processor -- with no lost keystrokes, or to put a stylus to a tablet and start drawing in a graphics app.
I just have to laugh. Not even my wife can read my mind like that. Don't you just hate that paperclip? If I were stable and precictable it might work, but I'm not.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think you get his idea because you said "there is no app to launch". What if most everything was this way?
Its so ironic that people always spell words like 'accurate' wrong on forums.
:)
The idea of walking up to a PC in sleep mode and hitting a button, which would instantly activate a specific app, is compelling.
...explorer.exe perhaps?
The OS would manage all the applications in the background. If you wanted to switch apps, you hit another hot key.
Like alt/tab?
Work files could be stored in yet another "button."
Or even better... a folder ala "My Documents"
Is it just me or does it sound like this genius is trying to invent an even worse windows.
Interactivity between the apps could be facilitated the same way they are now, with a GUI shell, but without the preponderance of icons, start menus and switchers, and without the tedious effort of installing apps via the GUI or customizing your environment.
This is the most frightening part. Re-read that again ...without the tedious effort of installing apps via the GUI or customizing your environment. He thinks it is tedious that I like to have my icons ordered in reverse alpahbetical order on the right hand side of the desktop. His dream OS will prevent me from such luxuries (insanities?)? How sad.
"One big mistake is the idea of an operating system ... [which] is the program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application. It does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary," Raskin reportedly said.
I'll say one thing, if this guy gets his way and there are no more operating systems. And all we must do to launch an app is 'press a button' (yes this idea was mentioned in the article) we're going to need mamoth keyboards.
What about the foo who did it all using keyboard shortcuts? It takes me forever and a day to memorize keyboard shortcuts; longer than it takes me to memorize command-line tools.
:-)
Quite frankly, I do graphic design, and I would kill for a CLI on a Mac. I use Linux at home.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
How are you measuring ease?
The linux method takes 17 keystrokes and doesn't achieve the same result as the mac method. Note, step 1 in the mac method, double click folder. This is the equivalent of doing a cd directoryname
So here you are up to three steps and a variable number of key presses. since mac file names are limited to 32 characters, let's take the middle value of 16. I'm also assuming that you don't have to type in a full pathname, just a relative one (fair I think).
After correcting your error, the linux method takes 37 keystrokes.
The mac method you critique takes four mouse-clicks and 3 modifier key using key presses. Let's count command as separate and call it 6 keystrokes.
So Linux=37 keystrokes
Mac=6 keystrokes (all doable with one hand) and 4 mouse clicks.
Linux doesn't look to be too efficient, especially with people who don't type too fast. It's only advantage is redirection of output to a file doesn't require opening a program. But what if someone were to take mac os X and hack the GUI so that outputting the clipboard to a file was a keystroke. You would end up with
Linux=37 keystrokes
Mac OS X=8 keystrokes
I don't doubt that this capability will be in Mac OS X very quickly.
DB
Mac OS X and the Computing Paradigm.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could just get what we've got working properly as advertised before we decide to drop it all for something new?
The world has yet to see a truly modern, general purpose, consumer OS.
Microsoft itself is now bagging Windows 9x and NT and giving us the statistical proof they are crap in order to sell Windows 2000, and while Mac OS 9.1 is still the best general purpose consumer OS on offer, it is falling apart at the seams.
I just got my hands on a copy of Toast Titanium 5.0b6 which lets Mac users burn CDs in the background for the first time. What a blast!
So imagine how nice it would be if Apple could actually use freeBSD to make the first decent OS of the millennium for everyone else.
What a concept: an OS the can be as geek-ified with arcane command line terminals as you like, but GUI-fied as only Apple can do for the rest of us.
Imagine if it REALLY didn't crash, ever. Really!
Imagine if it REALLY did boot in 5 seconds. That's 1/12 of a minute in real time, not some theoretical, marketing space/time continuum.
Imagine if it REALLY was easy to use, even for grandma. My grandma, who has never won a noble peace prize for computing.
Imagine if it REALLY was as powerful as the best of *nix in the hands of geeks at the same time.
Then we could all take stock of the situation and make any decisions about changing the computing paradigm from an informed basis.
The idea of the computer as the digital hub of all things digital, e.g.:
DVDs,
HiFi stereo,
digital movie editing,
digital type/web design and publishing,
game playing,
networking,
communications etc. etc..
is VERY COMPELLING.
There is no way that this could ever be achieved with 1000 individual gadgets. I like my 15.2" and my 17" screens too much. The TV's resolution just isn't high enough and I like to veg-out in front of it, not think too hard. I don't own a Palm; what's the point? I just take my new Titanium PowerBook 500 MHz G4 with me and I can do it all wherever I want. I don't want ANOTHER dumb console to stuff into my already overcrowded TV cabinet, and certainly NOT a cut-down PC from Microsoft! I have enough trouble remembering not to leave my Ericsson T-28s around. I agree with Mr Dell on this front; where are all of the hand held devices that will change the world?
Let's just see if Apple, with the help of freeBSD, has the ability as well as the vision to realise the goal of a general purpose OS that runs a digital hub reliably, easily, creatively and in as aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable manner as possible.
Here's hoping with all major appendages crossed.
it's not without some good points. I'm not gonna pull quotes out but the part where he says people want a computer that can turn on and off like a lamp (my words, not his) and do very specific things like word processing, internet browsing and video gaming is right on. They need to be done well enough such that people use it instead of learn it.
People like my mom would love computers if the operating system and by extension the apps didn't have a high learning curve. A good example is my TiVo. Once I gave her the DVD menu metaphor she started "getting it". I don't know if it qualifies as an app, an OS or both but it works really well for what it does.
One thing I feel he left out is that (IMO) computers need to come out of the computer room and make their way into the living room. I'm talkin connected to your TV (+cable) and stereo and then distributed to the rest of the house. A terminal in each room. Then you can use biometrics instead of keys and voice command instead of remotes. Just picture it, you could say "Clap Off!" instead of actually clapping off! wow
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
That IS an excellent point.
If I think about it, I could run my entire system from 7 years ago solely in RAM. I had a 200 meg hd, ran DOS/Win3.1 and WP DOS. On today's system, that would totally kick ass.
Though the software to enable the things he's talking about would still not fit in the 256 meg of RAM I have today.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You said: q# The mouse knows one word with modifier states. That word is "click." it can be modified with "right-", "double-" "middle-" or even "scroll-wheel". #
You have obviously never used high-end CAD or modelling software. In a typical CAD app, R-drag (that's the letter R on the keyboard) will rotate an object. S-drag (letter S) will scale it.
Even in GIMP, shift, control, and alt affect the meaning of a drag. Further, *position is important* - that is, shift-drag is different from drag-shift, which is different from ctrl-drag-(let go of ctrl)-shift. That's even more like a natural language (other than Latin)...
You continued:
q# But let's get forward thinking-- voice-controlled (and I mean, good voice controlled, not viavoice or dragon from two years ago) and gesture oriented. #
With voice control, you input text. If you wish to count inflection, you probably have 2 more bits (4 more choices) of reliably detectable input. Well, Chinese has 4 inflections, and I'm not sure a computer, especially with any kind of ambient noise, could pick up more. Now, with typing, you have shift, ctrl, alt, and "95" (which is what I call the little flying window button. I'm ignoring the "menu button", which is just a synonym for right-click). Unlike inflections, these can be *combined*, giving 16 "inflections". Further, these are on the letter level, rather than the word level. Clearly, keyboards give you more power than voice, not less.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
You must be using a different Windows than I am. In my experience, Win9x, NT4, Windows 2000, and Whistler ALL have a myriad of file browser boxes which they pop up for different events. There's the "tree only" view, the "16 bit styley" view (which sometimes has LFNs, and sometimes doesn't; On Win2k and Whistler, at least, it always does) and then there's the "modern age" file dialog. There's also a really crappy file dialog I see in VB apps a lot.
Yes, MacOS has a variety of different file dialogs. However, they tend to be more alike than the different file dialogs one sees even on the very latest version of Windows, by which I mean the Whistler Beta (which should probably be considered alpha.)
--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So according to the author, to keep the OS from being "something standing between you and whatever you want to do" you have to prevent users from being able to customize it. Does that make any sense?
Jeff Raskin's point was NOT:
:}
it's UNIX, it's backward.
his point IS:
It's an operating system, the paradigm for which is backwards.
Computers, according to Raskin, should operate more like appliances. Reliably and simply.
Start typing at the keyboard, and it's a document.
start doodling at the tablet, and it's a graphics file. Make the computer as simple as a consumer television.
Linguists have talked about this for some time-
The computer interface consists of a mouse and keyboard.
The mouse knows one word with modifier states. That word is "click." it can be modified with "right-", "double-" "middle-" or even "scroll-wheel"
The keyboard is great, but slow, and the computer command line understands words, but usually requires two and three letter commands that need to be learnt, like a new language.
The concept of an OS (cli or gui) is backwards and outdated for most things. It's very powerful, very functional, and even pretty when skinned with jelly-beans.
But let's get forward thinking-- voice-controlled (and I mean, good voice controlled, not viavoice or dragon from two years ago) and gesture oriented.
command line was pioneering in 1968 or 9.
the mouse was incredible when Engelbart thought of it.
Click and Drag was cool at PARC and Apple.
Microsoft was innovative when they figured out how to market the masses to death, club OEMs into submission and buy up any product that was halfway decent.
All of these things are old news. Yes they're being improved upon, but the improvements are EVOLUTIONARY.
Raskin is interested in the REVOLUTIONARY.
So am I.
I'd like to ditch my keyboard and mouse, put on two gauntlets and a headset mic, and gesture and speak to my computer. Oh, and make the gauntlets and headset mic use bluetooth-- I like to walk around my office when I'm dictating.
This comment is copyright of ME. using this comment without my permission is violating my ownership rights.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
He's obviously just bitter that his team couldn't develop system software that doesn't crash everytime you sneeze, and whose basic architecture could be preserved as hardware improves.
Consider that UNIX started on machines less powerful than the original Mac. The Mac OS came and went, UNIX is still here.
All you need to use VNC is a browser with a Java VM and network access.
