It doesn't really get much better if the "linux-heads" try to put a GUI front-end on things. Widget layouts are often poorly thought out and often covey contradictory or ambiguous choices for configuration. These sad attempts at usability are even praised more highly than the supposedly "easy" command line stuff. The real problem is that the linux hackers designing interfaces in the linux community get sugar-coated reviews of their stuff by other linux hackers who are far too eager to say something is usable out of their ignorance of user interface design and out of their belief that anything under GPL is inherently superior to anything proprietary, interface or otherwise. As a personal experience, I once talked to a person who created a linux installer for a very prominent linux distribution and I mentioned a few of the dozens of confusing or ambiguous or inconsistent things I found in its interface. He couldn't understand what the problem was: he thought I thought that it "wasn't pretty enough". And yet die-hard linux zealots who remember vi commands before they remember their wife's anniversary claim that this interface is perfectly easy and that this installer is perfectly ready for the desktop.
The few people with interface design knowledge who point out these problems are usually called "whiners", and are told to shut up and code their own improvements.
Putting it bluntly, the linux development community is doing more to kill linux on the desktop than Bill Gates ever could. Microsoft realizes this, and that's they have never considered linux on the desktop a threat.
And of course we all know that most end users prefer reading documentation to immediately jumping in and using their computer. Why spend hours at your computer printing pretty pictures when you can spend hours at Barnes and Noble reading about how to set up your computer to print pretty pictures?
If those who screamed "it's a matter of choice" had any background in UI design, they would understand that their car analogies are perfectly silly: It's not about whether the Lexus has the plushy seats or the Boxer let's you pick up hot women at the beach. It's that you are able to move natively between a car you are perfectly familiar with and a car you've never used before because EVERY SINGLE DAMN CAR PRODUCED ON THE PLANET HAS THE BRAKE ON THE LEFT AND THE GAS ON THE RIGHT . Every single damn one, no exceptions. And yet all the "pro-choice" (pun intended) linux geeks who use car analogies seem to have no problem with the folks at GM and Honda deciding that there will be one particular convention for pedal layout. I haven't yet seen any posts on Slashdot decrying Chrysler for robbing American drivers of their ability to choose to have their steering wheel on the right side of the car. The reality of the computer world is that most rabidly pro-choice linux geeks gladly accept the benefits of pre-chosen standards regarding all sorts of things other than computers, but once something has RAM and a processor, consistency and standardization is considered a mortal sin.
Magic Lanterns are neat. They power up these kickass green rings which can kill terrorists with gigantic green hand tools. I feel a lot safer knowing our government has them.
You think that's bad? After 30 years, the Un*x community still hasn't grasped the concept of giving system files names that are real english words, or for that matter using spaces between them. The mac (pre OSX) has had both of those since 1984.
Actually, the reason why the mac mouse had only one button is that the guy who first started the Macintosh project at Apple, Jef Raskin, thought more than one button would be confusing to people (he might have actually done some usability testing to confirm this. I'm not quite certain). This seems like an oversight today, but remember that in the first years of the 80's when the mac was being designed, you didn't really have mass produced computers making extensive use of *any* pointing device as part of their basic UI. The concept of using a mouse was confusing enough with one button (see Star Trek IV if you don't believe me). Raskin had actually wanted a trackball instead of a mouse because "they don't pick up those oreo cookie crumbs that are the hallmark of a good programmer".
Bill Gates has chosen a punishment that satisfies the DOJ. We don't know what it is yet, but it might have something to do with those rumors of John Ashcroft shopping for soft cushions and comfortable chairs.
Anyone remember the original Metal gear for Nintendo? That kicked ass for its time--it was one of the few original nintendo games and actually had a plot. And the bad translations from Japanese were somewhat amusing, too "The truck have started to move!". The really freaky thing is that there are people my age who have kids who play the sequels to games that I played as a kid. It's a good thing that emulators like MAME exist, otherwise future generations of gamers who ten years from now play "Metal Gear 30" or "Golgo 13 III" (I can only dream) would never truly understand where their games fit into the whole plotline. Without MAME, how many kids playing the current line of nintendo games would know that Donkey Kong was originally evil and that the only thing Mario was good for was jumping over barrels?
While I usually disagree with you on many usability design issues, Mr Nickell, I totally agree with you on this issue. I seem to remember hearing some time ago about Richard Stallman not using GUI's, at all. Assuming this is true, would you really want such a person on board that is involved in some way in making GUI design decisions? Would a person who knows nothing about web servers, who has never set up a web server, who really doesn't know what HTML is or what it does really be a good choice as a board member of the Apache Foundation?
Will we have to revise unicode?
on
XML for Ancients
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· Score: 2, Interesting
With all these ancient language/hieroglyphic texts being archived, I have a feeling that we'll be hitting that 65536 character wall very shortly, since someone in the future might need that Cunieform version of M$ Word (hey, it could happen). Is it time for UTF-32?
