To get this done all apps where this is possible should be written with their logic part separated from their UI part like some open source programs already are. Why should 20 people have to program a cd-burning-tool (this is one example where there is basically one CLI tool for each job in Linux) when all they want are different interfaces to the same logic.
Computer Users work with Data. With every other (stored) data outside a computer they interact in 2D (read: paper). Why should they change this on the computer?
The Unreal Editor is very easy to use. You do not need much time to build basic levels with it. Sure, if you want the level to look organic it is another story but starting to use it is really fast.
I would argue Commandline is best for working with Text, GUI for working with (2D) Graphics and 3D-Interfaces for e.g. CAD or 3d-Game-Level-Design.
This hasn't changed over the past years, just our ability to implement higher dimension/resolution interfaces.
Re:Why is more dimensions "better"
on
3D User Interfaces
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You might want to have a look at Ratpoison http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/ as a WM. It is a Windowsmanager that basically maximizes every Window (tiling is possible AFAIK) and you can switch between them with the same keys you would use in "screen" (with a different prefix key of course). I use it as the final step of a constant descend KDE->XFCE->Fvwm->Ratpoison since I also use X only to give me more Xterms and for browsing, movies and pictures.
I wouldn't say the mouse is 'definitly a step forwards'. It is more like a step sideways. The mouse is good at things the keyboard is bad and the other way round. If you don't have to do anything graphical (no drawing, no moving in FPS,...) the keyboard is faster than the mouse.
If you want to abstract the OS out of the code (like SDL) you have to "let things get converted internally behind your back in undocumented ways".
Basically you describe abstraction as bad here which makes me wonder what your point was.
They can't just kill backwards compatibility now since it is the one big reason to stay with Windows. Most businesses are evaluating other OS now and if the change to a new Windows version requires rewriting all your programs (I know they will probably implement a compatibility layer but we know how well that worked in the past) then they might just as well rewrite them on Linux (or some other OS that 'lacks' MS Security Features (TM) ).
You have a strange view of the Industry if you think Java has reached "will be with us forever" stage just 10 years after the initial release (and that didn't resemble Java as we know it today in any form). Java has too many problems and not enough advantages to stay as long as C has. Don't get me wrong, the idea of the virtual machine will probably stay for a long time but not Java as a language or as a Runtime Environment.
I have yet to find a useful use of HTML in emails. The only mails I get where HTML-Use makes sense (user wasn't just too dumb to disable it for his text which would look exactly the same in plaintext) are spam- and virus-mails.
The other main reason being that you do something wrong in the first place if you have to search the whole harddisk. In Unix you have something called a "home directory" for the purpose of storing files that are relevant to you. Everything outside that (except for/usr/share/doc and similar places) is just interesting to root. And with the tradition of using text formats in Unix searching can be quite fast without an index if you exclude binary files.
The difference is that you never need to look at the list of all files in this directories. Most of the time you either look for one specific file or check wether a certain file exists. Only automated tools work with the whole list and for them it does not matter how unsorted the directory is.
And how does the Search Engine know the name=>face relation of people I know IRL? It's not like people would agree to a global database of face-recognition data linked to their name, at least in countries like germany (where I live) with privacy rights this would not be possible unless I tell my computer who is who at least once.
For most people it is good enough not because it couldn't be better but because it is not worth the effort for something they don't use more than once a month or so.
I don't know about you but since I let my Mail-Program sort my Emails I never have to search for anything in them. I save Attachments when I get them in the appropriate place on my harddisk and email-content (almost) never contains anything I need more than a week later.
What makes you so sure EVERY Linux Distro out there targets Joe/Jane average User? Most Source-based Distros do not, none of the Server-Distros do.
Another flaw in your logic is the comparison between the Install procedures. Normal Users don't install Windows but Linux has to make Installation easier than Windows since Linux does not come preinstalled from most vendors.
So you say if I download SP2 for a friend of mine who has no (or slow) Internet I am doing something illegal. If that is true MS has licenses more fucked up than I thought until now.
You don't have to understand shit in detail to notice the bad smell.
It is not only Flash but all these Web "technologies" that claim to be sooooo user-friendly while at the same time pages like Google, Slashdot, Freshmeat, Heise.de,... that use not much more than pure HTML are among the most usable pages I've ever encountered.
You Zealots, and I mean not only Flash but most other people using this argument (the "you know only technology x from y years ago, now it is much better" argument) too, must understand that not all./ers are just prejudiced when critizising your favorite technology. Some of us simply see through the Hype and identify the "advantages" of these "technologies" for what they are.
Simple: If you replace HTML,... with Flash on Websites you lose the ability to view Webpages on arbitrary sized screens (which is important now as more and more people get bigger screens at home and view webpages on portable devices), you lose the ability to use a screenreader or custom fonts, you lose the ability to save parts of the content or copy it to your clipboard, to open pages in new windows,...
You gain: More flashy, colorful, distracting shit and nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, Flash is nice for games and movies but it should stay out of Web-Design.
Judging from your attitude and your other posts, I have to wonder if the real problem is that you just hate graphical elements and animations in general, for some unknown reason. Sorry, but you're not in the majority.
How do you know that? I think it is much more likely to be the other way round. Web Designer are often people with a graphical/art background and thus like animations and graphical elements. The rest of the population does not like these just because most sites use them. How do you know wether graphical or purely textual websites (except for small logos and things like that) are prefered by the majority if web page designers are a biased group and there are no surveys about this?