That is the most valuable point I got out of the article. :P
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Bass-ackwards. Just think of it; the average soccer mom using the same operating system as you, the techno-geek? I'd be scared too; what if she types in "rm -rf" in a terminal window? Eeek.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
imho apple is already experimenting with this. the new itunes software contains a single window that does everything, with connections to mp3 players occuring transparently in the background. idvd and quicktime are the same. it seems apple is moving its consumer apps to one gigantic window that require no interaction with the os or other apps
pro apps continues to add multiple windows and palettes, and require interaction with other apps
i think there is room for both, depending on skill level and use. the computer is general enough that interactions with other apps will continue to be useful, though for simpler use it can simulate a single device
scroll this article down to: the plot thickens
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
Actually there's no good reason why if I pointed my mouse at a bit of unused screen real estate and started typing the OS shouldn't begin capturing it into a buffer. It wouldn't be hard for the OS to ask after I stopped typing a line or two if this was intended as a document or a folder or other choices appropriate in the context. If I continued typing the OS could after a paragraph or two safely morph my buffer into a word-processing document.
This sort of trivial note-taking is common to all of us, it would make sense for an OS to support it. It doesn't take a lot in the way of an expert system/rudimentary AI to respond fairly accurately to many of the actions we now do explicitly.
That's pretty much Raskin's point usually - machines that work for us, not us working for them. He feels we shouldn't be required to learn elaborate methodologies to perform simple tasks even if they become second nature after awhile and are completely logical (in retrospect.) We shouldn't have to learn so much about how our computers work just to get them to work.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Frankly, my mom, who (until quite recently) used AppleWorks on her Apple ][e for all her writing, is an example of someone who (again, until recently) fit into this category. So, if stability is what the author wants, there are plenty of ways to make your computer not change--don't change your computer! Stick with what works!
As a geek, I enjoy the revolutionary aspect of a computer, which allows me the opportunity on one machine to do innumerable activities. This doesn't mean that I will stop using those other tools which are honed to a specific end, such as my 60-year-old Remington typewriter, or a power drill. On the other hand, I don't want to have a separate appliance for each thing for which I use my computer! The multi-purpose workstation is perhaps a way of curbing appliance sprawl.
With the exception of the interrupt switch, the Mac doesn't have a terminal because it doesn't *need* one. A CLI is the least intuitive interface known to man, expecially due to the wide variety of command structures. With a CLI, you have to deal with DOS, SH, TCSH, POSIX, whatever command structure- switch from a DOS box to a QNX or Sparq or UNIX box and you're *LOST*. GUIs are universal point and click- the fundaments operate exactly the same in MacOS, Windows, KDE, GNOME, IRIX, etceteras- the only thing the user has to learn is which widgets do what and which are the hotkeys.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's a fuckload easier than a command prompt can ever hope to be.
Challenge: Every Mac running system 7.6 or better can do this. Can *your* OS?
==
Say you have a directory with two subdirectories. The first contains, say, 12 files, and the second, say, 14. You want to place 25 of these 26 files in a new folder on another disk in a *single file transfer* AND move the files to another location on the disk of origin *at the SAME time*.
==
Name me ONE other OS that can do this FROM THE GUI, prove it, email me your address and I'll mail you a cookie.
Carousel is a lie!
This is from the guy who thought the 128k Mac was too open. Does anybody here remember Rankin's baby, the Cannon Cat? When it was released, IIRC, he was widely interviewed and stated strongly that he had had to compromise on the Mac because Jobs wanted a mouse and the ability to load programs. Jeff knew that people were just buying Macs to run MacWrite and that they needed it in ROM. His design lost the mouse an put lots of extra keys on the keyboard so the user could could bold, underline, etc. without removing his hands from the keyboard. The printer was built in and it did have a floppy but you could only use it to save and exchange documents that could be read by other Cats. It was annouced with a big advertizing campaign and Cannon probably sold 5 of the things. You can loose money by underestimating the intellegence of the public.
It dies only because of the implementation-
Instead of saying "file menu, save" the user should have only had to say "save" or "save as"
The problem with those voice command systems is, they were grafted onto the existing GUI.
A true voice command system would have a different Human Interface Design guide.
The mouse knows one word, with modifiers.
The word is "click", and "right" "middle "double" "left" and "scroll" modify it.
The keyboard is fine and well, but I can speak faster than I can type, spell better when I speak, and don't suffer from wrist strain near as much.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
In the modern world the UI (be it a CLI or a GUI) is part of the OS. So if you get rid of the OS, you get rid of the the UI.
By your way of thinking, Linux would consist of nothing but the kernel.
-- Brian
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
youre right, i forgot about that. in fact, you dont even have to hit burn disc, if you eject the disc it burns it for you
it is the os that does this stuff. so this is what raskin is talking about
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
I happen to like the fact that I have a huge monsterous piece of complexity between me and my programs. It lets me do those shockingly amazing things like avoid crashing the whole computer and having to reboot when one program crashes, or being able to run multiple programs at the same time, or having that universal buffer between my hardware and software, or being able to have one consistent mechanism for resource utilization and sharing.
I'm sure good ol' Mr. Raskin thinks he's being all deep and futuristic with us, when in fact he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. OS's as we know them now are here to stay, they have too many advantages to be thrown away.
Wow...
Here's the breakdown --
ls >file.txt
ls -> list directory
>file.txt -> universal capture to file or device
Now... you learn some words representing
concepts (in shorthand for typing efficiency)
and can then apply these concepts to other
problems. Symbolic reasoning.
An example will suffice. If a unix system has
a sorted list of words available (and they do),
and you didn't have a command to check the
spelling of your document, you can (with a
bit of thought) synthesize a shell command
to accomplish the spell check.
How would you accomplish this on a Mac?
No, the command line is NOT for people who
are incapable of (1) reasoning and (2) cannot
learn another symbolic language.
Too bad. Life isn't fair. And I admit that
graphics do have a place. It's limited though.
Did you post your message in icons? Give it
a try. Put your money where your mouth is.
My contention is that people have developed
symbolic language for a damn good reason, and
that it IS superior to hieroglyphics. No, it
isn't "transparent" and learning to READ and
WRITE IS DIFFICULT. It pays off, so give it
a try.
ls >file.txt
Simple, beautiful. Now, to print a directory
listing...
ls | lp
and to sort it (well, it isn't needed, but lets
throw in the example)
ls | sort
and to find letters to Jack, in this or any
subfolder, by content
grep "Dear Jack" `find . -type f`
Yes, you WILL have to LEARN this. If you don't
want to bother, then just let it go.
Ratboy666
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
This sort of trivial note-taking is common to all of us, it would make sense for an OS to support it.
I don't know what kind of notes you take, but I usually pick up my pad of paper and start taking notes on IT. I don't just start writing on the wall.
Q.
Bruce Tognazzini is a really, really bad source for information. Anything he says should be taken with a huge, industrial sized grain of salt. He's got a history of writing articles on subjects he clearly does not understand. Witness his article How Programmers Stole the Web, in which he argues that the web has been ruined because it is not programmed in his favorite language, BASIC!! It's also worth mentioning that the Mac's user interface was developed before he created the user interface group at Apple, and that his entire approach to UI criticism amounts to little more than "The original Mac interface rules, everything different sucks". I know that UI design is hardly an exact science, but this guy treats his most subjective opinions as if they are universal laws. I make it a point not to take a single thing he says seriously.
Ideally, Jeff's correct. The idea of the computer, and at this point, the computer itself, *do* get in the way of performing computer-aided tasks. Realistically, an OS has been proven necessary for the "look and feel" reason stated above, as well as for the standardization it provides. (treading perilously close to a pro-MS stance here )
Personally, I would like to think that the OS will go away someday, or at the very least become transparent to the average user. If the power user wants to endlessly tweak widgets, go ahead! But if an ordinary mortal wants to write a paper or plot a graph, they really shouldn't be expected to waste time fidgeting with an extra interface. Having to learn one's way around an OS (and the programs that try to conform to the OS) sets the bar a little high for people who attempt to perform already complicated operations in a digital format. [Anyone remember those little command-line jobs that used to be the staple of an engineering/technical education? (PSpice, MATLAB, etc.)]
"I want a table. What do I do?" asked the customer.
"We have many kinds of tables here, you might want to come browse the showroom," replied the man who worked at the furniture store.
"No, I mean, what do I do?" asked the customer again.
Somewhat confused, the man who worked at the furniture store replied, "To get here, all you have to do it take the first exit off the turnpike..."
"No, you don't understand," insisted the customer. "There is a Toyota Celica in my driveway. The keys are in my hand. What do I do?"
The reply of the man who worked at the furniture store has been lost to history, but the customer's response is clearly remembered:
"All I want is a table! Why do I have to know how to drive a car? Why does this have to be so hard?"
The same tale re-enacts itself every day, whenever someone tries to accomplish something with the use of a computer.
The novice whines that he does not know how to use a mouse. The fool masters the computer instead of getting his work done. The wise man watches the fish in the stream.
I can't believe the guy attributes the success of the Palm Pilot vs the PC as being due to the transparency of the former's OS.
Apples... oranges.
A palm pilot is a very specific device that is normally only used for several simple applications: taking notes, scheduling, and keeping contact info.
As soon as you start adding tons of varied applications to your Palm Pilot, you begin to find that its specialized interface & transparent OS are a hindrance. You begin to wish that you had a better way to organize your files or add hardware. If you could keep adding all of that functionality back in there, guess what you'd have... a PC.
Everyone is always looking to topple the PC with bullshit articles and arguments like Raskin's. They think that just complaining about it is going to inspire the industry to create something new and different that will change everything. For once, I'd like to see one of these pundits put forth a legitimate idea for the future of computing that might obsolete the PC - and no, web phones, PDA's, and Internet-saavy refrigerators don't count.
The PC is going to be with us a long time, no matter how soon guys like Raskin plead for its death.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Yes, some CP/M machines lacked escape sequences as well, but none of them had any serious market share. Unix relied on escape sequences, and they were finnally standardized on the VT220, though some horrible cruft from the non-matching escape sequeces still lives on in stuff like termcap. But that horror is nothing compared to trying to make programs portable when there are *no* escape sequences.
sorry someone had to do it! ;-)
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
True. But I think he's arguing that the current state of affairs in computing today is that an end user is exposed to far more details of the internals of their systems then they need to be. Imagine that your car needed different transmissions to deal with different operating conditions; and that the driver was expected to know which transmission was appropriate in a particular set of operating conditions, and swap them out as appropriate. That's more or less the current state of affairs with PCs and device drivers - when the state of the world changes (new video card, new network card, etc.) all too often, the end user needs to understand that they need to swap out the transmission for a new one.
