I recall during my Calculus finals in college having an awful nite of sleep, half-awake half (or less) conscious and trying to do the integral for the surface that my blanket made.
Many times it's true that sleep has helped me solve a problem, but other times my mind churns in the nite trying to solve problems that get distorted by my impending dream state.
Windows does a pretty good job of making general computer tasks easy to do. What drive me nuts, as a developer, is that they take this same dumbing down restrictive philosphy to their development tools. I really find that much of dev studio just gets in my way and slows me down.
Linux has just the opposite problem. Everything is designed with the developer as the target user (not intentionally mind you). This results in all of us loving Linux, because it works naturally for "us". The problem with this is that the community that makes Linux is too close too the product to see/admit that it alienates end users.
// begin sarcasm
No it will will be really slow like in Japan where they still build cheap small cars with low wage workers. One day maybe they're economy will be more like ours and they will start building luxury products and demand higher wages.// end sarcams
This is something that has always troubled me about many of the Open Source GUI projects. They seem to be copies of MS applications instead of trying to take advantage of what I and hopefully most people love about Unix OSes. Namely that small applications work well and take advantage of the services and functions the the UI level of the OS. I've always thought that the whole concept of and "Office" application was a sign of defeat. MS Office always says to me that "our OS is too crappy to make it easy for users to easily work with multiple applictions from many sources and formats, so we are adding a meta-OS layer on top that our applications can work together on". I spend more time on Windows than I care too admit, and one of the things that really pisses me off, is that many MS apps (Outlooks, Source Safe, Visual Studio) can just use the native file system concept of files and folders to store data, but create some new composite store system that looks just like files and folders, but doesn't map to the system storage.
This works well for older unix apps since they are all text based and I freely admit that this is a challenge that I don't know the answer too but one worth attempting. Otherwise Linux is just a free clone of Windows, not fundamentally better, just open.
I'm always shocked at novice users I know who learn how to use a couple of apps on their windows box but don't understand how to use the file browser or where their documents are being saved.
The actual interface of text based unix apps is difficult to learn, but at least they are resuable and modular
Is a networked handheld browser. I can keep all my data (contacts, calendar, mp3s, etc.) on a server that I can access from any device. This way I don't have to do any device sync'ing or backups.
The browser is just a window into applications running on real computer somewhere else. This depends on having always available high bandwidth connections. It may take while.
Of course this will never happen in a computer industry that is dominated by local storage based machines from windows. I really miss the days where I could walk up to any computer in the office, login and it basically became my machine.
Neither QD or CP are good solutions. Somewhere in the middle is where Engineering and Marketing negotiate to get something out the door that works and is reasonably sustainable. This is where good management comes in.
If Engineers ran the business, product would never ever ship. Correct and Proper plans make the assumption that we can plan for the future 100% accurately. I don't know how many projects I've been on where some zealot engineer claims that we have to redesign everything because it sucks, goes and redesigns and the same guys comes back 6 months later saying the same thing.
If Marketers get the upper hand they end up promising products that god himself could not build.
I've noticed that TiVo is very hard to explain to non-technical people, but once they see one in action they get it. It's amazing to watch when they realize suddenly how cool this is.
It took about an hour of training my mother-in-law, and after about 3 days she was a pro. On the other hand, I know someone who paid me $100 to setup and teach them how to use their TiVo, and they are a partner in a big financial company. Go figure.
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I recall during my Calculus finals in college having an awful nite of sleep, half-awake half (or less) conscious and trying to do the integral for the surface that my blanket made.
Many times it's true that sleep has helped me solve a problem, but other times my mind churns in the nite trying to solve problems that get distorted by my impending dream state.
Windows does a pretty good job of making general computer tasks easy to do. What drive me nuts, as a developer, is that they take this same dumbing down restrictive philosphy to their development tools. I really find that much of dev studio just gets in my way and slows me down. Linux has just the opposite problem. Everything is designed with the developer as the target user (not intentionally mind you). This results in all of us loving Linux, because it works naturally for "us". The problem with this is that the community that makes Linux is too close too the product to see/admit that it alienates end users.
// begin sarcasm No it will will be really slow like in Japan where they still build cheap small cars with low wage workers. One day maybe they're economy will be more like ours and they will start building luxury products and demand higher wages. // end sarcams
This is something that has always troubled me about many of the Open Source GUI projects. They seem to be copies of MS applications instead of trying to take advantage of what I and hopefully most people love about Unix OSes. Namely that small applications work well and take advantage of the services and functions the the UI level of the OS. I've always thought that the whole concept of and "Office" application was a sign of defeat. MS Office always says to me that "our OS is too crappy to make it easy for users to easily work with multiple applictions from many sources and formats, so we are adding a meta-OS layer on top that our applications can work together on". I spend more time on Windows than I care too admit, and one of the things that really pisses me off, is that many MS apps (Outlooks, Source Safe, Visual Studio) can just use the native file system concept of files and folders to store data, but create some new composite store system that looks just like files and folders, but doesn't map to the system storage. This works well for older unix apps since they are all text based and I freely admit that this is a challenge that I don't know the answer too but one worth attempting. Otherwise Linux is just a free clone of Windows, not fundamentally better, just open. I'm always shocked at novice users I know who learn how to use a couple of apps on their windows box but don't understand how to use the file browser or where their documents are being saved. The actual interface of text based unix apps is difficult to learn, but at least they are resuable and modular
Is a networked handheld browser. I can keep all my data (contacts, calendar, mp3s, etc.) on a server that I can access from any device. This way I don't have to do any device sync'ing or backups. The browser is just a window into applications running on real computer somewhere else. This depends on having always available high bandwidth connections. It may take while. Of course this will never happen in a computer industry that is dominated by local storage based machines from windows. I really miss the days where I could walk up to any computer in the office, login and it basically became my machine.
Unique Linux innovation . . . TiVo! But most user's don't know it uses Linux (nor should they have to)
Neither QD or CP are good solutions. Somewhere in the middle is where Engineering and Marketing negotiate to get something out the door that works and is reasonably sustainable. This is where good management comes in.
If Engineers ran the business, product would never ever ship. Correct and Proper plans make the assumption that we can plan for the future 100% accurately. I don't know how many projects I've been on where some zealot engineer claims that we have to redesign everything because it sucks, goes and redesigns and the same guys comes back 6 months later saying the same thing.
If Marketers get the upper hand they end up promising products that god himself could not build.
I've noticed that TiVo is very hard to explain to non-technical people, but once they see one in action they get it. It's amazing to watch when they realize suddenly how cool this is. It took about an hour of training my mother-in-law, and after about 3 days she was a pro. On the other hand, I know someone who paid me $100 to setup and teach them how to use their TiVo, and they are a partner in a big financial company. Go figure.