4 ms·

And this is proof that Microsoft is still a monopoly, because they can still force people to use software they don't want. Microsoft's biggest accomplishment i

And this is proof that Microsoft is still a monopoly, because they can still force people to use software they don't want. Microsoft's biggest accomplishment in technology in the last 20 years is to teach everyone that software is horrible and there's nothing that can be done about it.

jodrellblank 8y ago
Windows, macOS and iOS quality usability and discoverability have dropped year on year, Linux usability has stayed abhorrent, every major website I use that has done a big redesign has made it worse for me with more focus on whitespace, style, hiding UI elements, and adverts than substance and usability. Google search experience has gone seriously downhill, Amazon's marketplace and search has increasing quality problems, Facebook's redesigns are much hated, Reddit's redesign has hidden UI features and turned it into a bloated whitespace-obsessed ad-heavy image-centric style. Chrome, Firefox, the hiding of useful UI elements, the increasing resource demands. Software is horrible. Software that looked like Excel 2000 with visible accelerators was clean, easy to use, discoverable, fast, not very aesthetically pleasing but at least consistent. macOS of 5+ years ago was more human-friendly.
- magduf 8y ago
  >Linux usability has stayed abhorrent Linux usability is only abhorrent if you use Gnome (3). It's fine with KDE, Xfce, and others. I started using Xfce recently at work and it's great: usability is just what I expect (i.e. it doesn't do any weird UI experiments like Gnome3, Windows, etc.), it's stable and reliable, and discoverable since it was designed back when they thought discoverability was a good thing. KDE5 is pretty good too. Stop using UIs that have been taken over by people trying to "revolutionize" UIs and you won't have the problems you're seeing. Linux has plenty of such UIs, but for some odd reason they're not the default setting of the mainstream distros.
  - pasabagi 8y ago
    I think it's because if you start using Linux, you want to feel like you're using something new and high-tech. So the super-chrome UIs tend to win out. I like my setup (i3wm), but it would be a horrible default. You have to read a manual to make it usable. Gnome is a kind of nice default - since everything looks modern and works out of the box.
  - jodrellblank 8y ago
    I'm not even talking of GUIs, I'm talking of exchanges like this: root@server:~# ip route add 192.168.1.0/30 10.0.0.1 Error: either "to" is duplicate, or "10.0.0.1" is a garbage. The "help" is literally a dump of the grammar, which doesn't contain enough detail to add a route (the syntax of PREFIX is not described). The error message is bafflingly useless. Of all the options available relating to routing, the two I use most are "route a network via a gateway IP" and "remove a route" and I'm going to guess that those are the two most common operations for most people not doing any advanced networking. Note that this is the replacement to the old "route" command, which had a single line of help: "inet_route [-vF] add {-host|-net} Target[/prefix] [gw Gw]" which is way way more helpful for this use case! Of course it's possible to go into `man ip` and then find routing help is elsewere and go into `man ip-route` and at the bottom of a 400 line document there is /a single example/ of adding a default route which doesn't include a subnet definition, and then to decode that the error message about duplicate/garbage means "you didn't add the word "via"" and then to backtrack into the grammar dump and trace where that was mentioned. And of course this is but one tool. And of course it's better for many use cases that it be stable and performant than that it be frilly. But all over, it feels like this. Usability, quality error messages, making the common things easy and discoverable, are all afterthoughts with priorities somewhere between "caveat user" and "it's free so shut up" and "we refuse to change it because ~POSIX~" and "usability is for wimps, Linux is for clever people (where clever means 'able to edit a text file and willing to do everything the hard way')" and "we benefit from people buying RedHat Certifications so why should we make it any easier than we have to?". I'm not saying it's incapable or unstable or useless, but I am saying usability for common tools and overall experience is really, really, really, really poor. With possible exception "install Ubuntu/Mint/flavour-of-day and run FireFox to get to your Googles".
magduf 8y ago
They're not a monopoly, and they're not forcing anyone to use software they don't want. There's a bunch of different options if you don't like Skype. I've used GoToMeeting in the recent past, and it worked fine. The problem is that people are just too stupid to look for alternatives to Microsoft products, and would rather complain than do something about it.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  Oh, my, the customers got stupider. They could use the old skye just fine, but then the IQ sank - and its been rock bottom ever since. Completely impplaussible that maybe those stupid people do not use the alternatives, because they suck even more? As in, they are non standardized, not easy to setup et etc.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >They could use the old skye just fine The old Skype was great. But it's gone now; that's how the world works: things change, and not always for the better. You have to adapt. >Completely impplaussible that maybe those stupid people do not use the alternatives, because they suck even more? Given all the complaints I've seen about new-Skype? No. It's because people are just too stupid to look for alternatives when the thing they've been using turns to crap. >As in, they are non standardized, not easy to setup et etc. The newer alternatives are web-based and easy (or, at least, no more difficult than new-Skype). And WTF does "standardized" mean? There's no standardization for video chat programs; that makes as much sense as asking about standardization for social media websites like Facebook.