It's not really a great analogy. Cars are not multi-purpose devices the same way that computers are, and automotive technologies have been refined and improved on by tens of thousands of people over the course of the last century. Still, you would think that the presence of a well-designed OS would be as transparent to a user as a transmission is to a driver. By that criteria, modern OS's are getting there, but still have a way to go before they have the same level of transparency to the casual user.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I love this line: "Jef Raskin, has recently found himself out of favor in the Mac community, a group that normally includes him with the other apostles that surround the legend of Apple Computer."
As someone who reads just about all the Mac sites on a daily (if not hourly) basis, I have NEVER heard Raskin's opinions on OS X before, or heard any site report on his opinions, comment on his opinions, or even acknoledge that he has an opinion on Mac OS X.
Of course, someone will argue that this uniform lack of interest in Raskin's opinions is PROOF that he's out of favor. That someone would be a loony.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
When I say ease of use I mean obviousness - no offense, but ls> is so arcane I know I'd refer to the manual the first twenty or thirty times I did this just to make sure I wasn't accidently typing some other extremely arcane command in.
:)
"ls" is on page 24 of Unix for Dummies, the same page that reminds you to press Enter at the end of any command line. The > redirector is on page 62, the page after the section where it tells you what a directory is and how to create one.
you're command seemed fairly obscure and virtually useless for most people, so I have the feeling they would read the manual straight through to find your command; whereas anybody who's worked in Text Editors on a Mac knows all about cutting and pasting.
Same for Unix...anyone who's spent half an hour learning how to use *nix knows how to redirect output using ">". It's just a matter of preference, and using what you know. Like I said in my original post, to each his own. I happen to prefer the flexibility of the command line. I upgraded an XFree86 installation with a single command line once, complete with making a compressed archive containing every single file in the old distribution in case I wanted to go back to the old version. Granted, that single command line wrapped into 4 lines of text, but still, I typed it, walked away, came back, and it was done. Non-destructive upgrade - a concept I only wish Microsoft would grasp. Not to mention the fact I didn't have to click "Next" 50 times, or select 20 radio buttons and check boxes. Some people may prefer the faster learning curve of Winders, and Mr. Gates will be happy to take their $129.95 and give them a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revokable, license to use a single copy on one machine, and both parties will hopefully live happily ever after. Just because I prefer a 68 Camaro with a big-block, a 4-speed and no AC (don't wanna spend that 10hp to turn the compressor belt, I can roll down the window and go fast), doesn't mean that all cars should be 67 Camaros with big blocks, 4-speeds and no AC. Maybe that's why the Honda Civic sells so well, especially with the automatic transmission
Folder, singular. No manuevering
You keep all your files in one folder? If I did that with the CAD files at work, every designer would spend half his day looking for the file he wants to edit, and it would take 10 minutes just to pull up a listing of all the files. We have something like 800 jobs on the server, each with 10-50 AutoCAD drawings. That would be an administration nightmare if not for hierarchial directory structure (/mnt/cad/001543/mech/floor2/hvac.dwg for example).
How long did it take to learn that command?
Maybe 5-10 minutes after I first saw a Unix login prompt, or about 1/30th as long as it took me to remember that Control-V was the hotkey combination for Paste in Word for Windows without having to click the Edit menu to see it first...
It's just a matter of what you're used to, I suppose.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
M$ Press once published an interesting book with that title, and Raskin's interview in it was almost the same screed as he's making now. Funny how the book was published in 1986. Jef's just moving right along, isn't he ? Actually, he's a brilliant man. Jaron Lanier is also interviewd in the book. He's a bit stuck these days too. Andy Herzfeld's in there, he's definitely unstuck now... That book is listed as out-of-print at Amazon, and someone has a used copy for $250US. Yikes, I guess I'll keep my copy...
What he really ought to say is, "People don't like computers." I know this may not be a popular sentiment to /.
The Palm is not an alternate computer, it's not a computer at all.
Remember when everyone wanted the latest HP calculator. They had lots of buttons, you could program them, etc... They provided all us geeks with hours of pleasure. At that point in the calculator's evolution, it was really a computer. Most people just wanted a calculator. We used to compare calculators. Remember telling others how many functions your calculator had? "Mine has memory.", "Well you can program mine.", "Oh look, that one has plug-in modules." Who even thinks about calculators anymore. Who, rather than someone without a computer would ever spend more than $30 for a calculator. (OK, some of us geeks still buy slick calculators)
The calculator is a preview of the evolution of the computer. At some point, 99% of all computer users when asked, 'Would you spend $30 to get a new faster, slicker computer?', will respond, "No!".
I'm not sure what that final device will look like. I don't know if it will have an operating system. The computer may actually spawn a number of different, more vertical products. I'm pretty sure about a few things though.
1. The final devices will be much, much more affordable.
2. They will not crash.
3. People won't give them much thought at all.
Finally, there will always be some kind of device to quench the never ending geek thirst for gadgetry. Fifty years ago we'd all be having this conversation over our ham radios.
Write your program to one CPU and hardware specification, and then force everyone to use that specification.
After all, C and Unix are dying, and this is a wonderful thing.
</sarcasm>
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Truth be told I keep a small text editor handy on my GUI desktop and pop things into it all of the time; copy-n-paste them out to more appropriate places when I have the chance.
Apple's Lisa UI (and don't anyone whinge on about the Xerox Star - I've used it, they're nothing alike and everyone involved agrees Apple had already come up with a GUI and what they ended up with was still quite different) was based on the idea of a person in a busy office constantly being interupted, switching tasks, etc. That's pretty realisitic and it seems only reasonable that an OS/GUI do everything it can to accomodate this. The ability to begin free-form entering text seems reasonable, as does the OS/GUI attempting to respond intelligently.
Tell me, if you HAD this wouldn't it seem a convenience?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Perhaps what we need are interfaces which better lend themselves to presenting what the user needs. For example, if I was an office worker and I primarily used word processor/spread sheet type programs, I might like something like start office, which can integrate almost as a desktop shell. Interfaces like this still allow the OS to be customized (via laying a new desktop interface on top of the OS), but also give a sort of cut out interface for users who do a specific type of work most of the time.
No, they converge to one major interface, KDE/Gnome. The difference between these two desktop environments are very small for end-users, and will only get smaller in the years to come.
On the other hand, we will always have alternatives. You don't realistically think everyone would be using either Gnome or KDE, do you?
Personally, I like using a highly customized sawfish, with keyboard shortcuts for everything, and no window-decorations. I don't suspect many others would like it, but for me, it's definitely a productivity booster. I like using both Gnome and KDE apps, but will never run their "desktop"-environment.
And, of course, there are people going in the other direction, Enlightenment, 3D window-managers, and so on. Nothing will ever converge...
I've noticed that both Jeff Raskin and Bruce Tognazzini have savaged OS X as a giant piece of garbage. But both seem more intent on arguing for features they had a hand in creating than in how the OS X UI has been designed. Raskin's comment the "that a computer should be as easy to use as to start typing on a keyboard to open a word processor" is just a reference to his ill-fated Canon CueCat (which is really how he wanted the Mac to turn out, he didn't even like the GUI). I've played with OS X , and found it highly hackable and extremely network savvy and usable . It seems that people like Raskin and Tog are still just smarting from working with the well-documented jerk Jobs, and not really commenting on the merits of OS X.
"I don't mind the swelling, it's the itching I could do without."
Every OS has its quirks, and it is tempting to think that the new thing is better than the older more mature OS.
There ARE some things that could be improved about Linux, such as the inclusion of ACLs, but the system is more mature and well developed than any NTY based system today. Please substitute "tried and true" for "backwards."
Please also note that the proprietary market model is truly backwards in a way that an OS can never be (well, maybe if I were to write a modified version of Minix for my 80286 and run it on my Athlon, that would be backwards). This market model is directly counter to the express spirit of copyright law in the eyes of those who originally wrote it for the US because its antithesis is the sharing of information (the whole original purpose of copyright and patent laws in the US. Furthermore, it is based on market models which are not tested in any long term sense and depart radically from other commodity markets.
Linux sells as well as other OSS, like Darwin, because it exactly meets this older, tried and true market model, not this stupid licensing crap that most software companies think that we have no choice but to accept.
I used to think that OSS had not come to its forte yet because of lack of written docuentation and buggy interfaces until one day I woke up and discovered that many if not most proprietary systems were even worse...
Don't get me wrong, if Microsoft was not doing something right, they would be broke and out of business by now. But that does nto mean that they do anything close to everything right...
So, is OS X backwards? I say no.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
No argument here, the open/save dialogs are in my opinion the second worst "feature" of Mac OS. The worst would be the ridiculous requirement of manually setting the memory allocation for each app. Fortunately, OS X solves both.
Most of us no longer have a tiny monchrome screen. We can afford menubars on a per-window basis now.
We can, but I for one don't want them. Look up Fitt's Law: objects on the edge of the screen are much easier to hit, because you can't overshoot them. On a Mac, if I want to get to the File menu, I move the mouse up with maximum velocity and only have to worry about the horizontal position. Even though I may have to move the mouse further in pixels than if the menu were in the window, I'm going to reach it in less time. Saving vertical screen space is just a nice side benefit.
The ideal solution would be what Mac OS X Server does now: a single menu bar at the top of the main monitor, but the menus can be torn off and put anywhere you want.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
No I wouldn't use it. That is my point, to me it is akin to taking notes by writing on the wall or on the desk. I have my pad to take notes on. I am used to this, it is how I work. I have no problem opening a text editor (piking up my pad) to take notes with. It just seems too disorganized to start entering text anywhere.
:)
I really don't see how you are saving anything by doing this either. So you have to click on some area of the desktop, then start typing, and the computer opens the text in an editor of some kind. How is that different from clicking a shortcut to a text editor and entering text. Really it is just a new way of launching the editor which I don't see a use for.
It is possible that a layperson could find this more intuitive, but, not being a layperson, I can't see it. Of course that is why I don't design UI.
Q.
Ennui
Ennui
"I walk in the air, between the rain, through myself an
Compare the two processes,
Type a letter on a typewriter.
Put paper in typewriter, type letter.
Type a letter on a computer.
Turn on computer,
wait for start up,
find WP application
start wp application
type letter
print letter
The latter example has a lot of extra (admittedly trivial) steps.
