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MacOSX Vs BeOS ShootOut
Jolie writes: "After Palm purchased Be's assets, the future of BeOS became uncertain and a lot of users have left the platform. One of these users was Scot Hacker, mostly known for his 'BeOS Bible' book among other things. Scot tried to stick to Windows, then to Linux but he ended up with MacOSX. He has written a long and detailed article comparing, from the user's point of view, his beloved BeOS to his new favorite, MacOSX."
With a little more polish (multi-user, better networking) it coulda been a contender.
Frankly, no. For a system with such a small user base and development team as BeOS, the product was *highly* polished. It contained virtually every feature of a modern operating system with outstanding features ranging from the kernel (true multithreaded processing) to the interface (the textual "move to" and "copy to" options are some of the most ingenious interface considerations in a long time). Tet it's obvious that BeOS wasn't a finished product, but it was definitely going places quite fast-- and if the company was actually able to get money, the rate and quality of development would have been quite impressive. Ever hear of BONE or BeOpenGL? Besides, does an OS really need to have "polish" to market? Think of a little company in Redmond and define "polished".
The real reason BeOS wasn't "a contender" is because Microsoft screwed Be over with the fine print in its OEM contract. I suggest that you read this article by Scot Hacker with an accurate description of Be's demise.
1) I've never hear anyone describe Windows as "as user friendly as possible". You may have never used a Mac
2) "with a GUI similar to windows" --- It would be more realistic to describe Windows as having a GUI similar to the Mac, considering which came first.
Your last point (new computer users want just one way to do it) is the heart of what I'm getting at - is "internal consistency" (using middle-mouse only or CTRL-C, CTRL-V only for cut-n-paste) something that users of an open-source OS really want?
Well, personally, I want everything done my way. =P I, for instance, don't like to use the mouse, and if CTRL-C copies highlighted text in all the applications I use and CTRL-V pastes it, I'm a happy person. I'm not tied to CTRL-C and CTRL-V (that's just what Windows uses, so everyone else does too), but I would like it to be consistent. IMO, the best way to handle this would be to allow the universal keystrokes to be definable so that I could make, say, CTRL-P be the "paste" shortcut in all of my applications. The OS (or it's GUI shell) would catch the preferred keystroke and pass on system-defined messages, which the applications would look for, instead of keystrokes. Not going to happen anytime soon, but still nice to think about.
As to making Linux internally consistent: I'd like it to be so, yes. I prefer that all of my computer knowledge become obsolete only with major upgrades, as opposed to each time I install a new application.
One of the reasons it died is sort of summed up by this comment in the linked article:
Most of this applications section isn't really about operating systems, but about the apps available for the operating systems, so you might want to skip it if you're just looking for the OS comparisons. However, I believe that the applications landscape is an integral part of the total OS experience, so included it here.
The problem is that apps are not "an integral part" of a computing experience. They are almost the totality of it. With the exception of some supergeeks, nobody buys a computer in order to run the operating system. People buy computers to run apps. No matter how lickable the shutdown/adduser/finder screen interface is, without real apps a system is doomed. If Be had all the killer apps that people buy computers for, it would still be alive today.
Nobody cares about threading, "multimedia support", or POSIX. Users want Photoshop, MS Word, Quicken, Halo and that goofy little custom VB app that runs your small company's entire finance department.
Spare me the "OS Shootouts." Gimme the apps.
I'm an old school Unix user, and I will forever believe [forever] that users who say "command line is great, but for normal work, you want an integrated experience" --
these users do not really know what the hell they're doing in front of a command line interface. They may think they've mastered the shell of Unix or Linux, but they haven't --
because once you have, you will never really have a use for anything else -- the beauty of the shell is that all things and all functions are subsumed below it in consistent fashion, in one magnificent world-view, and all things no matter how complex become possible with a single, well-constructed command, almost like magic.
Some of my fellow Linux or Unix users will understand what I am talking about here -- using the command-line interface is not, as this author says, like carrying around a heavy toolbelt all day when none is needed. Instead, once one has truly mastered the CLI, one is like a Jedi master -- all acts are balanced, rapid, skilled, both intricate and simple at the same time -- and all things are possible and as simple as one another. I can get more work done in ten minutes with my CLI -- including editing video streams and audio streams! -- than most users can get done in days using GUI-only tools.
Of course, OSX and BeOS both have a CLI -- but neither is very useful because much of the rest of the system and the set of standard tools is gutted or malformed in peculiar OSX and BeOS ways. Users of BeOS and OSX think they are getting a CLI, but it's as though they've been trained only by Obi-Wan and never by Yoda -- the real essence of the system is muddied and lost and the benefits are never realized -- or worse -- they are driven from the concept of a CLI unduly.
That is my belief: that users who claim to want a desktop in which CLI use is normally avoided really don't understand and haven't yet mastered the CLI -- because once you have, anything else feels like a straightjacket.
MHO
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Thank you for the clarification. Here is what caused my confusion:
"The official Apple recommendation to developers regarding the storage of file type metadata in Mac OS X (as expressed in the Mac OS X System Overview document at the time of this writing) is as follows
In Mac OS X, you indicate the type of a document by specifying two things:
...