On saturday night live many years ago, they had a "commercial" for airbags that inflated with popcorn. These would actually be quite useful if your hydrogen powered car slams into an oil truck.
The U.S. government is the world's largest consumer of software. If they require government agencies to buy something other than microsoft software, they can more than adequately punish microsoft and attack their monopoly status without having to further drag this through the court system.
While Rebol isn't exactly the most desirable programming language, the Rebol desktop has a well designed UI that is seamless and not half as clunky as your typical web browser. We keep hearing about all these people trying to market services and internet applications, and we hear about all these open source application servers, but when you get down to it, it's just substituting one backend with another. They all boil down to the same front end with the same impoverished user interaction capabilities we've had for the past 7 years.
If you can't help considering the Rebol Desktop's merits apart from Rebol's shortcomings as a "power-programmer" language, consider that a population of non-programmer internet users whose tastes and browsing activities are expanding might find a very simple scripting language that enables them to easily do a lot of useful stuff with web pages and e-mail quite useful.
I have this great idea for a computer game with lots of strategy. You have this board with 64 squares on it, every other square an opposite color from the previous one. The two people playing each other command a cast of figures representing medieval characters, each of whom moves in a different way. If you are able to move a character onto the same square a character of your opponent occupies while keeping within the rules of movement for your character, you capture your opponents piece, and it's taken out of the game. There are millions upon millions of interations of moves you and your opponant can make, and each decision your opponent makes has to be carefully analyzed and deduced to yield that optimal counterattack. If you hit your opponent at the right strategic point, particularly if he overextends himself, his defenses will crumble.
Best of all, there's lots of psychological conflict between the two of you, just like the kind you find in real war.
Whatever Microsoft does with passport is nothing compared to the fact that they're taking java out of the next version IE. They're using their dominance in the desktop OS/Browser market to promote.NET and crush java. Seriously, how many Joe Blow computer users will actually think to download a java VM from Sun and spend the time doing so? Probably the same number that thought to download Netscape once IE came out. What's next, taking out HTTP and replacing it with MSHTTP? Hello, justice department, Ralph Nader, are you out there?
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't really get much better if the "linux-heads" try to put a GUI front-end on things. Widget layouts are often poorly thought out and often covey contradictory or ambiguous choices for configuration. These sad attempts at usability are even praised more highly than the supposedly "easy" command line stuff. The real problem is that the linux hackers designing interfaces in the linux community get sugar-coated reviews of their stuff by other linux hackers who are far too eager to say something is usable out of their ignorance of user interface design and out of their belief that anything under GPL is inherently superior to anything proprietary, interface or otherwise. As a personal experience, I once talked to a person who created a linux installer for a very prominent linux distribution and I mentioned a few of the dozens of confusing or ambiguous or inconsistent things I found in its interface. He couldn't understand what the problem was: he thought I thought that it "wasn't pretty enough". And yet die-hard linux zealots who remember vi commands before they remember their wife's anniversary claim that this interface is perfectly easy and that this installer is perfectly ready for the desktop.
The few people with interface design knowledge who point out these problems are usually called "whiners", and are told to shut up and code their own improvements.
Putting it bluntly, the linux development community is doing more to kill linux on the desktop than Bill Gates ever could. Microsoft realizes this, and that's they have never considered linux on the desktop a threat.
And of course we all know that most end users prefer reading documentation to immediately jumping in and using their computer. Why spend hours at your computer printing pretty pictures when you can spend hours at Barnes and Noble reading about how to set up your computer to print pretty pictures?
If those who screamed "it's a matter of choice" had any background in UI design, they would understand that their car analogies are perfectly silly: It's not about whether the Lexus has the plushy seats or the Boxer let's you pick up hot women at the beach. It's that you are able to move natively between a car you are perfectly familiar with and a car you've never used before because EVERY SINGLE DAMN CAR PRODUCED ON THE PLANET HAS THE BRAKE ON THE LEFT AND THE GAS ON THE RIGHT . Every single damn one, no exceptions. And yet all the "pro-choice" (pun intended) linux geeks who use car analogies seem to have no problem with the folks at GM and Honda deciding that there will be one particular convention for pedal layout. I haven't yet seen any posts on Slashdot decrying Chrysler for robbing American drivers of their ability to choose to have their steering wheel on the right side of the car. The reality of the computer world is that most rabidly pro-choice linux geeks gladly accept the benefits of pre-chosen standards regarding all sorts of things other than computers, but once something has RAM and a processor, consistency and standardization is considered a mortal sin.
Magic Lanterns are neat. They power up these kickass green rings which can kill terrorists with gigantic green hand tools. I feel a lot safer knowing our government has them.
You think that's bad? After 30 years, the Un*x community still hasn't grasped the concept of giving system files names that are real english words, or for that matter using spaces between them. The mac (pre OSX) has had both of those since 1984.