I guess his ideal world would be to have separate machines that would have limited functionality.
Turn on keyboard
Type letter.
print letter.
My other sig is extremely clever...
Wanna bet?
Here's the process I used:
Here, I'll press command-v for ya here:
(Of course, HTML doesn't know what to do with the linefeeds, but they are there.)
That's a directory listing of my Sinfest archive.
Nothing in that procedure that would be unknown to any Mac user.
--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Jef Raskin seems to be arguing a straw man point. There has been a system with a truly seamless interface -- it was called the Newton. In theory it was quite elegant, but it was too seamless.
To those of you who haven't used a Newton, this will take some explaining. The Newton had a very clean metaphor based on a roll of paper; it implemented it very well, but if you use one for any great length of time you realize that trying to graft simple computer functions like cut and paste on top of that interface is painfully awkward. Compounding the problem is that there was no particularly clear central jumping-off point in the system (as there is in PalmOS); even adapting OpenDoc to the Newton interface would have been far more flexible (and probably even nicer than the Palm interface) than what Apple had.
Raskin's reputation was built on extreme simplicity -- he didn't even want the mouse that Steve Jobs insisted on, and the ensuing power struggle wound up with Raskin leaving Apple. Raskin's points are well-taken, but the thing that seems to have hurt him is a failure to understand that elegant != perfect; look at Perl, for example.
My take on it is this: if you are creating a completely closed box, then Raskin's points are valid -- you know everything you need it to do, so you design accordingly. You want that, you go buy an Audrey or a Sharp Wizard. But it's very hard to create a seamless design that still allows for expandability; if that's what he's arguing for, he should put his money where his mouth is, start doing some Darwin/X hacking, and build his own MacOS from scratch.
/Brian
This is the same message that Jeff has been saying for years. He developed a faceless OS-less app on an Apple II that was nearly "instant on". He tried to influence this idea while working on the Mac team. After leaving Apple he designed a product for Canon called a "Cat" that was instant on and simple, simple to use. A true information appliance.
In the article it doesn't point to other Raskin ideals that invisibility is key to the actually doing work. That the "computer" should manage files for you in the context of the work that you are doing. And not the other way around.
Anyway read more about that here: http://www.cfcl.com/jef/summary_of_thi.html or here http://www.best.com/~mxmora/JefRaskin.html
The idea of a human is absurd and backward. Humans were invented how long ago? They are old and out-dated technology. Look how much time goes into maintaining them. In one small instance, computers... They are supposed to make a Human's life easier. How many man-hours per year are put into computers. Take out the human, and problem solved.
Handhelds and kitchen-counter-top Internet appliances have a totally different engineering goal: "What the hell is Bob's phone number?" or "Mommy, can I check my email before dinner?" Just because a user wants to have total convenience in one context does not mean he or she desires the trade-off in flexibility in another. The workstation paradigm still has its place.
As for those who say that Internet-distributed apps via Mozilla-XUL or MS-.NET are the future, you are omitting an important human element: Territory. My workstation is my territory; I want to control it's config to suit my tastes, I want to determine its design tradeoffs (e.g. speed v. portability), etc. I would not be comfortable with getting all my apps via the Net no matter the speed, for it would just as weird as living in barracks and getting my toiletries by ration every morning.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
I'll tell you that those old-school apps don't rank above eye-candy shit.
The athena widget set (I assume that's the old-school traditional GUI elements you refer to) sucks. There's no way to tell the difference between a button and a popup menu except to click on it. If a menu has so many elements that it extends off the screen (try xfontsel on a 640x480 laptop) that's tough shit. You can't get the last few items in the menu. It looks, and feels like (and it probably was) designed by a hung-over MIT hacker 5 hours before his term project was due.
0 1 - just my two bits
Hardly. The dock just seems like a graphical version of the taskbar, but with a few more features. It is not what he is talkking about.
> The race analogy only holds true if you *remember* the directory paths. Luckily the auto-completion makes that easier, but for the most part you'd better have few directories or a great memory. Especially in dealing with files you haven't touched in a while. I sure find myself typing 'ls' a lot...
/usr/include/*/atm.h
/usr/include/netatm/atm.h
/etc/*/rc*<CTRL-X>*
/etc/defaults/rc.conf /etc/upgrade/rc.firewall
locate is your friend for old files. And modern shells enables you to put wildcards anywhere, so you don't have to remember every path.
ie:
bash-2.03$ ls -l
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 17612 Jul 27 2000
AFAIK, you still have to know how deep the file is located.
In interactive use, '^X*' (ie: Control X, then '*') is your friend. For instance, you type (FreeBSD file layout):
grep -i ipnat
and you get
grep -i ipnat
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
I've been playing with OS X PB since it was released, and I'd have to say it satisfies Raskin's requirements.
* Instant on: Lifting the lid on my powerbook instantly starts up the machine. Closing the lid puts it to sleep. No delay either, it really is instant on-instant off.
* Push buttons for apps: I keep all of the apps I use regularly on the dock. If I didn't quit them, a single click brings them up. In this way, I rarely have to hit the "Finder" (Browser) to load apps. It would be trivial to map these to Function keys and print out little color pictures to stick on the function keys.
* Helpful, single purpose tricks. Has anyone else noticed how Mail.app will "suggest" email addresses that match the one you start typing in, based on the addresses from all the emails you've received or sent. This is an excellent feature, one that I miss in Pine/Outlook.
Of course running emacs and perl probably doesn't fit into his paradigm, but the average user can ignore them...and I've only had to boot into LinuxPPC twice to run X apps.
--js
"Raskin wasn't criticizing OSX for its qualities as an OS, but for the fundamental principal that it represents: something standing between you and whatever you want to do." So the desktop metaphor that Raskin helped to invent just gets in the way these days, huh? I wonder if Raskin is underestimating the value that most people put in "the familiar."
The common "desktop" environment is the standard on most GUIs, no matter what the OS or hardware platform; Apple might not be traveling too far into uncharted waters with Mac OS X, but sticking with the tried and true is a better business decision on their part. If they implemented a totally new UI they'd probably end up with a pretty box and the support of a few developers, but would their users move with them? It's going to be daunting enough for Apple to get the user base used to the big changes in Mac OS X without changing metaphors, let alone making them adapt to a whole new UI.
Raskin may be a visionary, but his vision is unrealistic at this point. Maybe Apple will get where he's suggesting, but I'd bet it's by slow evolution, not a forced revolution.
Shortly after, Steve Jobs kicked Jef off the project and changed it completely, basing it on the idea of a low-cost version of the Lisa (which was not selling well at $10k a pop). Guys like Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson are to thank for the Mac GUI, not Jef.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Lets see here...
- Open the folder
- Choose select all from the edit menu (or hiot command-A
- Open SimpleText (or BBEdit, or Alpha, or, if you're a masochist, MacVim or EMACS) and hit Edit menu>Paste
Boy, that was hard. Want me to show you how get a list of files by type? [grin]Sorry, I'm being snotty here, but it is possible. Granted, I can't grep that list..wait, if I use BBEdit, I can!)
--srj/mmv
IBM tried to come up with a lower-priced PC with the PCjr by taking away some of the expandability and power.
There was nothing special about it - just a DOS based PC. You could I think plug a cartridge in and "boot" off that, like on a C64. But failing that, and failing a dos disk, I think it brought you to either BASIC or a diagnostic screen.
I really really think that Apple dropped the ball when they cancelled the Newton. Not that the Messagepad, as it existed, was the end-all and be-all of portable devices, but because the OS was as close to being invisible as any I've seen.
/. posting! ;-)
Of course at the time Apple was moving toward a document-centered paradigm with the Mac OS as well (OpenDOC), which would've been pretty cool. The problem, I guess, is not really a technological one, but a business one. All of the big players in the software market (Microsoft, Adobe, etc.) sell big, expensive, monolithic applications, and they were opposed, I'm sure, to Apple changing the playing field.
My hope is that we in the free software world can do what Apple couldn't. The development model should be perfect (it's easier for individuals or small development teams to develop components than big apps like Office). To what extent do people think that Bonobo (and whatever equivelent in KDE-land, if there is one) will deliver on OpenDOC's promise?
(Man, that post ended up somewhere completely different than where it started -- nothing like stream of conscience
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
Sounds very similar to the Dock in OS X. With a good VM and inter-app communications (also in OS X), for the most part it doesn't matter if an app is currently running or not, as soon as you need it it will be.
Unless somebody has a telepathic user interface, you're going to need some way of telling the computer what you want to do, and I fail to see why clicking on an icon to do this is unreasonable. Regarding installers, the author appears to be unaware that it is possible and recommended in OS X to build your app so that the "install" process consists of copying a single file, ditto for uninstalling.
I disagree with the fundamental attitude of this article, which is that because some people find current OSes too hard to use, they must be dumbed down for everyone. Certainly OSes can and should be more accessible to novices, but that does not have to take away power and flexibility for advanced users. OS X is a perfect example of this; with some few improvements to the public beta UI (many of which have apparently already happened), it can be both more approachable for new users and more powerful for experts than the classic Mac OS, Windows, or (flame retardant activated) Linux.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Of course you can't have a computer without an OS. He just wants a more transparent OS.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
All due respect to Mr. Raskin, but he's out of his gourd.
For starters, an OS is a necessity. Think: do you really want an application that has to handle its own tasking, memory management and so forth? And if you want to run other applications at the same time, how are they going to resolve issues of shared resources? They're not. This is where the OS comes in, genius. Furthermore, the added bloat that adding basic OS features to an app isn't exactly what I'd call desirable.
As for the commentary about the "transparent" PalmOS: Transparent, my ass. I just purchased my first Palm device a little over a week ago, and while I do love it, there is definitely an OS there.
Above and beyond the techie side of things, there's the human interface (something Apple's had a pretty good track record with). An OS also provides the basic look-n-feel, which some engineers treat as foo-foo details, but is absolutely necessary if you intend to have real world users.
Do you think Joe Schmoe down in Marketing could use a computer with no common interface between apps? Do you think that if you dump the OS you could get any more than 2 developers to agree on the interface-design of applications? Do you think that you could get every software development firm on the planet to agree when it comes to resource sharing and memory management?
This might work in a world where one company can dictate standards, destroy upstart rivals, and blatantly steal code and violate patents, but fortunately, we aren't completely there yet.
