3 ms·

Compare the web browser you probably used to type your reply into to earlier generations of 'interface with people on the Internet' software. It does so much m

Compare the web browser you probably used to type your reply into to earlier generations of 'interface with people on the Internet' software. It does so much more. I run Linux as my desktop, and I've been using Linux on a daily basis since the mid 90s. The amount of work that it does for its user now compared to then isn't even comparable. How fast did this page download? Pretty fast probably. That speed happens, in no small part, because of enormously complex software running many devices between your computer and the source. Yes, hardware has gotten a lot faster, but software has gotten enormously more complex to not only keep up with the hardware, but also add and facilitate huge optimizations on top of that. I agree that there the amount of 'useless' or low quality software is also staggering. That doesn't really surprise me, it is what it is. And I also agree that there is a huge amount of synthetic, un-needed and artificial complexity around these days, with more being made all the time. But I think those categories come pretty naturally, by default, from the total mass of software being created. I guess there's a good chance that the percentage of 'good' vs. 'bad' software has always been roughly the same.

digi_owl 9y ago
> I run Linux as my desktop, and I've been using Linux on a daily basis since the mid 90s. The amount of work that it does for its user now compared to then isn't even comparable. And here i sit, yelling at the screen any time any of those automagical daemons and signal buses break. Because they make fixing the problem once and for all a royal pain! And i moved away from Windows to get away from that crap. It used to be we had software A read or write a file (optionally one in /dev), and output some results. Maybe those results were piped to another program that drew something within X11. But now there is daemon A talking to daemon B over signal bus C, that again talk to program D over either bus C or E, or maybe even Z, that then many go on to draw something (likely just an eternally spinning widget because something got lost in the game of telephone).
- sedachv 9y ago
  > And i moved away from Windows to get away from that crap. This is the dilemma of The Linux Desktop (pick Ubuntu, GNOME, systemd, or all of them). Things like internationalization, plug and play, network configuration, are all important to provide. Trying to provide them to the demographic of people that use Microsoft Windows ends up with solutions that resemble those of Microsoft Windows. Meanwhile power users and developers get alienated and end up implementing those things in a far more efficient and efficient to use way. Running Emacs as my X11 window manager gives me far better internationalization capabilities than GNOME. xmodmap is a better way to configure the keyboard than the GUI tools in GNOME and LXDE (no more worries about losing configuration on updates, for one). Linux web browser video playback and font antialiasing has been such a great feature that I now do half of my browsing with w3m (through emacs-w3m) with the X11 misc-fixed fonts. It is faster to connect to wireless networks using OpenBSD's ifconfig than it is to use nm-applet. The list just goes on - who even needs desktop notifications? Do all projects that try to be "user friendly," like GNOME and Ubuntu and systemd, end up being power user unfriendly?
  - Diederich 9y ago
    > Do all projects that try to be "user friendly," ... end up being power user unfriendly? Interesting question. Can you think of any examples of projects that started (roughly speaking) simple, power-user friendly but not end-user friendly that grew to become complex, power AND end-user friendly?

digi_owl 9y ago

> I run Linux as my desktop, and I've been using Linux on a daily basis since the mid 90s. The amount of work that it does for its user now compared to then isn't even comparable. And here i sit, yelling at the screen any time any of those automagical daemons and signal buses break. Because they make fixing the problem once and for all a royal pain! And i moved away from Windows to get away from that crap. It used to be we had software A read or write a file (optionally one in /dev), and output some results. Maybe those results were piped to another program that drew something within X11. But now there is daemon A talking to daemon B over signal bus C, that again talk to program D over either bus C or E, or maybe even Z, that then many go on to draw something (likely just an eternally spinning widget because something got lost in the game of telephone).

sedachv 9y ago
> And i moved away from Windows to get away from that crap. This is the dilemma of The Linux Desktop (pick Ubuntu, GNOME, systemd, or all of them). Things like internationalization, plug and play, network configuration, are all important to provide. Trying to provide them to the demographic of people that use Microsoft Windows ends up with solutions that resemble those of Microsoft Windows. Meanwhile power users and developers get alienated and end up implementing those things in a far more efficient and efficient to use way. Running Emacs as my X11 window manager gives me far better internationalization capabilities than GNOME. xmodmap is a better way to configure the keyboard than the GUI tools in GNOME and LXDE (no more worries about losing configuration on updates, for one). Linux web browser video playback and font antialiasing has been such a great feature that I now do half of my browsing with w3m (through emacs-w3m) with the X11 misc-fixed fonts. It is faster to connect to wireless networks using OpenBSD's ifconfig than it is to use nm-applet. The list just goes on - who even needs desktop notifications? Do all projects that try to be "user friendly," like GNOME and Ubuntu and systemd, end up being power user unfriendly?
- Diederich 9y ago
  > Do all projects that try to be "user friendly," ... end up being power user unfriendly? Interesting question. Can you think of any examples of projects that started (roughly speaking) simple, power-user friendly but not end-user friendly that grew to become complex, power AND end-user friendly?