[rescue] NeXTSTEP or OPENSTEP?

[Carl R. Friend]

    On Sun, 10 Aug 2014, Raymond Wiker wrote:

> On 10 Aug 2014, at 16:08 , Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Controversial opinion here, I know, but MICROS~1 did the right thing
>> with Metro, and it's going to regret backing down.  [...]

> I disagree completely -- Windows 8 on a desktop computer is a usability
> disaster. The fact that the Metro UI makes (some) sense on a tablet PC does
> not in any way justify foisting it (and the Metro apps) upon users of desktop
> PCs.

    It's not just a usability disaster of biblical proportion it just
made absolutely *no* sense whatsoever to push that idiom onto a
desktop environment.  Sure, it's appropriate for the next generation
of what computers are going to become -- entertainment and advertising
devices for consumers of "stuff" -- but whither the folks who actually
*create* the stuff that'll be being consumed.  The folks who need the
tools to create got shafted in the move to the tablet interface.

    Bluntly put, if all there was out there on offer was Windows 8, I'd
go back to handwritten letters and the post.  I'm also tired of hearing
my wife cursing at the latest laptop she bought because Windows 8 was
the only thing available for it.

    Does it have to be this way?  Is the GUI so tightly integrated with
the kernel that other shells cannot be provided?  NO -- on both counts.
What Microsoft *should* have done is offer multiple shells and let the
user-base determine which one it wants to use based on hardware and
personal preference.

    Cheers.

+------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin)            | West Boylston       |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast            | Massachusetts, USA  |
| mailto:crfriend at rcn.com                        +---------------------+
| http://users.rcn.com/crfriend/museum           | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W |
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