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Raskin On 'Raskin On OS X'
Kelly McNeill writes: "A recent editorial appearing on osOpinion.com (and linked
to here on Slashdot last Thursday) dealt with comments made by Mac creator
Jef Raskin and his opinion of Apple's upcoming next generation operating
system OS X. The somewhat controversial editorial generated a ton of mixed response
both here as well as on the publishing site. As it seems, Mr. Raskin's thoughts
on OS X (and Unix) were very misunderstood and he has since stepped up to the plate
to clear the air and responded
to the technology community at large."
Mac OS X is basically BSD under the hood, so source compatibility should be good. I was able to compile and run most of the Obfuscated C Contest entries without a hitch. XFree86 has already been ported to OS X in full-screen mode; a hot key toggles between it and the normal OS X interface. Tenon is working on a (commercial) rootless X server for OS X, they have a beta available here.
I really tend to judge OS's by looks a,d not substance I suppose, which is why I like gnome and Macs and not MS so much.
I hope you're not implying that MS wins on substance :)
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
He is describing one system he designed that operates in that fashion. He doesn't say that all computers should operate in that way, just that once he designed one like that, and it worked. He used that as an example of how designers should break away from conventional thinking. fFr all we know the system he referred to was a simple experimental prototype. Hardly contradictory stuff for a researcher.
An operating system, even the saccharine Mac or Windows desktop, 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."
I see no contradictions here. He is describing the "operating system" concept as it has been sold to us. What is the "Windows Operating System" to most users? It's the Start Menu, the nested menus, the dancing paperclip. In short, the cruft you have to slog through before you start typing your paper or drawing your next masterpiece. He is purposely describing what an OS is from a user's perspective, not from a computer scientist's.
How can he blame his critics for saying such things?
A great many of the derogatory comments I read here came from people who failed to see that when he says "an operating system" he is usually referring to the user interface of that operating system (average user perspective), not the collection of system calls and programs that provide access to hardware (computer scientist perspective). If you can keep straight in your head that he is a UI researcher, most of what he says makes sense, or at least makes you think.
Point is, neither the command line nor most GUIs are terribly intuitive. But GUIs, for the end user, make a hell of a lot more sense. Unix's underpinnings are great. Its current interface is absolute garbage.
Well, I understand your points, UNIX interface design was initially a bit poor. But the idea of pipes (and pipelines), shell subsitution, input and output redirectors, etc. etc. has been introduced with a thought behind it.
This thought is called flexibility. And I can't underline this term even more. One of the key things why I use UNIX to it's full extend, and learned to love it, is flexibility. Small applications like sed, awk, find, grep, ls, cp and the others only contribute to this. Good editors like vi or emacs even extends this idea.
But there is a drawback in this idea and it is called "User Friendly". This term has been introduced mainly for new users. The need for this term is obvious in two ways.
First of all, not everybody is as techy as the average Slashdot reader. It is completely out of mind to think that a new computer user will pick up the idea behind UNIX and shells easily.
The second drawback in this idea of flexibility is that it keeps open too many ways for a user to interact with the OS. Again: most techies will like this idea of open-mindedness, and are always willing to learn (myself included). But it also introduces doubt in how to act on certain problems. In 10 seconds I can think of 10 different ways of finding a file on a certain operating system. This might be ideal for flexibility, but it leaves the user with a problem on how to choose his/her best bet.
The idea of using GUI's comes in mind. The use of a mouse comes in mind. But as we can see now, it doesn't really solve the problems involved in making things less complex. Instead of reading manual pages, people are now browsing through all the menus, different windows and still help pages. As it's biggest drawback it seems to loose a lot of flexibility. GUI programs tend to be bigger, capable of doing more and more things, but less than the sum of all the small command line utilities.
Of course, the need for graphical applications is very high. We just *need* them, no doubt about it, but as noted above, it also limits a lot of things. My answer: introduce a shell which is understandable for normal users. A shell which understands lines like:
AI shell> get all files ending in tmp in my home place
OK, I've found 10 files for your request
AI shell> go to the place where my temporary files are stored
OK
AI shell> drop the files there
10 files dropped
AI shell> no, I made an error there, put them back
OK, 10 files put back to your home place
AI shell> edit the document I was working on yesterday
2 files found:
foo.doc
bar.doc
AI shell> edit the last document
OK, editor started
user gets a word editor, opening the file bar.doc
This might seem a bit strange, and really difficult to implement, but if something like this would only nearly be possible, it would be a huge leap for new users to overcome the UNIX-anxiety.
This is a replacement signature.
Mac OS X has very little to do with Mac OS 6.0-7.5, and the relationship between them is only on the surface. (Hell, not one machine that can run Mac OS 7.5 will run OS X.) Mac OS X is not an "old-designed, cooperative multitasking OS;" it is "UNIX... made at least somewhat usable to Joe Schmoe."
The Mac OS's strength has always been its powerful but easy to use (the two are not mutually exclusive) interface. It was never designed for novices; it was designed so that the computer does not get in the way of the user's work (as Raskin said). The user could be a third grader or any power user who could stand the OS's admittedly weak underpinnings. The lack of a command line does not make Mac OS < 10 a toy for third graders and grandmothers; it makes it a tool that a relatively large audience can use relatively efficiently, whether they be third graders, grandmothers, or people who know computers very well and have real work to get done.
At the risk of pointing at the blatantly obvious, Mac OS X has a GUI that seems like it will be at least decent (it may not be as mature as Mac OS 9 until version X.1 or X.2) coupled with a command line (for those who want it) all built on top of a buzzword compliant core.
Therefore, Mac OS X is an OS that third graders can and 'power users' can both use as they see fit. I've been running the Public Beta for 4 months now, and this is definitely not your grandmother's OS (although mine will be using it :) ).
Apple has "been dying" for the past 10-12 years or so. Just like I wouldn't reccomend Linux for people who have problems running winblows, I wouldn't reccomend an AVID or an SGI to someone who just wants to edit their Public Access TV show.
Having worked on SGIs and Apples (both Mac powered AVIDs and standalone DV-equipped Macs), in both professional and commercial-grade applications, Apple is *far* better at doing most TV-quality applications that need to get done.
Unless you're doing Music Video editing, special effects, or are producing the next 3 hour long movie, an Apple w/ Final Cut Pro (or even Imovie) will do what you want, when you want it to, without having to resort to more costly options that produce only marginally higher quality stuff.
P.S. G4 video output made for TV production and watching DVDs. Most PC video cards are made for playng quake. Which tastes better: Apples or Oranges?