On Jul 24, 2005, at 7:43 PM, Jimen Ching wrote:
Die, X, die. Now. BitBlt on wheels is so last century. I don't
want fully generalized mediocrity. Just have it not suck.
Spoken like a true Mac user.
I noticed this pattern in all of the complaints from users of X and
Linux
(or Unix like OS's). The complaint isn't as much about X and Linux
(the
kernel), as it is about the X and Linux _applications_.
My complaint was directed at X, not its applications.
The reason why you and other Mac users prefer Mac's is because it
provides
a single interface.
The reason I prefer a Mac is that I don't have to fsck with it to
have it work.
Steve Jobs is anal enough to force all Mac software vendors to
follow a single UI guide.
Jobs has very little to do with it.
Unfortunately for X and Linux, these systems aren't as anal about
UI guides.
X never had a "UI Guide".
As a result, every application has a different interface. Sure
environments like KDE and Gnome try to
enforce a standard. But Unix/X developers aren't as anal as Steve
Jobs.
Again, its not Jobs per se. Moreover, Apple has lost a lot of the
UI consistency that it had.
Don't get me wrong. I agree with you. I couldn't care less about
the 101
different 'themes' that Gnome provides. But the fact remains.
There are
enough people who _do_ care about variety that there ARE 101 themes in
Gnome.
There are themes for Windows and MacOS as well.
Thus, this variety is not likely to go away, unless you also want
these theme developers to go away as well. Variety is the main
driving
feature of Linux and X. Complaining about it won't change that.
You are aware that variety can be bad for you, right?
Have you read "The Paradox of Choice"?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/sim-explorer/explore-items/-/
0060005688/0/101/1/none/purchase/ref%3Dpd%5Fsxp%5Fr0/002-5933325-9694414
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2004-01-16-paradox-
choice_x.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec03/paradox_12-26.html
Choice is generally good, but too much choice, and worse, uninformed
choice, is bad. It's no different than politics, choosing a text
editor in Linux without any knowledge of how they work is like voting
without any research into how the candidates stand on the issues.
Since I'm on my soap box, let me just vent one more issue.
<soap box>
I don't understand why people need to point out that Unix and X are 30
year old technology.
Did I say anything about the age of Unix (which is over 30) or "The X
Window System" (which at most is now 20 years old)?
X originated at MIT in 1984. The current protocol version, X11, was
released in September 1987). X11, which I'll bet is all you've
ever known, isn't even 20 years old yet.
Do these people realize that cars still use combustion engines that
were developped almost a century ago?
They do, especially when discussing electric cars, powered by fuel
cells, batteries or even (plug in) hybrids.
By the way, the basic theory for two-stroke engines was established
by Sadi Carnot in France in 1824, whilst the American Samuel Morey
received a patent on April 1, 1826 for a "Gas Or Vapor Engine".
The Italians Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci patented a first
working efficient version of an internal combustion engine in 1854 in
London (pt. Num. 1072). Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir produced in 1860 a
gas-fired internal combustion engine not dissimilar in appearance to
a steam beam engine. Nikolaus Otto working with Gottlieb Daimler and
Wilhelm Maybach in the 1870's developed the four-stroke cycle (Otto
cycle) engine.
So by any measure, the internal combustion engine was invented at
least 125 years ago, and thus over a century old. (*)
Why aren't they complaining that we aren't using anti-matter or
something?
Its pretty stupid to rely on a process where > 70% of the energy goes
out the tailpipe as waste heat. The only reason that the internal
combustion engine is still so popular is that the (perceived) energy
costs are cheap when compared to the alternatives.
Of course, cheap oil is coming to an end soon enough.
This just shows the gap in the CS world between those who
understand and those who
don't. In this day and age, you'd think the gap is narrowing. But
it seems to be widening...
Excuse me? Was that an attempt at insult directed at me?
Several years ago, Linus Torvalds shared his new kernel with an
audience employing technologies that would ultimately serve as the
building blocks of the internet as we know it today. His kernel, a
fully open sourced collection of code, invited developers from around
the world to write their own applications and share their code too,
to attempt to create best of breed applications. That much is
undisputable.
Somewhere along the way, there became a nearly religious belief, some
sort of wacky zen centering around "choice" being the key to the
success of Linux. The monks who preach this gospel are all over the
net. But I've never seen it that way. I've always felt as though I
don't want to spend my time trying to decide which word processor to
use. I don't want to flip flop between Kontact and Evolution, Gaim
and Kopete, Abiword, KWord, Open Office.org Writer, etc. Applications
are merely an aside to productivity, the key is a comfortable,
cohesive system. And that is acheived with the input and
contributions of the masses.
Along the way, I think we've gotten confused. Some stand for choice
when it's convenient, like in Linux distributions, but not when it's
painful, like in adherence, or lack thereof, to standards. Some vice
versa - they believe in a free for all, with a Darwinistic belief
that the best will win out. We rarely permit our OS installations to
limit our choice, yet insist on an immediate cease of non-standard
behavior. Funny that Linux survives by having a single maintainer
deciding what goes into the kernel and what doesn't, the near
antithesis of too many of its followers, who feel as though the
removal of some quirky option is unacceptable, and the inclusion of a
specific rarely used app is a necessity. How is it that we contradict
ourselves so much as a group pushing towards the same goals?
Communally, I feel we should be aware the strengths of Linux. Linux
is a superior system, but isn't always treated like one. Some would
say "People won't use Linux because it's too confusing," and the
retorts are heard from miles "It works for me." The trick to Linux
isn't just to get hardware compatibility and drivers, but that's part
of it. It isn't to have a pretty GUI, but that's part of it, it isn't
to have a polished, consistent system, but that's part of it.
No, it's all of those things, plus one more, ultra important thing:
it's a flexible, adaptable system which can be whatever you need it
to be. Linux needs to flex. But more than that, Linux needs to
unflex. The people that CAN use Linux often are. It's the people that
can't that we need to start paying attention to. Linux - in a general
sense - needs a good starting point that doesn't call upon you to
make a zillion decisions. And that, I'm beginning to think, comes
from removal of choice.
Users cannot be overwhelmed by Linux or they won't use it.
Applications attempt to become compatible by relying on standards.
When Linux doesn't behave in an expected way, there are dependancy
problems, failed compiles, kernel panics, and packages that don't
work across distributions. When a web page fails to adhere to
standards, some browsers sometimes misrender the pages, making them
only a part of the browsing experience. When an application doesn't
write to open formats, we end up with the disaster we have today - a
zillion Microsoft Word documents that still don't open and format
properly in anything but Microsoft Office.
There is a line from the movie The American President that says "The
symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to
be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in
protest." Choice is golden. But part of choice is the ability to
select the unpopular path. Part of that choice is the ability to
remove choice or not follow standards. And part of it, I believe, is
the choice to quietly not use the software that doesn't meet your
individual needs. Unfortunately, it appears that choice complicates
things for those who are learning, and adds to the experience of
experts. The paradox of technology, it would seem, is to accept
choice as both a good thing and a bad thing at once.
jim
(*) Wankel first conceived his rotary engine in 1924 and finally
received a patent for it in 1929, making the Wankel engine "almost a
century" old, but I doubt you were speaking of the Wankel rotary engine.