Then again....
----------------------------------------
Yo soy El Fontosaurus Grande!
blog |
Tasks such as file, window, and application management are a burden to users. Slashdotters are among those who will influence the next generation of computing. Think about it: could the boot-up sequence and file system checks be eliminated? Why do we have separate applications for every type of interaction, with many applications having overlapping functionality? Why should programs ever be 'closed' in the modern era of virtual memory? With all of today's spare processing cycles and enormous hard drives, why aren't computers as easy to use as a typewriter?
It's often hard to think outside the box when you've become accustomed to doing something one way for so long. The current state of GUI's seems like 'the right way' now, but that could all change in 5 years.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
There is much more than Mach/BSD to the operating system in Mac OS X. One of the most usefull ones to the user, yet part of the operating system is the systemwide "Services" menu, not to mix up with classic OS services.
I don't know if it's part of Carbon, but it definitly is part of Cocoa based apps.
And I don't know if Apple has yet drawn attention to it, but as a NeXT user (on of the few left) I could insert or transform or enhance parts of one document with systemwide services offered by other apps, small and large. What windows offers with "Insert Object" is still a poor mimic of a feature that could be more "opendoc" than opendoc ever could have achieved, with simplicity and usability as a bonus.
A small(!) example? With the NSTextPasteboardType (plain text) as medium, you can type an expression in any document widget that is able to select, cut and paste text, and ask the 'Terminal" application to replace the command with its terminal output.
Just go the the systemwide menu, choose Services->Terminal->evaluate (eval).
These Terminal services are completely controlable, customizable, enhancable, even completely optional, just waiting to serve any application, old or new. The same with images, dictionaries, translations, mail, URLs... any data that the two applications could understand or willing to offer (RTF, JPG, TIFF, text, sound)
You could even select the title of a folder, and check Webster for its meaning, or check its spelling.
It was 1992 then.
Wat is more: the developer needed to type three lines or less to implement the service, and another one to make the system see the service.
All thanks to the Objective-C runtime, and the exploitation of this through-out the operating system - also via non GUI contructs.
Does the open source community have similar contstructs, as elegant as this to both the user AND developer? Did I miss something, while growing a beard? Any Nexters outthere to correct or help me?
--------
* Sigh *
- Just because a directory name is 32 characters long does not mean you have to type all 32 characters to enter it into the computer. I suggest you read up on the "TAB completion" feature that others in neighboring threads have already pointed out.
- I can enter about 10 keystrokes in the amount of time it takes you to move your hand over to the mouse to fire off a mouse click. Your computation also neglects to consider the mouse motion required in moving over from the folder to the text editor. And I don't know about you but most people don't have text editors open all the time--opening a text editor is a fairly nontrivial action considering that we're sitting here counting 17 keystrokes.
- Did I mention that in many cases you might want to save the text file after you were done pasting in the filenames? More steps on mac, zero steps on unix. Also bonus extra keystrokes if you want your filename to be something other than "Untitled"
- Even if outputting the clipboard to a file was a keystroke, what would that file be named? If the user must enter in the filename, the Mac comes off much worse than unix, as most of the 17 keystrokes in the unix measurement consisted of typing in the filename.
Macs are great for many things but text processing is not one of them. "ls *.txt" is damn near impossible on a mac.Seems to me "Jef" is a pretty user unfriendly name. Sure, he knows how to use it, but if a bank teller asks for his name, the bank teller will assume it's spelled "Jeff," and then Raskin will either have to correct the bank teller (wasting both his and the bank teller's time) or settle for the incorrect execution of his goal: to have his name spelled correctly in order to identify him.
A good UI should both save time and allow for the accurate execution of the user's goals. "Jef" has to go.
I feel saddened by all this non-understanding, and it's even worse considering it's a technically-savvy crowd. In essence, the author's point is that a machine should be task-oriented. Why mess with a "start button", or a file viewer, or any other such thing when all you want to do is write a letter? Say "start a new letter" and off you go. This doesn't imply there's a separate machine for every task. It could well be something with a screen, keyboard and mouse. Tell it to "play the CD" and off you go. Tell it to "find current tax information" and off you go. Why must you conciously start a "CD Player" to play a CD, and conciously start a "web browser" to see information? What a load of crap. To those who are still in school, check local listings for courses in HMI. The one that I took when in my graduate program was very enlightening in considering what are the fundemental issues in machines working with humans. They aren't things like "windows" and "files" and "keyboard" and "mouse". They are things like "cognitive load" and "adaptiveness" and "context awareness" and "prediction".
Thank you.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
It may be a -1 post, but I got a real kick out of it. My sense of humor is on overdrive tonight.
OS 10
Current Mac is OS 9. Tricky guys!
-chaswell that ends well
will eventually eliminate the desktop and command line for the consumer already? I heard it's called the XBox.
Seriously, what's wrong with having the OS on the disk and just either plunking down the app on the CD into the machine? You have a known, capable hardware platform to write to and can control the entire OS config. No desktop, the app comes up immediately. File storage, updates, or server side programs can be done by plugging the box into a network. A seven year old can handle this.
Of course, there will always be situations where a PC is required (unusual hardware, configurable software), but for the average user, all you need is a browser, email, word processor, and Quicken. Why can't this be done on the X-Box on a network?
> 1. Type "ls > dirlist.txt"
/etc' in the dialog. Press return.
> 2. Press Enter.
Yeah. A nice command on NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Mac OS X Server is:
ls | pbcopy
Directory listing straight into the pasteboard.
Another way, from Edit.app (NeXTstep, OPENSTEP, not in later version @&^%#^@!):
Click where you want the listing to be inserted. Do <Command>-<Shitf>-'|'. Enter 'ls
This kind of things were what made NeXTstep really powerfull.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Sorry. It sounds interesting, but it's just another TLA that I don't recognize. It can be my TLA of the Day. Any links?
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Jef Raskin refers to the OS as a "program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application." To me, Nautilus seems like just yet another program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application. I don't see how it can make things any easier for me that would make me run Linux as a desktop environment instead of MacOS.
As to the OS itself, I don't really see what it does that gets in your way, aside from maybe requiring you to save your data files in its directory hierarchy. Certainly you can use OS X without having to care that it's running Unix underneath the hood. Much more noticable is that "classic" apps have to run in their own little sandbox, because the OS is different, not because it's there.
Even the Palm OS, which is specifically mentioned as one that doesn't get in your way, is still an OS, and still there. You could run a Palm-like interface on top of Unix and be none the wiser. It seems to me what he has a problem with is the user interface environment, not the OS.
Would such an appliance -- a home browser, word processor, spreadsheet, and game console -- be a popular item that would replace the PC in the household? Wildly so, especially if installing new programs was made simple, such as inserting a disk, selecting its activator key, ejecting the disk and running it, installed on your system until you remove it.
Installing programs under Windoze is a total fuckup because of all the DLLs and inevitable scores of data files that have to be installed along with the application itself. I'm sure InstallShield is making a lot of money off of this. Under MacOS, it is possible to install (properly written) software by simply dragging its icon out of a CD-ROM's Finder window. Such software doesn't even have to be installed; it can usually be run right from the CD-ROM. This used to be common, but nowadays big apps want to be run from an installer because they have so much baggage that goes along with them. OS X will make this easier to do by allowing an application and its files be packaged in a folder that appears to be a single object.
Sure, the Unix basis of OS X can be considered a step backwards when compared to something like BeOS or even the Xerox Smalltalk environment, but the reason to go with it is because it's a solid solution, and it's much better than the ad-hoc design of MacOS, which was never intended to do multitasking. Multitasking the MacOS was an amazing hack.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I don't think we have begun to explore the realm where we really begin to use computers to be smart assistants, we're still too hung up in the idea of THE GUI instead of letting form follow function.
I think he has a point, but he's thinking about what computers *could* be from the standpoint of being in an ideal world.
.NET will fail. Net access is too expensive and too flaky for consumers to rely on it for their primary means of accessing apps.
.NET. But most people don't have DSL or Cable yet, and won't for some time. And even ME, on a corporate 100-base-T network, t1 connected to the internet, I'm not willing to bet my productivity on the notion that Microsoft's .NET server serving Word will always be up, and fully responsive when I need it (and that the service bills won't get me down).
In the real world, we have limits on hardware performance, some subsystems are far more limited than others, then price comes into the equation, for various subsystems; Video, RAM Storage, Disk Storage, Network IO, etc.
Right now, Network IO is prohibitively expensive, and the state of the technology is way behind that of Disk Storage; it's currently cheaper, and more convenient (offers better price/performance ratio). This is the ultimate factor in why
For what this guy is talking about, today's computers can't possibly do these things. For one thing, we still need disk storage. If RAM Storage was cheaper, and didn't have the volotility issues, then we wouldn't need Disk Storage, and all apps could be in RAM all the time, and we could do things like, sleep a machine, and press a button to be instantly-on in the Word Processor, or instantly-on in the Web Browser. But RAM is still WAY too costly, compared to Disk, so it ain't gonna happen.
Computers and their OSes have been the way they are from day one, because the balances in cost and performance on the hardware side have always been pretty much what they are now. In the early days, of course, Disk Storage was highly cost prohibitive, so those machines were diskless (I'm talking TRS-80). Network connections were unheard of in your standard consumer machines until about 7-15 years ago, this came on gradually, then full-force as the technology evolved into something people could afford. We're experiencing another shift in network availability, speed, and cost, with DSL/Cable, and that's what Microsoft is betting on with
So, the kinds of paradigm shifts that this guy's talking about require the hardware to change, either in performance or cost. If that happened, you can bet the software guys would jump on that damn fast - lots of money to be made during those kinds of periods.
Flatscreen monitors don't appreciably change things. We all thought that super-duper 3D cards would change our user experience into a 3D one (but just because the video could display lots of 3D information quickly, doesn't mean that the rest of the computer can get at that information as quickly, so the 3D interfaces we've seen have been slow, jerkey, useless eye-candy).
My guess is that the next paradigm shift will be a result from an increas in bus speeds. CPU speeds may continue to ramp, or they may stall, network speed will increase per dollar, but I doubt we're going to see an increase in user-trust and reliability. So internal bus speeds are going to change things, and we're going to see computers doing things that they can't currently do, because bus and memory speeds are way too slow. Of course, the technology for this is not even on the horizon yet, so this is all pulled straight out of my ass - but the only other possibility is if RAM gets really cheap. I mean really, really cheap. Cheap enough to make disks look as unattractive as tape currently does. Either of those would surely change the model by which we compute, and OSes run.