The "consequences" of removing a file name extension are actually determined by Mac OS X applications, not by the operating system itself. If I email a Photoshop document named "Logo(Second Revision)" to a Windows user and my email application does not encode the file type information in the file name by appending the appropriate ".psd" file name extension, then the recipient may have trouble opening the file.
d ata-8.html#macosx-file-types
l .html
Unfortunately, Apple does not recommend that applications that move files across platforms behave in this manner. Instead, as we've seen, Apple recommends that Mac OS X applications encode file type metadata in the file name as soon as the file is created. This "solves" the interoperability problem in that any file created in this manner can be sent to another platform without encoding file type metadata in the file name at the time of the transfer. But it requires Mac users to live with file name extension the rest of the time as well.
From: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q3/metadata/meta
More info is also available at:http://people.ne.mediaone.net/siracusa/proposa
In any event, I apologize for my stupidity. In any event, what I want is to view files in the Finder and be able to sort by attributes similat to Hacker's Be equivalent.
Hey, I admitted I was wrong, surely a /. first!
is "internal consistency" something that people really look for in an OS?
Yes!! Most people have been pointing out that consistency is important in the UI particularly for first time users. Of course UI consistency is usefull even for advanced users - after all even the most advanced user might on occasion use a piece of software that he is not familiar with - if there is no consistency he is not able to take all the knowledge and skills that make him an "advanced user" and apply it to the new unkown application. For that application he is essentially a "first time user" and must struggle through the learning curve all over again. If the UI is consistent he probably already knows how to use it even though he has never laid eyes on it before.
But internal consistency goes beyond just the UI. Consistency is important under the hood too. Why do you think the Linux crowd is always pushing open standards? A standard is simply a way of maintaining consistancy. Without some level of consistency you wouldn't be able to get anything done. A system that is designed as a whole rather than cobbled toegether from a variety of components has the potential advantages of enforced compliance and more comprehensive standards. The decentralized organic evolving "cobbled together" compenents of GNU/linux has other advantages but the more it can be standardised and so become "internally consistent" the better and more useful it will be.
but for the legions of DIY'ers out there, is this something to be worried about in an open-source OS?
That depends: Do you want it just for the sake of being a DIY'er or do you want it to be an effective tool? Do you want it to be an effective tool for other people to use it or is it just for yourself? If actual use is a secondary concern to the joy of doing it for yourself and you don't care if anyone else will use it then consistency is not so important. If on the other hand being a useful tool is important then internal consistency is very important.
Two words "Linux Ready" I'm pretty sure that the current OEM License doesn't prohibit leaving empty space on the hard drive, or shipping a CD with the system that includes another OS. If I could find a site that had the infamous OEM Licence on it I could be certain. Worst case scenario they would have to ship the Linux CD seperately. Those OEMs that provide Linux-only models could overnight add a 'linux ready' option to thier windows PCs. A modified linux CD that installed linux in one click setup correctly for that model of PC could be shipped either seperatly or if the license allows with the PC itself.
/. Microsoft could well be reading it and sending the legal staff to draft up a New OEM license as we speak. However, I doubt that even Microsoft could win a court battle about leaving a hard drive partially unformatted as a user option. The trade secret status process should also delay things long enough that an OEM could start shipping systems with the 'linux ready' option before Microsoft could act, and could then SUE Microsoft for damages ala the Dr. DOS case.
Of course since this is posted to
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> OS X does not have a journaled file system
... takes a second or two to format an 80GB drive.
... it's some kind of node number or something that is unique to that file, and so keeps shortened file names from conflicting. This is one of the top two or three "it's not going to kill me, but I sure wish it wasn't the case" types of things with Mac OS X. All you can say that's positive about it is that Apple is dealing with this issue better than Microsoft did with the similar issue on Windows.
S A/ jsDownload.html
/Library/Components for the whole machine or ~/Library/Components for just yourself), the Mac OS X Script Editor will now have a menu on the bottom left of its window where you can select the language you want to script in. Other languages are available for Mac OS 9 as well.
> (although, to be fair, I have lost power on
> this machine and found that it booted back
> up in a normal time span without appearing
> to do anything special).
Mac OS X runs fsck on each and every boot, but because of the way the HFS+ file system is constructed, running fsck multiple times on an 80GB disk takes only a few seconds, so you don't notice it.
If you check a disk with Mac OS X's Disk Utility, it actually runs fsck, and you'll notice it is done in a blink. Same with formatting disks
> The [long] filenames were truncated with garbage
> characters when viewed in the Finder.
They're not actually random garbage characters
> I don't mind AppleScript. I wish the system
> were open to other languages, but
> AppleScript does a fine job, and is very powerful.
The system is open to other languages. What most people call "AppleScript" is actually called "Open Scripting Architecture (OSA)", and AppleScript is just the default language. You can already get a JavaScript plug-in for Mac OS X.
http://www.latenightsw.com/freeware/JavaScriptO
Once installed (drop it in
The Mac OS X Script menu also launches Perl and shell scripts in addition to OSA scripts.
> This is fairly minor, but it seems that some apps
> remember their window positions when closed
> and some do not. Mail.app and Internet Explorer
> do remember their exact size and position
> between runs, but Terminal and many
> others do not. This is another good candidate
> for consistency in the user experience.
Mac OS X can hosts apps with a number of different heritages, so it's definitely true that there is great inconsitency between apps than there was before. As time goes on this will probably get better, as the "Mac OS X way" emerges completely and developers are all familiar with it to some degree.