jodrellblank 8y ago

Windows, macOS and iOS quality usability and discoverability have dropped year on year, Linux usability has stayed abhorrent, every major website I use that has done a big redesign has made it worse for me with more focus on whitespace, style, hiding UI elements, and adverts than substance and usability. Google search experience has gone seriously downhill, Amazon's marketplace and search has increasing quality problems, Facebook's redesigns are much hated, Reddit's redesign has hidden UI features and turned it into a bloated whitespace-obsessed ad-heavy image-centric style. Chrome, Firefox, the hiding of useful UI elements, the increasing resource demands. Software is horrible. Software that looked like Excel 2000 with visible accelerators was clean, easy to use, discoverable, fast, not very aesthetically pleasing but at least consistent. macOS of 5+ years ago was more human-friendly.

magduf 8y ago
>Linux usability has stayed abhorrent Linux usability is only abhorrent if you use Gnome (3). It's fine with KDE, Xfce, and others. I started using Xfce recently at work and it's great: usability is just what I expect (i.e. it doesn't do any weird UI experiments like Gnome3, Windows, etc.), it's stable and reliable, and discoverable since it was designed back when they thought discoverability was a good thing. KDE5 is pretty good too. Stop using UIs that have been taken over by people trying to "revolutionize" UIs and you won't have the problems you're seeing. Linux has plenty of such UIs, but for some odd reason they're not the default setting of the mainstream distros.
- pasabagi 8y ago
  I think it's because if you start using Linux, you want to feel like you're using something new and high-tech. So the super-chrome UIs tend to win out. I like my setup (i3wm), but it would be a horrible default. You have to read a manual to make it usable. Gnome is a kind of nice default - since everything looks modern and works out of the box.
- jodrellblank 8y ago
  I'm not even talking of GUIs, I'm talking of exchanges like this: root@server:~# ip route add 192.168.1.0/30 10.0.0.1 Error: either "to" is duplicate, or "10.0.0.1" is a garbage. The "help" is literally a dump of the grammar, which doesn't contain enough detail to add a route (the syntax of PREFIX is not described). The error message is bafflingly useless. Of all the options available relating to routing, the two I use most are "route a network via a gateway IP" and "remove a route" and I'm going to guess that those are the two most common operations for most people not doing any advanced networking. Note that this is the replacement to the old "route" command, which had a single line of help: "inet_route [-vF] add {-host|-net} Target[/prefix] [gw Gw]" which is way way more helpful for this use case! Of course it's possible to go into `man ip` and then find routing help is elsewere and go into `man ip-route` and at the bottom of a 400 line document there is /a single example/ of adding a default route which doesn't include a subnet definition, and then to decode that the error message about duplicate/garbage means "you didn't add the word "via"" and then to backtrack into the grammar dump and trace where that was mentioned. And of course this is but one tool. And of course it's better for many use cases that it be stable and performant than that it be frilly. But all over, it feels like this. Usability, quality error messages, making the common things easy and discoverable, are all afterthoughts with priorities somewhere between "caveat user" and "it's free so shut up" and "we refuse to change it because ~POSIX~" and "usability is for wimps, Linux is for clever people (where clever means 'able to edit a text file and willing to do everything the hard way')" and "we benefit from people buying RedHat Certifications so why should we make it any easier than we have to?". I'm not saying it's incapable or unstable or useless, but I am saying usability for common tools and overall experience is really, really, really, really poor. With possible exception "install Ubuntu/Mint/flavour-of-day and run FireFox to get to your Googles".

magduf 8y ago

They're not a monopoly, and they're not forcing anyone to use software they don't want. There's a bunch of different options if you don't like Skype. I've used GoToMeeting in the recent past, and it worked fine. The problem is that people are just too stupid to look for alternatives to Microsoft products, and would rather complain than do something about it.

Pica_soO 8y ago
Oh, my, the customers got stupider. They could use the old skye just fine, but then the IQ sank - and its been rock bottom ever since. Completely impplaussible that maybe those stupid people do not use the alternatives, because they suck even more? As in, they are non standardized, not easy to setup et etc.
- magduf 8y ago
  >They could use the old skye just fine The old Skype was great. But it's gone now; that's how the world works: things change, and not always for the better. You have to adapt. >Completely impplaussible that maybe those stupid people do not use the alternatives, because they suck even more? Given all the complaints I've seen about new-Skype? No. It's because people are just too stupid to look for alternatives when the thing they've been using turns to crap. >As in, they are non standardized, not easy to setup et etc. The newer alternatives are web-based and easy (or, at least, no more difficult than new-Skype). And WTF does "standardized" mean? There's no standardization for video chat programs; that makes as much sense as asking about standardization for social media websites like Facebook.