6 ms·

That's a very good strawman. Nobody's complaining because it's too simple. As far as I can tell they're complaining because it's not open.

by Herring 17y ago

joubert 17y ago
Can software that is open without bound remain simple (non-complex), logistically, politically, technically?
- joezydeco 17y ago
  How many years has Linux been trying? 10? More? And they're still not there. Android is probably the next best hope.
  - joubert 17y ago
    People are already confused which Google technology to bank on for mobile: Android, or Chrome OS?
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    Android's open-ness has already been a thorn in its side. Right now we're seeing the splintering of the Android platform thanks to meddling by individual hardware manufacturers - consumers are getting wildly different user experiences, some worse than others, depending on who they buy an Android phone from. This is disastrous for a platform trying to gain mindshare.
    - ericb 17y ago
      The thing to consider is who Android is meant to gain mindshare with. If it is manufacturers and service providers, the splintering isn't disastrous at all. It has achieved great market penetration because it is a ready-to-go affordable option. The customizability mainly serves to reassure skittish manufacturers who might choose differently if that wasn't a "feature."
      - tvon 17y ago
        Very true, and note that the the Nexus One page (http://www.google.com/phone http://www.google.com/phone) makes no mention of Android. If you look at the tech specs page you'll see it listed as "Android Mobile Technology Platform", that's some serious vendor-oriented naming. I think this is a very significant point that is often misunderstood. Android isn't something that competes with the iPhone OS, it's the platform you build that competitor on. I'm not sure that competitor exists. Not for lack of quality in devices, but for lack of the right approach. Google is saying "write apps for Android" when they need to be saying "write apps for the Nexus One (and the Nexus Two will be the same, but better)".
  - Herring 17y ago
    As the author wrote it, he's also criticizing Windows, OSX, & anything that's not the iPad. See his finder example. Instead of focusing on people who want to run their own programs, he says they don't want to make easy OS'es. (it doesn't make sense to me either)
  - jodrellblank 17y ago
    """There's another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can't work them""" Not everyone. It's more and more obvious to me that I only thrive in computing where I can control my environment. I do make a living from the tech industry, and I find myself in the same position as "normals" do when faced with "software for normals", and I hate it as much as "they" do. Error messages are meaningless to "them" but meaningful to me. So called 'friendly' error messages are also meaningless to "them" and worse they are meaningless to me as well. Hiding complexity isn't simplifying things. Arjan van de Ven said about the 5 second linux boot project "Don't settle for 'make boot faster'; it's the wrong question. [..] It's not about booting faster, it's about booting in 5 seconds". - http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ Apple are saying "it's not about a nice GUI over the top of a complex system, it's about a simple system". They've thrown out everything they can get away with and then a bit more; which Linux distro's can't or wont do. Linux is 'simplified' by people who don't want or need it to be simple, Windows is 'simplified' by people hobbled by backwards compatibility, inertia and lack of focused obsessive direction.
    - joezydeco 17y ago
      "They've thrown out everything they can get away with and then a bit more; which Linux distro's can't or wont do." Bravo. I would hazard to guess ChromeOS is Google's stab at this. There's also Jolicloud and some others for netbooks, so maybe there's hope in that direction.
- MrRage 17y ago
  If a user is confused about all the choice they can just stick to the software Apple and a handful of popular vendors provide. It stays simple by the fact that they can just ignore all the other choices.
  - DougBTX 17y ago
    See: Paradox of Choice. Ignoring something is also a choice. To actually make things simpler you've got to make it easier to choose. When you download a desktop app, you've got to trade off between, "is this app useful to me", and, "will this app break my computer". Since apps on the iPhone are sandboxed, and are garunteed to uninstall cleanly, you don't need to worry about the second question. Also have a look at what Microsoft are doing with permissions in .Net, they are slowly making it easier for Windows applications to be sandboxed. In a secure Linux enviroment, it is standard practice to give different apps their own users, with tailored permissions, eg the www user.
tolmasky 17y ago
Yes I agree with this idea 100%. Somehow all the features of the iPad have been deemed interconnected and necessary, as if it would be impossible to create a machine that is both easy to use AND didn't have Apple arbitrarily denying apps to. I wish we would approach these two subjects in a completely separate fashion: Yes, the iPad proposes a new interface to computing that is quite revolutionary and ultimately healthy I think. Separately, it continues to push an ecosystem that is closed an unhealthy.
- NyxWulf 17y ago
  I think they are connected. Part of the reason people are so comfortable with the iPhone is they really can't screw it up. They can't download any apps that are spyware, or viruses or are going to steal their credit cards. They don't have to worry about what attachments they can and can't open. The very locked down nature of the device means it's a controlled environment that you can turn people loose in and say go nutz. That most certainly is not something you can do with an open computer. So I don't think you can separate the environment from the equation, it's part of the entire end user experience. Personally I think it's putting the onus back in the right place, which is on developers to make things work and make them work dead simple.
  - Herring 17y ago
    You're generalizing from 1 (incompetent) example, & that's despite lots of counterexamples. Someone earlier mentioned Blackberry development. In theory yeah if you run your own code you can run bad code, but it should be up to Apple to ensure that newbies never have to leave the app store. I can't remember the last time I went hunting for code instead of using apt-get. Sandboxing isn't hard either. With luck Apple will look aside as everyone jailbreaks it. After all they sell hardware, not software.

