Text 2046, 171 rader
Skriven 2006-06-07 23:12:00 av Robert E Starr JR (2492.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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* * * This message was from Josh Hill to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
* * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *
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@REPLY: <oO6dnfNuDIXNEhzZnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@comcast.com>
On Wed, 7 Jun 2006 03:41:59 +0000 (UTC), Gregory Weston
<uce@splook.com> wrote:
>In article <pa0c82h0h0pkino1epn6er9bd2tkvi0ma0@4ax.com>,
> Josh Hill <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> >> I have to agree with the judgment of a
>> >> friend who said that whenever he used a Mac he felt like he was typing
>> >> with mittens on.
>> >
>> >Um. You may agree with it. I honestly don't even understand the metaphor.
>>
>> There just aren't enough ways to do things in a Mac. In the PC, you
>> can do everything from the keyboard and the interface is feature rich.
>> For example, only fairly recently did the Mac acquire context menus,
>
>False. The Mac OS had contextual menus in 1987. No stock component of
>the system used them, but that's a _very_ different statement
Doesn't seem so to me. A capability ain't a capability if it ain't
used.
> and it was
>a conscious decision based on a fair amount of usability testing. (The
>Finder in the very earliest test builds of System 7.0 did have context
>menus.)
Just goes to show that usability testing can be a crock.
>> and only very recently were they right-clickable.
>
>Again, false. Unless you have a strange notion of "very recently."
Dude, they didn't even have more than one button on the mouse until
what, a year ago? You could of course buy a third party mouse, but the
bottom line is that there were lots of Macs out there without usable,
accessible, right clickable context menus long after people were using
them on PC's.
>> But any PC user who
>> had used them could tell you that they save a /lot/ of time.
>
>And for PC users, they _do_ save a lot of time. But there are some
>fundamental differences in the UI of the Mac from that of Windows that
>mean that benefit doesn't, in the general case, survive.
Such as?
>> >> Combine that with Jobs's stubborn insistence on removing power and
>> >> expandability from his machines -- the tiny built-in monochrome
>> >> monitor on the original Mac, yada
>> >
>> >You might want to think back to the context in which the Mac existed
>> >when it was designed and the market for whom it was intended. You seem
>> >to have lost some context in the intervening 22 years.
>>
>> I mentioned that because we were addressing reputations, which in this
>> case were for the most part formed many years ago.
>
>Yes, but when the Mac was introduced, that display was eminently
>suitable for the market for which it was introduced. You saw "tiny
>built-in monochrome monitor" as a bad thing. But physically the CRT
>wasn't significantly smaller than most other displays in use in 1984
Actually, it was, and that made more of a difference given that
monitors back then were so small. There were other limitations as
well, e.g., the memory limitations. Jobs's philosophy just wasn't
right for those who didn't buy into his one-size-fits-all philosophy.
The chaotic everyone can make an add-in design of the PC was one of
its main advantages, and one of the explanations for its success
(there was a real question before the first PC whether they would
follow the open S-100 tradition or make a box that wasn't expandable
like the TRS-80 or the Apple, and they made the right choice). That
was true even though the chaotic situation meant PC users had to put
up with a lot of headaches that Mac users didn't.
> and
>it had the benefit of having a substantially higher resolution than was
>typical.
That much is true. And, of course, it had much more advanced graphics.
>Those are good characteristics for a machine that was, at least
>by some within Apple (Jobs included but not exclusively), intended as a
>business appliance. (And that last word is important.)
The built-in monitor had very much the opposite effect, I'd say. Not
only was it too small, but you couldn't choose a more suitable one if
one needed a larger one. And that was a very serious limitation.
But, beyond that, it /looked/ silly and toy-like. And stupid as that
is, appearance and marketing have a serious effect on business
choices.
>> I don't believe that, never have. I don't like systems that are geeky
>> or aren't friendly, and there's plenty of that. But I don't like
>> systems that are cutesy and talk down, either, or that substitute
>> visual orientation for ergonometrics, or that reduce the power user to
>> the least common denominator.
>
>I think we've probably left any sort of common ground for discussion
>right there. I don't, and have never, understood the term "power user."
>It's meaningless to me, and seems to generally be thrown out as a
>prelude to an elitist dismissal.
I confess you've mystified me here. I know lots of PC and Mac users
who never go under the hood, never change the interface, don't know
how to install things or change things or even use the menus. They're
the people who don't know to close programs on OS X and end up with
all their applications running at once. They're the people who don't
know how to install security software and what not to click on and end
up with 100 trojans on their PC. For them, a computer might as well be
a refrigerator or a car. I help them out all the time -- we all do.
By way of contrast, I know lots of people who insist on configuring
the computer to do what they want and learning it's every in and out.
They're the people who are comfortable editing the registry (well, as
comfortable as anyone can ever be editing the registry). They're the
people who install third party utilities. They're comfortable at the
command line. They write batch files and macros, use and create
keyboard shortcuts, upgrade firmware, tweak their RWIN settings, turn
off unnecessary services and fix the size of their swap file. They
aren't content to install one peer-to-peer program, they have to
compare every network and every bit torrent client. They're the power
users, and the difference between them and the everyday user is like
the difference between the ski patrol and someone who uses the Poma
lift.
It can hardly be considered elitism to recognize that the latter know
more than the former, or that the two groups have different needs. For
the power user, friendliness consists of elegance and power rather
than smiling faces, hidden features, and baby-talk names.
>> And I think that, too frequently, the Mac has done all those things.
>> I mean, I can figure out how to use a two-button mouse.
>
>Most people can. And they've been available for the Mac for 15 years and
>supported as first-class citizens by the stock OS install for the last
>several. So why bring it up?
Because we were discussing the reputation of the Mac. And for most of
its history, they weren't "first class citizens," as you put it, and
until very recently, they weren't even supplied by Apple. And that
corporate philosophy turns a lot of people off. You may not be
bothered by it, but it's a fact that many people are and that many
people don't take the Mac seriously as a result, despite its gradual
evolution into a powerful Unix-based system.
By way of contrast, I've noticed that that smiling face and simplicity
hold a powerful attraction for people who are scared of computers. And
I've met more than a few Mac users, including some very smart ones,
who were convinced that PC's were hard to set up and use long after
they'd become for all intents and purposes as easy to use as a Mac. To
them, the PC was still a flickering green command line, interrupt and
address jumpers, and QEMM. Reputations are sticky on both sides.
--
Josh
"I'm not going to play like I've been a person who's spent hours involved with
foreign policy.
I am who I am." - George W. Bush
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