But not being remotely Windows-like has not hurt Mac OS X. I think that trying to pretend to be something it's not is the wrong path for Linux. I'm not saying I know what the right path is, and I'm definitely not saying Unity is it.
Linux distros spent nearly a decade trying to look a bit like Windows and it got them nowhere. Ubuntu made headway just by trying to be polished and simple and whole. It worked. I think some of the stuff they're trying now - HUD, lenses, reduction of menus, etc. - is less than ideal, but in general I support the idea of simplification.
I know the billion-odd Windows users like the whole taskbar-and-start-menu thing, but love 'em or hate 'em, the whole fondleslab phone/tablet revolution has shown that it's the old thing. The masses have voted and are voting with their feet. WIMPs are on the way out. Yes, a billion people use them, but the other six-sevenths of the human race have never seen one and never will. I hope they never have to learn what a mouse is or how one works & if keyboards become a mysterious antique that's fine with me - I have my treasured IBM Model Ms.
I strongly support the continuation of Windows-like desktops for those who want them, but I think it's a legacy technology that is going to fade from prominence & I am more than fine with that. I was a seasoned professional when the taskbar first appeared; it really is not all that. There are better ways, or at least, one just as good.
You wanna know the next big thing?
Well, tough, Ima tell you anyway.
TNBT is going to be the tiling window manager.
Win8 shows the way in a very limited form. Resizable overlapping windows are going to become a legacy tech. Smart tiling WMs that let you see 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5 or so, but not many more) apps at once will come in from the world of weird edgy experimental Unix windowmanagers (stuff like ratpoison, xmonad, dwm, wmii) and merge into the "desktop" OSs.
Because they will let the nerds have their precious multiple-apps-at-once on slate-type computers, without freaking out the non-nerds too much. I've been in support since the days of MS-DOS; ordinary Joes do not know how to manage windows *and they shouldn't have to*.
Apple hasn't realised this yet - with iOS, you get one app at a time and that's it. Win8 breaks that open - you can have 2, split about 70:30. Wooo. But this is actually the beginning of something big. What it needs is smarts - so it can work out what is effective in small windows and what needs big ones, so you can have 1 or 2 main windows taking most of the space, and a handful of small ones. The power users will supplement this with virtual desktops.
All the nerds will scream at first. I remember it last time, when they all hated GUIs and wanted the command line. Within a few years, they were all happy. They loved their GUIs even though they wouldn't admit it and even a quarter of a century later, it remains a badge of nerd pride to be competent at the command line.
Well, it's going to happen again. You read it here first. Overlapping, manually-managed windows are going to go away, intelligently auto-tiled ones will replace them, meaning that nerds have no wasted pixels and non-nerds need never even know what a window is.
Within a few years, everyone will love their efficiently-tiled screens with not a pixel of wallpaper to be seen, but it will become a new badge of nerd pride to have a keystroke to flip to overlapping windows and to know how to use them. But most won't, not unless they're being watched.
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Re: *clears throat*
Date: 2012-10-01 08:42 am (UTC)If you want something Windows-like - and I really do not; if I wanted Windows, which I don't, I'd bloody run Windows - then Mint 13 LTS is currently the best offering. There is a battle on right now between two rival taskbar-and-start-menu-style desktops: Cinnamon (GNOME-3-based) and Maté (GNOME 2 fork). Time will tell who wins.
But not being remotely Windows-like has not hurt Mac OS X. I think that trying to pretend to be something it's not is the wrong path for Linux. I'm not saying I know what the right path is, and I'm definitely not saying Unity is it.
Linux distros spent nearly a decade trying to look a bit like Windows and it got them nowhere. Ubuntu made headway just by trying to be polished and simple and whole. It worked. I think some of the stuff they're trying now - HUD, lenses, reduction of menus, etc. - is less than ideal, but in general I support the idea of simplification.
I know the billion-odd Windows users like the whole taskbar-and-start-menu thing, but love 'em or hate 'em, the whole fondleslab phone/tablet revolution has shown that it's the old thing. The masses have voted and are voting with their feet. WIMPs are on the way out. Yes, a billion people use them, but the other six-sevenths of the human race have never seen one and never will. I hope they never have to learn what a mouse is or how one works & if keyboards become a mysterious antique that's fine with me - I have my treasured IBM Model Ms.
I strongly support the continuation of Windows-like desktops for those who want them, but I think it's a legacy technology that is going to fade from prominence & I am more than fine with that. I was a seasoned professional when the taskbar first appeared; it really is not all that. There are better ways, or at least, one just as good.
You wanna know the next big thing?
Well, tough, Ima tell you anyway.
TNBT is going to be the tiling window manager.
Win8 shows the way in a very limited form. Resizable overlapping windows are going to become a legacy tech. Smart tiling WMs that let you see 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5 or so, but not many more) apps at once will come in from the world of weird edgy experimental Unix windowmanagers (stuff like ratpoison, xmonad, dwm, wmii) and merge into the "desktop" OSs.
Because they will let the nerds have their precious multiple-apps-at-once on slate-type computers, without freaking out the non-nerds too much. I've been in support since the days of MS-DOS; ordinary Joes do not know how to manage windows *and they shouldn't have to*.
Apple hasn't realised this yet - with iOS, you get one app at a time and that's it. Win8 breaks that open - you can have 2, split about 70:30. Wooo. But this is actually the beginning of something big. What it needs is smarts - so it can work out what is effective in small windows and what needs big ones, so you can have 1 or 2 main windows taking most of the space, and a handful of small ones. The power users will supplement this with virtual desktops.
All the nerds will scream at first. I remember it last time, when they all hated GUIs and wanted the command line. Within a few years, they were all happy. They loved their GUIs even though they wouldn't admit it and even a quarter of a century later, it remains a badge of nerd pride to be competent at the command line.
Well, it's going to happen again. You read it here first. Overlapping, manually-managed windows are going to go away, intelligently auto-tiled ones will replace them, meaning that nerds have no wasted pixels and non-nerds need never even know what a window is.
Within a few years, everyone will love their efficiently-tiled screens with not a pixel of wallpaper to be seen, but it will become a new badge of nerd pride to have a keystroke to flip to overlapping windows and to know how to use them. But most won't, not unless they're being watched.
Betcha.