4 ms·

The entire thing used to be super intuitive and consistent. Disk images were the mac equivalent of a compressed folder, e.g. zip. And I find the "compressedd v

by j-pb 5y ago

The entire thing used to be super intuitive and consistent. Disk images were the mac equivalent of a compressed folder, e.g. zip. And I find the "compressedd virtual usb-stick" idea a lot more intuitive than the whole "we cram files into other files and loose all metadata" shenanigans. Apps used to be simple files in the finest unix tradition. No weird installer that does who knows what, no wizards, no special system files, no uninstaller. Want to take your app from one computer to another? Just send the file. App stores, installer, and the whole sandboxing gunk, is a million times more complex and unintuitive. The author seems to be oblivious to the simplicity of the old ways, and thus suspects some hidden magic going on in loading the disk image. Loading the disk image doesn't do "something" and then displays an IKEA esque installer window. The window is literally a finder window with hidden borders. The idea was: "If a user can drag and drop files, they can install apps." The workflow described is composed of several orthogonal concepts that each on their own are super intuitive, or at least were, when unix philosophy, file system usage and user empowerment were still at the core of Mac Os values.

pantulis 5y ago
Or "uninstalling" apps, always kind of confusing on Windows. Not on the Mac. Still, I think it's not that the Mac is not that intuitive any more, it's that Windows has more or less caught up.
- lbriner 5y ago
  That depends on your opinion. Deleting an app folder on MacOS is no less intuitive than right-clicking an app in windows and choosing Uninstall. Certainly in most OSs (I think), there is a good chance that more got installed than just a single folder so anyone who isn't exclusively on a Mac is going to think that deleting a folder is asking for trouble.
  - jolux 5y ago
    >Deleting an app folder on MacOS is no less intuitive than right-clicking an app in windows and choosing Uninstall. Here's a question though: What are you right-clicking in Windows that gives you an uninstall option? Windows is so complicated that most of the time it's not even the app itself. You certainly won't get an Uninstall option right-clicking the executable in Program Files, you have to find a magic shortcut somewhere that is keyed up in the registry with the relevant uninstaller package.
- hobofan 5y ago
  Only on a superficial level. Everything that the app has dumped across the system (e.g. in ~/Application Support) is still in place, after the default "uninstall" of a Mac app that was put in the trash.
  - arprocter 5y ago
    Plus there are two Library folders, both containing Application Support (the one you mentioned, and in ~/Users/username/) It feels strange that doing Command-delete on some apps just moves them to Trash, but other times it triggers a script that deletes it
- baryphonic 5y ago
  Uninstalling on macOS is actually pretty tough, since ancillary files are not cleaned up. I end up installing a set of third party utilities whenever I set up a new Mac that help me with a bunch of the weird stuff that isn't handled by default. (including AppCleaner and ShiftIt for uninstallation and window management, respectively). Windows makes it pretty easy with the one "add or remove programs" section of the control panel.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    Which doesn't clear ancillary files, either. The only platforms that I know of in widespread use which actually clear all ancillary files on uninstall are iOS and Android (except for SD card).
  - jolux 5y ago
    >Windows makes it pretty easy with the one "add or remove programs" section of the control panel. Except there's no guarantee that uninstallers will remove all ancillary files on Windows either, especially because Windows developers seem to have a habit of just spraying configuration files and serialized state all across the filesystem haphazardly with little concern for organization.
    - symlinkk 5y ago
      There’s no guarantee, but on average uninstallers clear away a lot more than dragging and dropping an application to the trash.
    - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
      It's not really a Windows-only thing. Even OSes with proper packaging systems (and even MSI on Windows) will still forget a lot of files e.g. in user's home directories. How do you even decide when do you remove those?
      - jolux 5y ago
        >How do you even decide when do you remove those? I think as a developer you have to take pains to keep them all in one place, and delete them when uninstalling.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  Uninstalling on windows wasn't only confusing, it was straight up broken, since applications were leaving random junk everywhere in the filesystem. Bonus points for when that junk prevented subsequent install.
  - pantulis 5y ago
    Or the dreaded DLL hell. I'm not a Windows user any more, but I think this does not happen any more.
crazypython 5y ago
Indeed, a .pkg is just a compressed folder and a bash script.

by j-pb 5y ago

pantulis 5y ago

Or "uninstalling" apps, always kind of confusing on Windows. Not on the Mac. Still, I think it's not that the Mac is not that intuitive any more, it's that Windows has more or less caught up.

lbriner 5y ago
That depends on your opinion. Deleting an app folder on MacOS is no less intuitive than right-clicking an app in windows and choosing Uninstall. Certainly in most OSs (I think), there is a good chance that more got installed than just a single folder so anyone who isn't exclusively on a Mac is going to think that deleting a folder is asking for trouble.
- jolux 5y ago
  >Deleting an app folder on MacOS is no less intuitive than right-clicking an app in windows and choosing Uninstall. Here's a question though: What are you right-clicking in Windows that gives you an uninstall option? Windows is so complicated that most of the time it's not even the app itself. You certainly won't get an Uninstall option right-clicking the executable in Program Files, you have to find a magic shortcut somewhere that is keyed up in the registry with the relevant uninstaller package.
hobofan 5y ago
Only on a superficial level. Everything that the app has dumped across the system (e.g. in ~/Application Support) is still in place, after the default "uninstall" of a Mac app that was put in the trash.
- arprocter 5y ago
  Plus there are two Library folders, both containing Application Support (the one you mentioned, and in ~/Users/username/) It feels strange that doing Command-delete on some apps just moves them to Trash, but other times it triggers a script that deletes it
baryphonic 5y ago
Uninstalling on macOS is actually pretty tough, since ancillary files are not cleaned up. I end up installing a set of third party utilities whenever I set up a new Mac that help me with a bunch of the weird stuff that isn't handled by default. (including AppCleaner and ShiftIt for uninstallation and window management, respectively). Windows makes it pretty easy with the one "add or remove programs" section of the control panel.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  Which doesn't clear ancillary files, either. The only platforms that I know of in widespread use which actually clear all ancillary files on uninstall are iOS and Android (except for SD card).
- jolux 5y ago
  >Windows makes it pretty easy with the one "add or remove programs" section of the control panel. Except there's no guarantee that uninstallers will remove all ancillary files on Windows either, especially because Windows developers seem to have a habit of just spraying configuration files and serialized state all across the filesystem haphazardly with little concern for organization.
  - symlinkk 5y ago
    There’s no guarantee, but on average uninstallers clear away a lot more than dragging and dropping an application to the trash.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    It's not really a Windows-only thing. Even OSes with proper packaging systems (and even MSI on Windows) will still forget a lot of files e.g. in user's home directories. How do you even decide when do you remove those?
    - jolux 5y ago
      >How do you even decide when do you remove those? I think as a developer you have to take pains to keep them all in one place, and delete them when uninstalling.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
Uninstalling on windows wasn't only confusing, it was straight up broken, since applications were leaving random junk everywhere in the filesystem. Bonus points for when that junk prevented subsequent install.
- pantulis 5y ago
  Or the dreaded DLL hell. I'm not a Windows user any more, but I think this does not happen any more.

crazypython 5y ago

Indeed, a .pkg is just a compressed folder and a bash script.