[NCLUG] Re: Thoughts on Linux Users

[Chad Perrin]

On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 11:08:05PM -0700, John L. Bass wrote:
> 
> That the linux GUI is finally catching up to the Mac, some 25 years late,
> isn't a good thing. It means we have missed 25 years of ground breaking
> innovation.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with this part of your characterization of
the difference between Unix-like systems and Macs with regard to UI
design.

X is broken in a number of ways, and could reasonably be improved or
replaced by some quite drastic changes.  Much of the core design
philosophy, however, involves some advances that still have not been
touched by either Apple or Microsoft, twenty years later.

I think what you're seeing as a lack of progress in the Unix-like world
is, in fact, simply progress that is largely orthogonal to that of Apple
and Microsoft.  There the former focuses on productivity enhancement and
efficiency improvement, the latter two focus on certain aspects of
discoverability and UI confections.  As someone that might be described
more accurately as a "power user" than a typical user, I find the areas
of most progress for Unix-like system UI design indescribably more
important and beneficial than those of Apple and Microsoft UI
advancement.  In fact, the almost orgiastic devotion to nominal
discoverability in the design of interfaces like that of MS Windows over
the last fifteen years, give or take, has contributed to some severe
damage to the efficiency (both of the software and of the user's
interaction with it) over the years, in my estimation.

I prefer a UI that stays out of my way, and facilitates my work, over one
that constantly tells me that the way I'd like to do things is *wrong*.

There's no denying that until the last few years the eye candy
advancements of consumer level Unix-like UIs have tended to lag well
behind those of Apple and Microsoft OSes, but that's only of secondary
importance (if even that) to me.  Further, from what I've seen, it looks
like the last couple of years have seen Unix-like UI design leap past
that of Apple and Microsoft, in terms of the eye candy factor.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Baltasar Gracian: "A wise man gets more from his enemies than a fool from
his friends."