Slashdot Mirror
To get this done all apps where this is possible should be written with their logic part separated from their UI part like some open source programs already are. Why should 20 people have to program a cd-burning-tool (this is one example where there is basically one CLI tool for each job in Linux) when all they want are different interfaces to the same logic.
Computer Users work with Data. With every other (stored) data outside a computer they interact in 2D (read: paper). Why should they change this on the computer?
I second that.
The Unreal Editor is very easy to use. You do not need much time to build basic levels with it. Sure, if you want the level to look organic it is another story but starting to use it is really fast.
I would argue Commandline is best for working with Text, GUI for working with (2D) Graphics and 3D-Interfaces for e.g. CAD or 3d-Game-Level-Design. This hasn't changed over the past years, just our ability to implement higher dimension/resolution interfaces.
You might want to have a look at Ratpoison http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/ as a WM. It is a Windowsmanager that basically maximizes every Window (tiling is possible AFAIK) and you can switch between them with the same keys you would use in "screen" (with a different prefix key of course). I use it as the final step of a constant descend KDE->XFCE->Fvwm->Ratpoison since I also use X only to give me more Xterms and for browsing, movies and pictures.
I wouldn't say the mouse is 'definitly a step forwards'. It is more like a step sideways. The mouse is good at things the keyboard is bad and the other way round. If you don't have to do anything graphical (no drawing, no moving in FPS,...) the keyboard is faster than the mouse.
Just another instance of "right tool for the job"
If you want to abstract the OS out of the code (like SDL) you have to "let things get converted internally behind your back in undocumented ways". Basically you describe abstraction as bad here which makes me wonder what your point was.
It is an entirely different situation.
They can't just kill backwards compatibility now since it is the one big reason to stay with Windows. Most businesses are evaluating other OS now and if the change to a new Windows version requires rewriting all your programs (I know they will probably implement a compatibility layer but we know how well that worked in the past) then they might just as well rewrite them on Linux (or some other OS that 'lacks' MS Security Features (TM) ).
You have a strange view of the Industry if you think Java has reached "will be with us forever" stage just 10 years after the initial release (and that didn't resemble Java as we know it today in any form). Java has too many problems and not enough advantages to stay as long as C has. Don't get me wrong, the idea of the virtual machine will probably stay for a long time but not Java as a language or as a Runtime Environment.
I have yet to find a useful use of HTML in emails. The only mails I get where HTML-Use makes sense (user wasn't just too dumb to disable it for his text which would look exactly the same in plaintext) are spam- and virus-mails.
The other main reason being that you do something wrong in the first place if you have to search the whole harddisk. In Unix you have something called a "home directory" for the purpose of storing files that are relevant to you. Everything outside that (except for /usr/share/doc and similar places) is just interesting to root. And with the tradition of using text formats in Unix searching can be quite fast without an index if you exclude binary files.
The difference is that you never need to look at the list of all files in this directories. Most of the time you either look for one specific file or check wether a certain file exists. Only automated tools work with the whole list and for them it does not matter how unsorted the directory is.
And how does the Search Engine know the name=>face relation of people I know IRL? It's not like people would agree to a global database of face-recognition data linked to their name, at least in countries like germany (where I live) with privacy rights this would not be possible unless I tell my computer who is who at least once.
For most people it is good enough not because it couldn't be better but because it is not worth the effort for something they don't use more than once a month or so.
I don't know about you but since I let my Mail-Program sort my Emails I never have to search for anything in them. I save Attachments when I get them in the appropriate place on my harddisk and email-content (almost) never contains anything I need more than a week later.
The fact that something sells does not indicate a need for it.
So MS tests your drivers and you believe them when they say they are stable...? Are you new to Windows?
That is a problem of all RPM-based Distros and the reason it is named "rpm-hell"
What makes you so sure EVERY Linux Distro out there targets Joe/Jane average User? Most Source-based Distros do not, none of the Server-Distros do.
Another flaw in your logic is the comparison between the Install procedures. Normal Users don't install Windows but Linux has to make Installation easier than Windows since Linux does not come preinstalled from most vendors.
It makes sense.
If there were no Bittorrent Protocol the *AA would have no headaches.
So you say if I download SP2 for a friend of mine who has no (or slow) Internet I am doing something illegal. If that is true MS has licenses more fucked up than I thought until now.
You don't have to understand shit in detail to notice the bad smell.
./ers are just prejudiced when critizising your favorite technology. Some of us simply see through the Hype and identify the "advantages" of these "technologies" for what they are.
It is not only Flash but all these Web "technologies" that claim to be sooooo user-friendly while at the same time pages like Google, Slashdot, Freshmeat, Heise.de,... that use not much more than pure HTML are among the most usable pages I've ever encountered.
You Zealots, and I mean not only Flash but most other people using this argument (the "you know only technology x from y years ago, now it is much better" argument) too, must understand that not all
The point is that most developers won't bother and won't even know all platforms and all ways to use the clipboard for example.
Simple: If you replace HTML,... with Flash on Websites you lose the ability to view Webpages on arbitrary sized screens (which is important now as more and more people get bigger screens at home and view webpages on portable devices), you lose the ability to use a screenreader or custom fonts, you lose the ability to save parts of the content or copy it to your clipboard, to open pages in new windows,...
You gain: More flashy, colorful, distracting shit and nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, Flash is nice for games and movies but it should stay out of Web-Design.