And Unix will still be Unix.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Essentially, the article says that Raskin doesn't like MacOS X, MS Windows, or any other general purpose operating system for that matter, because he thinks that computers should be pure appliances, relieving the user of having to worry about mundanities like file storage or program launching, rather than infinitely mutable environments. Raskin is a visionary, which is a good thing, but it means that he is concentrating on the future possabilities of ideal computer interfaces, while missing the more prosaic uses of technology today.
Personally, I agree with Raskin on what I would like my computing experience to be like, but I also recognize that we are a long way from making that experience happen in a ubiquitous manner. For the moment, I get more milage out of an OS centric system that provides me with the primitives that can be combined into a tailored work environment (e.g. Linux running X and Fvwm2 with a small collection of application programs and shell scripts) than I would out of a more turn-key system that wasn't designed by me for my own uses (e.g. MacOS, Windows, PalmOS, and even Gnome and KDE).
Raskin is talking about a system that would be preconfigured to do exactly what the user wants to do, but he fails to mention, and possibly fails to consider, that such a system is nearly impossible to produce, simply because there are too many different kinds of user with too many different preferred modes of work. It is much easier to produce a clumsy generic environment that can be shoehorned into many different task niches, than to custom engineer a system and user-interface for each prospective user.
The users that really care about a streamlined work environment (sometimes referred to as Power Users) will take the time and effort to tailor their system to their tastes. The users that don't care, and such users do exist, will either suffer (silently or otherwise) or pay someone else to produce a more tailored configuration for them. (while I am no Libertarian, or even much of a Capitalist, and as much as I hate to point this out, the dominance of generic, operating system centered, computing environments looks like a perfect example of the free market at work)
Remember Bob? That pity OS Microsoft produced years ago?
I think this is just what he means...
I had a computer just like this once... no futzing around with the operating system, just turn it on and go...
On my old Apple II, you selected your application by grabbing a disk off your desk, putting it into the machine and turning it on. There was no selecting an application or any real interaction with the OS. On the other hand, there were no device drivers or multitasking--it was one app at a time that had do do its own device drivers.
I don't intend this to be flamebait... The "put in a floppy and boot" model is quite close to what's suggested in the article. It's also similar to the Window's CD autorun feature.
Does that model make sense for the mythical "average user"? Of course, it doesn't have to be exaclty the same. The "disk" could be something like a PlayStation memory card which just causes the OS to transparently load the desired program. I've heard human computer interaction people discuss something like this, but haven't seen it ever implemented.
I know autorun bugs me, but for most users it's probably a good thing. Shove your Encarta CD into the drive and up pops Encarta--you didn't have to deal with the OS at all.
Still, I don't know what this has to do with Unix underlying OSX. The user interface is pure Apple, right?
.... to get this stuff from the source (more or less), instead of from some rambling osOpinions editorial. ;-)
jefraskin.com
Isn't that what the Apple ][ computers did back in the 80's, or what the game consoles (PSX, DC at least) do now? Instead of having a user apparent operating system, let's just turn the computer on with a disk in a drive, and it just starts running the application. That works fine for games, and worked great in the 80's. Why? Because back then you didn't run more than one application on an 8bit 1Mhz processor with 128KB. With gaming consoles, you aren't going to be CTRL-TABing from WipeOut XL to a word processor. Try to get preemptive multitasking done without an adaptive OS. And of course many of the other features we use cannot be done if we take an OS out of the picture.
A.
Of course there may be others (excluding handheld based stuff), but I have yet to see Linux with a GUI run off a floppy, much less with any useful apps.
AC comments get piped to
I think a lot of people here are missing the point and the idea of the article. Jef Raskin isn't saying that computers don't need OS's. He isn't saying that UNIX sucks. He isn't saying that when you start typing, the keystrokes should end up in a word processor -> document. Hell, you might want your keystrokes to end up in an email or any number of apps. I mean, how would the joystick know which game to load? That's NOT the point at all!
.ini files, not executables, nothing like that.
His point is that the OS, from a user perspective (in the context of being the "app you use before you use other apps"), should be as transparent as possible. My view of this is that you have an empty screen in front of you (think "desktop"). You click on an empty spot and up comes a slightly different colored area with a number of icons that represents various types of documents. An empty paper, some notes, a videoclip.. When I select the empty paper, the computer zooms into it and allows me to start working on it. It doesn't matter if I want to type on it (word processing) or draw on it. It's a document (paper) and drawing or typing are just a set of tools for this particular type of canvas. The apps are not like we traditionally see them. Instead, they are tools to use for this type of canvas. Also, you don't need to "save" anything. Whatever you do on the canvas is automatically stored. Instead there could be some kind of visual revision control system that allows you to go back in time and see what you've done.. Unlimited, visual undo, essentially..
Now how do you save, open and remove documents ("files")? Just like clicking on the empty "desktop" brought up a "window" with options for new documents, there could be some kind of file manager on the desktop that could be opened up to access documents. This would be a different mechanism from loading applications. Physically, they would be in a file system - it could be a UNIX underneath.. and there could be a command line shell for it.. But that's just for coders, admins and power users. Apps would be launched from some kind of dock, just like in Mac OS X. Files would be accessed from some kind of *VERY* simple file manager that would only show you documents - not
This kind of simplicity and transparency (the user can't see where a document ends, where an app begins and where the os begins) is what Jef Raskins wants. At least that's how I read it.. And that's what I want too!
But when I did, as of five years ago, the process went something like:
Surprise! You're talking out of your arse.
A.
The people who are moving away from the pervasive OS idea are the same people who are moving away from the files-and-directories idea.
I don't care where I store my Word files. I don't care about directory structure. What I care about is being able to find the Word document I read half-way through last Wednesday, when I can't remember anything else about it.
But your point is still valid in this domain - there is a bandwidth problem which seems to require a CLI to overcome. Move mouse and click doesn't have a very high information rate.
In the future, my belief is that voice recognition will solve this problem. Because 99% of users simply are not capable of learning a CLI, but everyone is capable of explaining to another person what they want the computer to do.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
>Wow...
;-)
;-)
>Here's the breakdown --
>ls >file.txt
>ls -> list directory
>file.txt -> universal capture to file or device
>Now... you learn some words representing
>concepts (in shorthand for typing efficiency)
>and can then apply these concepts to other
>problems. Symbolic reasoning.
It should be noted that symbolic reasoning was used in the Mac example as well. BTW why is List Directory ls? ld would make more sense.
>An example will suffice. If a unix system has
>a sorted list of words available (and they do),
>and you didn't have a command to check the
>spelling of your document, you can (with a
>bit of thought) synthesize a shell command
>to accomplish the spell check.
>How would you accomplish this on a Mac?
A better question is why you would want to accomplish this on a Mac? You could probably do it with Applescript, but but why? Hell, why would you want to do this period? For one thing getting a list of the hundreds of thousands of words in the English Language is going to be a royal pain, for another since you're spelling them you'll just end up making your spellchecker misspell them as well. If you've paid money for either Appleworks or Word (as many Mac-people have) somebody else has done it for you.
>No, the command line is NOT for people who
>are incapable of (1) reasoning and (2) cannot
>learn another symbolic language.
Did you mean to imply that people who use GUIs are stupid?
>Too bad. Life isn't fair. And I admit that
>graphics do have a place. It's limited though.
>Did you post your message in icons?
In a way, after every word is a graphical representation of an idea.
>Give it
>a try. Put your money where your mouth is.
So $2k wasn't enough money where my mouth is?
>My contention is that people have developed
>symbolic language for a damn good reason, and
>that it IS superior to hieroglyphics. No, it
>isn't "transparent" and learning to READ and
>WRITE IS DIFFICULT. It pays off, so give it
>a try.
I think you need a new metaphor, because I am clearly able to read and write. The question was "Is a GUI easier to use then a CLI?" and the fact that you have just used the word "difficult" doesn't help your case.
> ls >file.txt
>Simple, beautiful. Now, to print a directory
>listing...
Arcane, difficult to learn. And you've admitted it.
>Yes, you WILL have to LEARN this.
>If you don't want to bother, then just let it go.
So I'm right (and you admitted it), but I should still let it go. Why?
Nick
Windows is not out of DOS ! When someone says "Unix is backward", he/she usually means that the API and concept is backward... as for Windows, the Win API/Windows concepts were designed from scratch in the 80s, and never based on the DOS/BIOS API. Windows is less backward than Unix, for example the WinAPI is natively tied to 2D graphic displays, while on Unix they had to add an extra layer (X-Windows) to handle displays, because GUIs weren't available when Unix was born.
I guess an up-to-date OS would today be 100% object oriented and only programmable in object languages (C++/Object Pascal/Python/Smalltalk/etc.). BeOS is a good example of what a "non-backward" OS can be.
>"ls" is on page 24 of Unix for Dummies, the same page that reminds you to
;-)
/mnt/cad/001543/mech/floor1 and since 1 is right by 2...), people forgetting where their folders are and having to use "Find" (this applies to both CLI and GUI, to be fair), etc.
>press Enter at the end of any command line. The > redirector is on page 62,
>the page after the section where it tells you what a directory is and how to >create one.
Oh f*ck I hate it when I prove that I don't know everyting...
>You keep all your files in one folder? If I did that with the CAD files at
>work, every designer would spend half his day looking for the file he wants
>to edit, and it would take 10 minutes just to pull up a listing of all the files.
>We have something like 800 jobs on the server, each with 10-50 AutoCAD
>drawings. That would be an administration nightmare if not for hierarchial
>directory structure (/mnt/cad/001543/mech/floor2/hvac.dwg for example).
I assumed the folder is already open. Your example assumed that the proper directory was already selected so fairness requires that the right folder be open already. If we assume it isn't, add the possibility of typos getting in the way of your command (possibly executing the command on the wrong folder - in your example of a folder there's probabaly a folder called
Nick
But isn't that the reason why the Finder in Mac OS X has been seperated from the desktop? Steve Jobs, in his last Macworld Keynote (SF 2001) mentioned how someone might use their email app as their primary "Finder", or method of using the computer, and not bother too much with the files and folders of the directory structure. Supposedly, some users who may just want to do basic things like send and receive email can just get rid of the finder icon from the dock and/or put the mail app there, so they can get very fast access to the tool (email) they use the most.