That's a very good strawman. Nobody's complaining because it's too simple. As far as I can tell they're complaining because it's not open.

by Herring 17y ago

That's a very good strawman. Nobody's complaining because it's too simple. As far as I can tell they're complaining because it's not open.

joubert 17y ago

Can software that is open without bound remain simple (non-complex), logistically, politically, technically?

joezydeco 17y ago
How many years has Linux been trying? 10? More? And they're still not there. Android is probably the next best hope.
- joubert 17y ago
  People are already confused which Google technology to bank on for mobile: Android, or Chrome OS?
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Android's open-ness has already been a thorn in its side. Right now we're seeing the splintering of the Android platform thanks to meddling by individual hardware manufacturers - consumers are getting wildly different user experiences, some worse than others, depending on who they buy an Android phone from. This is disastrous for a platform trying to gain mindshare.
  - ericb 17y ago
    The thing to consider is who Android is meant to gain mindshare with. If it is manufacturers and service providers, the splintering isn't disastrous at all. It has achieved great market penetration because it is a ready-to-go affordable option. The customizability mainly serves to reassure skittish manufacturers who might choose differently if that wasn't a "feature."
    - tvon 17y ago
      Very true, and note that the the Nexus One page (http://www.google.com/phone http://www.google.com/phone) makes no mention of Android. If you look at the tech specs page you'll see it listed as "Android Mobile Technology Platform", that's some serious vendor-oriented naming. I think this is a very significant point that is often misunderstood. Android isn't something that competes with the iPhone OS, it's the platform you build that competitor on. I'm not sure that competitor exists. Not for lack of quality in devices, but for lack of the right approach. Google is saying "write apps for Android" when they need to be saying "write apps for the Nexus One (and the Nexus Two will be the same, but better)".
- Herring 17y ago
  As the author wrote it, he's also criticizing Windows, OSX, & anything that's not the iPad. See his finder example. Instead of focusing on people who want to run their own programs, he says they don't want to make easy OS'es. (it doesn't make sense to me either)
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  """There's another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can't work them""" Not everyone. It's more and more obvious to me that I only thrive in computing where I can control my environment. I do make a living from the tech industry, and I find myself in the same position as "normals" do when faced with "software for normals", and I hate it as much as "they" do. Error messages are meaningless to "them" but meaningful to me. So called 'friendly' error messages are also meaningless to "them" and worse they are meaningless to me as well. Hiding complexity isn't simplifying things. Arjan van de Ven said about the 5 second linux boot project "Don't settle for 'make boot faster'; it's the wrong question. [..] It's not about booting faster, it's about booting in 5 seconds". - http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ Apple are saying "it's not about a nice GUI over the top of a complex system, it's about a simple system". They've thrown out everything they can get away with and then a bit more; which Linux distro's can't or wont do. Linux is 'simplified' by people who don't want or need it to be simple, Windows is 'simplified' by people hobbled by backwards compatibility, inertia and lack of focused obsessive direction.
  - joezydeco 17y ago
    "They've thrown out everything they can get away with and then a bit more; which Linux distro's can't or wont do." Bravo. I would hazard to guess ChromeOS is Google's stab at this. There's also Jolicloud and some others for netbooks, so maybe there's hope in that direction.
MrRage 17y ago
If a user is confused about all the choice they can just stick to the software Apple and a handful of popular vendors provide. It stays simple by the fact that they can just ignore all the other choices.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  See: Paradox of Choice. Ignoring something is also a choice. To actually make things simpler you've got to make it easier to choose. When you download a desktop app, you've got to trade off between, "is this app useful to me", and, "will this app break my computer". Since apps on the iPhone are sandboxed, and are garunteed to uninstall cleanly, you don't need to worry about the second question. Also have a look at what Microsoft are doing with permissions in .Net, they are slowly making it easier for Windows applications to be sandboxed. In a secure Linux enviroment, it is standard practice to give different apps their own users, with tailored permissions, eg the www user.

tolmasky 17y ago

Yes I agree with this idea 100%. Somehow all the features of the iPad have been deemed interconnected and necessary, as if it would be impossible to create a machine that is both easy to use AND didn't have Apple arbitrarily denying apps to. I wish we would approach these two subjects in a completely separate fashion: Yes, the iPad proposes a new interface to computing that is quite revolutionary and ultimately healthy I think. Separately, it continues to push an ecosystem that is closed an unhealthy.

NyxWulf 17y ago
I think they are connected. Part of the reason people are so comfortable with the iPhone is they really can't screw it up. They can't download any apps that are spyware, or viruses or are going to steal their credit cards. They don't have to worry about what attachments they can and can't open. The very locked down nature of the device means it's a controlled environment that you can turn people loose in and say go nutz. That most certainly is not something you can do with an open computer. So I don't think you can separate the environment from the equation, it's part of the entire end user experience. Personally I think it's putting the onus back in the right place, which is on developers to make things work and make them work dead simple.
- Herring 17y ago
  You're generalizing from 1 (incompetent) example, & that's despite lots of counterexamples. Someone earlier mentioned Blackberry development. In theory yeah if you run your own code you can run bad code, but it should be up to Apple to ensure that newbies never have to leave the app store. I can't remember the last time I went hunting for code instead of using apt-get. Sandboxing isn't hard either. With luck Apple will look aside as everyone jailbreaks it. After all they sell hardware, not software.