Actually, the reason why the mac mouse had only one button is that the guy who first started the Macintosh project at Apple, Jef Raskin, thought more than one button would be confusing to people (he might have actually done some usability testing to confirm this. I'm not quite certain). This seems like an oversight today, but remember that in the first years of the 80's when the mac was being designed, you didn't really have mass produced computers making extensive use of *any* pointing device as part of their basic UI. The concept of using a mouse was confusing enough with one button (see Star Trek IV if you don't believe me). Raskin had actually wanted a trackball instead of a mouse because "they don't pick up those oreo cookie crumbs that are the hallmark of a good programmer".
Bill Gates has chosen a punishment that satisfies the DOJ. We don't know what it is yet, but it might have something to do with those rumors of John Ashcroft shopping for soft cushions and comfortable chairs.
Now 15 year-olds can launch DOS attacks with laser pointers.
Anyone remember the original Metal gear for Nintendo? That kicked ass for its time--it was one of the few original nintendo games and actually had a plot. And the bad translations from Japanese were somewhat amusing, too "The truck have started to move!". The really freaky thing is that there are people my age who have kids who play the sequels to games that I played as a kid. It's a good thing that emulators like MAME exist, otherwise future generations of gamers who ten years from now play "Metal Gear 30" or "Golgo 13 III" (I can only dream) would never truly understand where their games fit into the whole plotline. Without MAME, how many kids playing the current line of nintendo games would know that Donkey Kong was originally evil and that the only thing Mario was good for was jumping over barrels?
Always sheathe your lightsaber, young padawan learner. "Using the force" just isn't a valid method of birth control.
Time to start milking cows again. At least cyberporn gave us lots of practice.
Bill explained this quite clearly at his press conference yesterday. If Microsoft didn't invent TCP/IP, open source never would have made it.
Yes, RMS doesn't have any experience in developing GUI's. Sure, he hasn't contributed to GNOME development in any way, shape, manner or form.
But he did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
While I usually disagree with you on many usability design issues, Mr Nickell, I totally agree with you on this issue. I seem to remember hearing some time ago about Richard Stallman not using GUI's, at all. Assuming this is true, would you really want such a person on board that is involved in some way in making GUI design decisions? Would a person who knows nothing about web servers, who has never set up a web server, who really doesn't know what HTML is or what it does really be a good choice as a board member of the Apache Foundation?
With all these ancient language/hieroglyphic texts being archived, I have a feeling that we'll be hitting that 65536 character wall very shortly, since someone in the future might need that Cunieform version of M$ Word (hey, it could happen). Is it time for UTF-32?
On saturday night live many years ago, they had a "commercial" for airbags that inflated with popcorn. These would actually be quite useful if your hydrogen powered car slams into an oil truck.
The U.S. government is the world's largest consumer of software. If they require government agencies to buy something other than microsoft software, they can more than adequately punish microsoft and attack their monopoly status without having to further drag this through the court system.
See, that's what happens when you have those low quality asteroids imported from god knows where. Always look for the "Made in the USA" sticker.
While Rebol isn't exactly the most desirable programming language, the Rebol desktop has a well designed UI that is seamless and not half as clunky as your typical web browser. We keep hearing about all these people trying to market services and internet applications, and we hear about all these open source application servers, but when you get down to it, it's just substituting one backend with another. They all boil down to the same front end with the same impoverished user interaction capabilities we've had for the past 7 years.
If you can't help considering the Rebol Desktop's merits apart from Rebol's shortcomings as a "power-programmer" language, consider that a population of non-programmer internet users whose tastes and browsing activities are expanding might find a very simple scripting language that enables them to easily do a lot of useful stuff with web pages and e-mail quite useful.
Say what you want, but a language with "forever" as a keyword seems pretty darn circular to me.
Get a thousand TiVO's. Why settle for AVI quality when you can see your terrorists and burglars in stunning MPEG-2?
I have this great idea for a computer game with lots of strategy. You have this board with 64 squares on it, every other square an opposite color from the previous one. The two people playing each other command a cast of figures representing medieval characters, each of whom moves in a different way. If you are able to move a character onto the same square a character of your opponent occupies while keeping within the rules of movement for your character, you capture your opponents piece, and it's taken out of the game. There are millions upon millions of interations of moves you and your opponant can make, and each decision your opponent makes has to be carefully analyzed and deduced to yield that optimal counterattack. If you hit your opponent at the right strategic point, particularly if he overextends himself, his defenses will crumble.
Best of all, there's lots of psychological conflict between the two of you, just like the kind you find in real war.
Oh, wait, someone's already done that....
Perl isn't an OOP language? Guess I need to tear out chapters 12-13 of my Camel Book.
He twists her knobs, she watches his antenna rise.
Whatever Microsoft does with passport is nothing compared to the fact that they're taking java out of the next version IE. They're using their dominance in the desktop OS/Browser market to promote .NET and crush java. Seriously, how many Joe Blow computer users will actually think to download a java VM from Sun and spend the time doing so? Probably the same number that thought to download Netscape once IE came out. What's next, taking out HTTP and replacing it with MSHTTP? Hello, justice department, Ralph Nader, are you out there?