The end of OS/2 was spelled out clearly on August 17, 1995, when OS/2's original chief architect, Gordon Letwin, described its insurmountable barriers in this posting to comp.os.os2.advocacy.
Why wouldn't it make sense? After all we are still using the same computer architecture, as the 60's.
Hierarchical file systems were designed under radically different conditions than today's computing environment. In the 1960's: * Memory was incredibly expensive * Disk was very expensive * Users had to manage relatively few files
Today, design conditions are: * Memory is relatively cheap * Disk is incredibly cheap (in fact, outpacing Moore's law) * Users have to manage huge numbers of files (email messages, web pages, MP3 files etc.)
Will hierarchical file systems work in this environment? Of course! Most of us are using traditional file systems every day.
But are hierarchical file systems optimized for this environment? No...they were simply designed for different conditions, that's all.
Re:ReiserFS + Desktop
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 2, Interesting
This is exactly right. Changing the underlying data representation is the first step to enabling truly new GUIs. As Gelernter says, it simply doesn't make sense to use a 1960's era data model (the hierarchical file system) on 2002 hardware.
Also, while radical approaches like 3DUIs don't make a lot of sense on top of the traditional file/folder storage model, they become much more compelling when the file system becomes a relational database.
And you are absolutely correct that Microsoft is pursuing this opportunity with a vengeance. By battling for the "Windows desktop", most Linux UI developers are fighting yesterday's battle. Instead, they should be looking forward and trying to beat Microsoft to a truly next-generation environment.
New UI = new applications = new users
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 2, Insightful
As long as developers just try to make a "better Windows than Windows", there will be no major upswing in the adoption of Linux on the "client" (whether you are talking about the traditional desktop, or other environments controlled directly by the user, such as handhelds). Until now, most efforts to develop Linux interfaces and applications have been focused on simply recreating equivalents of existing software products. As a result, mainstream desktop users have found few compelling reasons to switch to Linux because it does not currently offer an experience that is fundamentally any different from that of Windows or MacOS (notwithstanding its lower price and superior reliability). But as truly next-generation user interfaces for Linux emerge, they will enable the development of new kinds of applications that will be difficult or impossible to match on the existing platforms. Such "killer" applications (which are defined as applications that are so valuable that they justify adoption of a new platform simply to gain access to them) will start the virtuous cycle of platform-application interdependency that will allow Linux to break out of the server ghetto and take off with the masses.
The problem with computing appliances right now is that human-factors engineering has been largely neglected by the computer industry over the past few years. Most computer suppliers have focused on lowering costs, rather than pushing the envelope on hardware design and really improving usability. At the same time, software usability improvements have been slowed by the lock-in of WIMP imposed by Windows and other systems, which have frozen UI state-of-the-art at 1984 levels.
If you are interested in the evolution of appliances, this summary in MIT Technology Review provides an interesting glimpse of how handheld computing could evolve in the future. It questions the assumption that cell-phone Web browsers and pen-based computing will be the dominant paradigms, betting instead on thumb keyboards and portable hard drives. Some interesting market statistics are revealed, such as that 52 percent of households in the 25 largest urban markets in the United States have cell phones (compared to more than 75 percent in some European countries such as Iceland and Finland), and that worldwide sales of digital organizers were 12 million units, while digital camera sales were 6.4 million units last year (3 million MP3 players are expected to be sold this year). These kinds of numbers show that a breakthrough for computing appliances may be near.
This is exactly the topic of the new Slash site that I just set up at http://nooface.net. The goal of the site is to promote out-of-the-box
thinking about truly next-generation user interfaces that are designed for new types of users and computing devices, and go beyond the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing Device) method that most current interfaces are based on.
Slashdot Mirror
The end of OS/2 was spelled out clearly on August 17, 1995, when OS/2's original chief architect, Gordon Letwin, described its insurmountable barriers in this posting to comp.os.os2.advocacy.
Last thing we will need though, is smell feedback.
Well, it's being done anyhow.
It exists already.
Why wouldn't it make sense? After all we are still using the same computer architecture, as the 60's.
Hierarchical file systems were designed under radically different conditions than today's computing environment. In the 1960's:
* Memory was incredibly expensive
* Disk was very expensive
* Users had to manage relatively few files
Today, design conditions are:
* Memory is relatively cheap
* Disk is incredibly cheap (in fact, outpacing Moore's law)
* Users have to manage huge numbers of files (email messages, web pages, MP3 files etc.)
Will hierarchical file systems work in this environment? Of course! Most of us are using traditional file systems every day.
But are hierarchical file systems optimized for this environment? No...they were simply designed for different conditions, that's all.
This is exactly right. Changing the underlying data representation is the first step to enabling truly new GUIs. As Gelernter says, it simply doesn't make sense to use a 1960's era data model (the hierarchical file system) on 2002 hardware.
Also, while radical approaches like 3DUIs don't make a lot of sense on top of the traditional file/folder storage model, they become much more compelling when the file system becomes a relational database.
And you are absolutely correct that Microsoft is pursuing this opportunity with a vengeance. By battling for the "Windows desktop", most Linux UI developers are fighting yesterday's battle. Instead, they should be looking forward and trying to beat Microsoft to a truly next-generation environment.
As long as developers just try to make a "better Windows than Windows", there will be no major upswing in the adoption of Linux on the "client" (whether you are talking about the traditional desktop, or other environments controlled directly by the user, such as handhelds). Until now, most efforts to develop Linux interfaces and applications have been focused on simply recreating equivalents of existing software products. As a result, mainstream desktop users have found few compelling reasons to switch to Linux because it does not currently offer an experience that is fundamentally any different from that of Windows or MacOS (notwithstanding its lower price and superior reliability). But as truly next-generation user interfaces for Linux emerge, they will enable the development of new kinds of applications that will be difficult or impossible to match on the existing platforms. Such "killer" applications (which are defined as applications that are so valuable that they justify adoption of a new platform simply to gain access to them) will start the virtuous cycle of platform-application interdependency that will allow Linux to break out of the server ghetto and take off with the masses.
According to this interview with Gates last year, roughly 300 million users were running on some version of Window 9X as of March 2001.
The problem with computing appliances right now is that human-factors engineering has been largely neglected by the computer industry over the past few years. Most computer suppliers have focused on lowering costs, rather than pushing the envelope on hardware design and really improving usability. At the same time, software usability improvements have been slowed by the lock-in of WIMP imposed by Windows and other systems, which have frozen UI state-of-the-art at 1984 levels.
If you are interested in the evolution of appliances, this summary in MIT Technology Review provides an interesting glimpse of how handheld computing could evolve in the future. It questions the assumption that cell-phone Web browsers and pen-based computing will be the dominant paradigms, betting instead on thumb keyboards and portable hard drives. Some interesting market statistics are revealed, such as that 52 percent of households in the 25 largest urban markets in the United States have cell phones (compared to more than 75 percent in some European countries such as Iceland and Finland), and that worldwide sales of digital organizers were 12 million units, while digital camera sales were 6.4 million units last year (3 million MP3 players are expected to be sold this year). These kinds of numbers show that a breakthrough for computing appliances may be near.
This would be much more useful with a headsup display.
This is exactly the topic of the new Slash site that I just set up at http://nooface.net. The goal of the site is to promote out-of-the-box thinking about truly next-generation user interfaces that are designed for new types of users and computing devices, and go beyond the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing Device) method that most current interfaces are based on.
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
X has its flaws (see Chapter 7 of the Unix Hater's Handbook), but it was extremely important for the evolution of UNIX. Now, it's time for the next step.