Pair that with the very fast wake up from sleep, and stable core os, you get appliances such as the imac that can stay asleep (no fan), and wake up in 2 seconds: Just like he wanted!
Naturally, a computer needs an OS to manage it's resources and process. And any programmer that writes code will undoubted need the services of an OS (loaders, drivers, memory managers, etc.) But there are some things about modern OS architecture that are not obvious to non-systems prople. Things like shells (CLI & GUI), file browsers and process/task managers attempt to put a good face on necessarily complicated concepts. These things just have to be there for the computer and the programmer. Users on the other hand, should not be forced to understand the intricacies of something like the common hierarchical file system. They should feel confident that they can keep some data in the computer without the fear that it may "disappear" or (more likely) be misplaced somewhere in the tree.
There are dozens of examples like this where the current overarching conceptualization a computer's user interface falls flat on it's face. I recommend Alan Cooper's About Face for an entertaining description of many of them. He may be "the father of Visual Basic", but he doesn't pull any punches when it comes to beating up Windows and Office for their crufty interface work.
For most application developers, interface design begins at the frame of the main window. It's not so bad once you get into the app, but getting from the login screen to comfortably settled into a primary application like a word processor or point-of-sale system is usually a complicated affair in the current scheme. Login, then land in a "shell", then "start" the "program", then "load" the "file" you want to work with. It all makes sense to someone who knows that all this means to the computer. But it sure was hard to explain it to my grandmother. My personal anti-favorite is Microsoft's MDI scheme, spawned by the Office team, but abandoned by same for Outlook. You can't get *anyone* but a computer geek to remember which X to click to close one document. At least 50% of the time they close the whole app! But I digress...
Almost every popular PC game developed in the last 5 years avoids most of this. The game starts by taking over the whole screen and introduces you to the goal. Then it introduces you to it's control dialect. Finally it shows you how to work towards goal using that dialect. The whole idea behind "making user-interfaces consistent" is that programs will naturally become "easier to learn and use." This inconsistency with other apps should make the game harder to understand, but it doesn't. It's easier, and preschoolers, senior citizens and everyone in between can get handle on how to operate a game in just a few minutes. The reason is that game designers use the same principles that Raskin and Cooper espouse.
Games generally have a mark/resume function; that is, you can "save your game" and "reload" it when you want to pick up that game where you left off. Of course, most game developers use a file to store the state of the game where it is being marked for later resumption. But the good interfaces for mark/resume do not inflict the full complexity of the file system on the gamer. You mark your place and that marker goes into a list. You can request to see the list and resume the game from any of the markers. This is such a good approach because it's about as much complexity as the non-system savvy user can reliably handle. It's also a good approach because it puts most of the burden on computer to categorized persistent data into directories and files, store them in the hierarchy, and track their location for future reference. I think the more of this kind of design that we see, the easier computers will be perceived to be.
Naturally, none of this has anything to do with the OS itself. The perception that the file browser, application dock/task bar and other screen accoutrements are somehow inextricably linked to the OS is what leads interface-heads like Raskin believe that the OS is, by association, equally flawed. There's nothing backwards about Unix, but there's plenty that's wrong with Windows Explorer, Workspace Manager (or whatever it's called in OSX), Finder, and various X-based window managers. Each one is based on the same concept: "here's your files (hierarchically arranged for your inconvenience), some of the files can make the computer do something useful. good luck. and oh yeah, click Start." If a game did this, you'd throw it in the garbage. Hard.
So what does all this lead to? Special, easy-to-use consumer shell-and-apps-in-one like Microsoft Bob or General Magic's MagicCap? Or customized game-like shells with 3D graphics and startup training sessions? Or how about dedicated multifunction applications with super-extensibility like GNU Emacs? Probably not. I think it's something that has yet to appear, like the Unix OS in the 60s, or the spreadsheet in the 70s, or the suit that makes Bill Gates look good. It just hasn't been invented yet. So rest assured that Unix, like other good ideas: transistors, Von Neumann architecture, CRTs, and FPS, will continue to exist and thrive. Then, imagine the kind of hell it would raise at Microsoft if whole new paradigms for overall system usuability start bubbling up out of the Open Source community faster than they can keep track of them. Nautilus is cool but it isn't the answer. It's only incrementally better than Explorer in Windows 2000. The source is open, you're free to change it. The metaphor is open, too. Change it, evolve it, improve it. If sucks, it will die. If it's good, it will thrive. If it's really good, it will change everything.
This was why in the early PC world WordPerfect was such a hit: The program came on 1 or 2 floppies & the device-drivers (mostly printer) came on another 7 or 8.
Eventually MacOS & Windows came out with the idea of universal drivers in the OS. No longer would each program need to supply it's own video or printer drivers, rather the OS would get installed with a driver for the device and everything would go through it. This was as much a reason MacOS & Windows succeeded so well as their GUI's.
Later this expanded to typefaces and cross-application clipboards and inter-application communications and built-in scripting and system-supplied text-edit boxes and graphics widgets and a host of other services. Indeed today's OS's are about half of the application.
The dividing line between application and OS has grown very fuzzy indeed.
Starting in the mid-80's there were a series of projects to help further break down this distinction. Next had their object-oriented operating system, Apple/IBM/Novell had their OpenDoc component-architecture, Aple even did something of the like in their Newton OS, now in Linux there's Bonobo and it's cousins.
Lots of users I know consider their computers to be Email/Word Processors/Web Browsers - they don't use or care about anything else. It could be green cheeese for all their overt interaction with the OS.
So this leaves us with the question: When does the OS's GUI begin to dissolve into the applications? Will it? Will it completely? Is this a "good thing"? Or will there always be a clear distinction?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
It is not all that hard to imagine a situation in which a user's use-patterns could be learned or programmed, so that if the user starts typing numbers, perhaps s/he is trying to make a phone call (yeah, through the computer ;-), and if s/he types "mail to cmdrtaco..." then the computer should figure out that the user wants to type an email, launch the mail client, parse what has already been typed. If the text is ambiguous, the machine would have to ask what the heck you're doing.
As someone wiser than me has pointed out, this is almost like going back to the command prompt days, where you type at a prompt to launch an app. Maybe it is.
It should be said that this would be MUCH more sophisticated than the annoying paperclip in Word and Excel That says "It looks like you're writing a suicide Note. Would you like to shoot yourself, or use pills?" (also not an original idea, but I don't remember where I saw THAT either!))
-------------------------
A person of moderate zeal
What is infrequently realized is that as a techology becomes more embedded into society and has been around for generations, it becomes 'easy' because it's ubiquitous. But it's not inherently easy, just put a New Guinea tribesman who's never seen a telephone next to one and ask him to call the nearest flint salesman. To misquote Einstein, technology should be as easy to use as possible, but no easier.
I don't think what this guy is proposing works against Apple's design goals.
As per the OS as an interface between applications and the computer, that is *always* necessary even if it's nothing more than an abstraction layer that allows applications and devices to communicate with a uniform series of APIs. In which case OS X is bundles, Quartz, Cocoa, XML configuration files, Quicktime, a filesystem, the Finder, and a few other things.
Aqua, as a GUI, is an interface between which a human user can interact with the network, the applications, documents, data, and other tools. It is, as the name implies, just a Graphical User Interface into which all the other components plug in. Apple is espousing the digital lifestyle, in which you work with PDAs, mp3 players, camcorders, cameras, VCRs, TVs, radios, what have you, as these little tools Jeff may be talking about, but using OS X, Aqua, and all the other little things as a glue to network them all together.
Nothing is conflicting or contradictory, except perhaps in the analysis that OS X gets in the way, or enhances one's 'digital lifestyle'. Steve thinks it's a multiplier. I have to agree, in that having iMovie, which sits on top of the OS X, using the Aqua interface, allows us to do non linear editing and connects our camcorders, our imaginations, our CD-RW and DVD-R devices together in ways that cannot happen without an OS and without a UI, especially a GUI.
The same can be said with MP3s, mp3 players, CDs, and iTunes. Or Final Cut Pro, DVD-R, camcorders, digital cameras, CDs, MP3s, and DVD players. Aqua is the interface between all the software, the software is enabled with Quicktime, Quartz, and firewire, and all of the above sits on OS X.
It's like arguing language is an impediment to understanding; it is, because it's constructs and semantics can create misunderstanding, when one needs to also see that without language, there doesn't exist a medium from which communication exists (yet).
When devices all talk to each other wirelessly with XML packets and have AI to the point of 'grokking' each other, then OSes and such will not be needed. Until then, OSes and GUIs will allow such devices to interface with each other and with us.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
(Score: -1, Troll)
It would have been a bit funnier to post it to the kernel-devel mailing list, though.
His point seems to be that the OS is not to been seen by the user. Palm has a hidden OS. The advantage of Linux is that it is very flexible. A computer appliance can be made with Linux as its hidden OS. (The same is true of OS X's Darwin.) With Linux it can be done.
It sounds as though Raskin and Burg are basically advocating an invisible OS. The Palm, which Burg cites as a device that exemplifies his ideal, definitely has an OS (PalmOS). The user can use all of the main applications and have minimal interaction with the OS itself. However, if the user wants to customize things or install additional software on the Palm, there is still OS interaction of a sort. I don't buy the idea that installing new software on a Palm is much harder than walking through a basic InstallShield wizard.
Truthfully, the idea of a keyboard that figures out what I want to do as soon as I start typing doesn't appeal to me. How does it decide what kind of text I'm typing and open the appropriate application? At some point, the user needs to tell the computer what task he wants to perform. I'm not convinced that putting that process into hardware is preferable to doing it on the screen. Burg doesn't offer any real support for that argument.
A lot of newer PCs are shipping with keyboards that contain Palm-like buttons which automatically launch e-mail, web browsers, and other programs. While I like application-launching buttons on the Palm, I'm too well-trained as a computer user to bother with them on a keyboard. And you still have to customize those buttons using software at some point. The big difference is that in hardware you get a fixed number of buttons, while you can always draw an extra button on the screen.
The most intuitive interface for selecting an application is probably voice commands. If you could just say "Word" or "Emacs", you wouldn't have to worry about where it was stashed in some menu hierarchy.
Linux backwards? In what way? True, it has a bit of historical baggage, but it seems more adaptable than Windows which has only just struggled out of dos. Most of what could be classed as backward on Unix/Linux is actually rather nice (like shell scripting, console etc.)
On the other hand X Window and the like certainly need to be redone!
So this guy is whining about how backwards UNIX is when the paradigm he is describing is about as advanced as a 19th century typewriter or good old pen and paper?
They have these neat things at the Office Depot in town ... they're called Word Processor machines and they're absolutely useless nowadays.
How are you supposed to multitask without an operating system? Share files? What about simple tasks such as copy and paste?
- Mike Hughes
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
This reminds me of the constant wrangling in the web interface community about consistency of interface between sites. How do you create a site that does what you need it to do and conveys whatever aesthetic you're after, without making the site difficult to use? To put it in application terms, how do you build an app that people will appreciate for its innovation, and be able to use the first time around?
Raskin's idea of a disappearing OS seems counter to the quote above about consistency and stability. In the *real world* companies and even Open Source projects are going to create applications that use their own metaphors for movement, action, and so on. Currently, the OS is the only thing keeping interfaces even remotely consistent.
One of the reasons the Mac has such a well-loved interface (how many PC interface zealots do you know?) is that it's consistent from app to app. Basically, you buy a new Mac app, you launch it, and you figure it out on the first try.
I just don't see how an OS-less computer would somehow make things easier for users, when every app would be allowed to have whatever interface it wanted.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I use MacOS 9.1, it's ok, I prefer it to most other mainstream OS's.
But in my years of computer use, my favourite has got to be AmigaOS.
Why?
Because of it's astounding simplicity, (and the multitasking was damn good too!).
I could do whatever I wanted, quickly, easily, and without fuss. Batch jobs, or just copying a file was delightful.
I think that OS's are far too complicated these days, I would like to see a cut down minimalist OS that did the job without any frills. I know that computing is way different today than in the early 90's (I admin 30 NT machines as part of my job), but the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Surely the 70Mb MacOs in using in memory right now isn't absolutely necessary. AmigaOS used to fit in 512k, and when using 3rd party programs to expand the OS to a similar functionality as Windows 98, it still only took up only 2-3Mb.
In trying to simpify computing for the masses I think that the companies involved have made things too complicated under the bonnet, and that a paradigm shift in computer/human relations is needed, or perhaps we should return to an old one.
I am a man, not a toy.
Doesn't it seem odd that an article supposedly asking for easy to use apps with a transparent OS on ubiquitous hatdware is still requiring specific buttons for specific tasks? What's he done but move the icon to the case?
So why not use a combination of more natural ideas like fingertaps on a ubiquitous tablet or voice recognition?
Saying we should purpoes-build hardware to suit the applications and use less descriptive inputs is like saying cars could be made more modern if they ran on coal.
toeslikefingers.com - because
I believe the biggest hurdle to general (i.e. my mom, my grandparents, my 5 year old) personal computer use is a failure of file-management, specifically, saving files.
The idea of having to save a file, to actually do something active, in order to not lose any input is the major failure of computer interface design. Why should I have to save my work? Why wouldn't I want to save it if I didn't enter it in? Could the application (any application) simply save my work by default, even if I didn't give a name?
I believe this is why the PalmOS works so beautifully.
Have you even shown someone how to use a computer for the first time? I mean someone who really has little or no experience? Sure, navigating a desktop will be confusing at first. But the biggest complaint I've seen is when they start a word processor, enter some text, and they're told to save it. "Save it? What do you mean, save it? It's right here in front of me!"
There are several options here, of course. One that I would like to see is for all applications to just save the "Untitled" documents when you quit it (and have them saved in the background in case of a crash or power outage), and automatically re-open when the application is restarted. A single document could have the name "Untitled 02-01-2001 04:45 PM" or something like that. It would get saved in special folder called "Current Work". Something. Anything different, which would be better than what we have now (which is "Do you want to save?" after I quit an app).
As my first personal computer was an Apple II, I suspect the current ideas on saving files originate from the lack of speed (both processor and disk), memory, and disk-space. Modern PC's should not have any of these limitations for automatic-saving.
If a programmer wanted to implement the so-called desktop metaphor, saving unamed-files would be automatic and natural. If I start to write (using pen and paper) a letter to Grandma, but then I'm interrupted, my letter just sits there on my desk until I return. In order for it to disappear, I have to do something active (i.e. crumple up the paper and throw it in the trash
When apps start acting this way, we'll be a lot closer to appliance-level computing. I mean, even my TV remembers what channel I was watching after I turn it off.
You don't have to be a programmer to recognize ugly when you see it.
0 1 - just my two bits
The Green Book also contained lots and lots of cartons along the lines of "I just changed this little bit and it all fell over and I can't get anything to work!" Not a coincidence, I suspect.
It also placed a great block in getting Smalltalk accepted on general purpose systems. And this is the purpose of an OS, a tool to allow you to do a lot of things with one piece of general-purpose hardware. Imagine having your word-processor machine and your email machine and your web browser machine and your MP3 machine and your ... all as separate
pieces of harware; the thought adds a new
meaning to rack mounting.
Do we have to go through this all again?
if you think you can operate your system with just a kernel go ahead, but I will at least need a cli. the ui is just as much a part of the os as the kernel. in *nix, everyone can choose there own kernel and ui, but you need at least one of each before you have an os.
I agree, maybe it would be time to have a heading about User Interfaces in general.
How would Rankin's ideas be implemented if *not* for an OS? How would a system be consistent and user-friendly without an OS+interface?
Thanks for the mention. But how did you know about my OS interface ideas?
I'm patenting them, by the way, so don't even think about stealing them!
James M. Rankin, Jr.
"Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Bob and Larry from VeggieTales
I'm thinking the computer from Star Trek. Or that one communications commercial I saw with the pretend, futuristic agent software saying "I got those tickets you wanted."
Then, the OS would be all but gone to the end user. Wouldn't it?
BTW, in other news, MS has released some of its source code to businesses, and they've also started to tie media management into the OS. But since neither is obviously important to the Slashdot community, Rob and Co. doesn't feel a need to accept the stories. Whatever.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Raskin should understand better than anyone that the desktop environment is a metaphor. It's an abstract extension of the work environment. So who cares if you activate an application "out here" with a hotkey, or "in there" with a button, a menu, or a command line? In order to operate the device, you're still using an interface.
Of course people couldn't waste time piddling around on the desktop if there were no desktop. But that seems a bit draconian, doesn't it? I'd rather have a rich and configurable interface and use it however I want. That choice is worth something to me.
-jk
Okay, this will sound like a ridiculous analogy, but as I was reading this, I kept thinking of the supermarket.
I walk into a supermarket, and I can go select a bunch of food. I can bring it back to my kitchen at home, cook it up and eat it.
Obviously, it would be a lot faster if I could walk into the supermarket, prepare it on the spot, and eat it there. My supermarket (internet or data source, take your pick) and my kitchen (operating system) wouldn't get in the way of processing the food (application) and eating it (document).
(I said this analogy would sound stupid)
It's not really practical. I could replicate the experience by going to a restaurant (information kiosk) or get something to go (Palm Pilot). Sometimes though I want to cook at home.
What's superfluous is all of the extra time I "travel" between tasks (the OS). At some point, I still have to decide on what food I want, what process I'll use, and how I'll eat it. I can see the point of a minimalistic OS, which would be ideal. Today's OSs however seem to be leaning toward maximalistic(?) approaches, sort of the equivalent or having a supermarket the size of Newark (Windows), a supermarket where everything is scattered (the internet), a kitchen with a lot of individual appliciances (sorry, nothing for this), or appliances that can't do the job I need.
The point is: the 'travel' time is necessary. But it should be as small as it can be. Cause otherwise I'll go hungry.
Foggy, who really needs to go on a diet.
Beware typoes.
"Installing programs under Windoze is a total fuckup because of all the DLLs and inevitable scores of data files that have to be installed along with the application itself. "
Why do critics of Windows continue to use childlike name calling (i.e. Windoze etc etc)? Do I feel need to stupidly insult other OS's? NO I grew up a while back.
Feel free to make constructive criticism's of Windows and MS but dont resort to rhetoric and name calling.
Hmmm... Wouldn't we be better off with a non-intrusive, easy to use and reliable operating system that lets us get at our apps with a minimum of fuss while allowing us to use intergrated tools that can work together in various fashion, Oh wait (smacks foreheard), that's been done...
The Difference between an American Dog and a European one... The american one will chew off it's tail because it's t
And has done so for 15 years (and never touched a PC, of course).
Enough said.
>Everyone is always looking to topple the PC with bullshit articles and arguments like Raskin's. They think that just complaining about it is going to inspire the industry to create something new and different that will change everything.
To be pedantically fair, Jef Raskin has buckled down and created products implementing his ideas:
http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/cat.html
The Swyftcard, for example, took complete control of an Apple ][ on startup and did away with the file system, assuming one document per floppy. To load a document, you put in a floppy and hit one key. To save changes, you hit the same key. Instead of a search command, there was a spring-loaded mode that did incremental searches a la Emacs.
It is fair to point out that the Swyftcard and its big brother the Canon Cat did not "change everything". And to point out that a lot of the features were implementing by an escape to AppleSoft Basic. But the Swyftcard did pick up some awards, and its users tended to be enthusiastic.
Even when they fail I have respect for people who ship products instead of complaining.
- Sailor Moon
- Pokemon
- Speed Racer
Hands in my pocket
It occurs to me that what was said about writing programs to particular hardware has some analogues in the video game industry. Every developer is free to decide how the user should interface with their game. That leads to things like what has been hassling me recently, where I bought a new game, and it uses the analog sticks on the PS2 to control motion. One stick moves the character, the other changes direction/looks around. The problem is, I already own games like this, except they have the sticks set up in opposite manner (i.e. old game uses the left stick to look, new game uses the right). This creates huge annoying problems when playing, especially when I'm in a tight situation and my immediate instinct goes with the old control setup and I die quickly. I'm not saying that this can be corrected in the video game market, as games are generally too specialized in what they do to make an overlying interface ineffective, but why do we need to try to import these problems to computers? I'm sure some developers would be diametrically opposed on how fundamental aspects of a program should operate, leaving the average user in the same situation, except here, it would actually be something necessary (for job, school, etc.) as opposed to just a game.
Today our lesson will be Chapter 1 of Elementary Necromancy: Proper Use of a Shovel.