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In return, I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why do people want to tweak like this? Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my g

In return, I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why do people want to tweak like this? Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is and get on with your job. Lack of customisability gives us more stable software. And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that?

sseagull 5y ago
Because people have different needs, expectations, and preferences. It’s part of what makes humans interesting. Computers should be made to serve people, not the other way around.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  I don't know - I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be something else. I'm not sure there can really be any reasonable requirement to move the clock. I think that's just being fussy. For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested. Every boolean option you add doubles the state space of the application!! Less is more. This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool.
  - wara23arish 5y ago
    You believe moving the clock is a wacky feature? You can already move the macOS dock, so its not like it’s unheard of in that world. Sensible defaults are great, but after spending most of your day glued to a screen, you start noticing little improvements to your workflow. e.g. i dont want to turn my head all the way to the right to look at the clock (using external monitors) Thats not a big change, but I believe the sum of all those little changes add up
  - sseagull 5y ago
    I somewhat agree, except maybe: > This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool "Professional" is a wide category for sure, but I would argue professionals are the ones who need more customization, not less. They are the ones with esoteric tools and workflows, and where customizing their environment to match how their mind works allows them to focus on the problems at hand and not their tools. > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested True. However, these are trillion-dollar companies. Look at all the options for cars, or refrigerators, or whatever. And all these have the constraints of the physical world. And all made by companies with a heck of a lot less cash than Apple and Microsoft.
  - m3adow 5y ago
    Funny enough he's answering your complaints in the last paragraph. You're telling him he's "holding it wrong". Except individual taste can rarely be wrong.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Nobody said his taste was 'wrong'. I don't even know what that would mean? I'm saying he'd get more out the tool by learning and embracing the design of it, rather than wishing it was something that it isn't. Go with the flow, rather than fighting it. Reduce entropy not create it.
      - sseagull 5y ago
        I'll give a bit of a different example. I was recently playing the remastered Dark Souls on Switch. For some reason, they used the Japanese button mapping of B and A rather than the usual mapping in the US. And you couldn't change it. I mean, no big deal, I can learn the new mapping. And I mostly did. But even after 50-100 hours, I would still occasionally press the wrong button (accepting rather than cancelling). The previous configuration was so ingrained in me that I could not overcome my muscle memory without conscious thought. So even when I really try to "go with the flow" there is friction. People come from different backgrounds, using different software and different paradigms, and it's not really easy at all to remap their way of thinking, even if they want to.
      - vorpalhex 5y ago
        The maker controls the tools, the tools do not control the maker. You're asking "but why not let the tail wag the dog?" The tool works or it does not.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > The tool works or it does not. That's the point. macOS works just fine without wobbly windows. We don't need the extra complexity of wobbly windows.
  - catchclose8919 5y ago
    > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested. No, it doesn't. We seem to have forgotten that there are more general ways to think about software and engineering and math and the world. You can just design a system that is guaranteed to work fine: - regardless of where widget X is positioned - regardless of what font and font size (from an interval) and color is selected by the user for a certain UI components - ...and you can have all UI on all apps on the whole computer be customizable in the same way without having to write any (zero!) extra lines of code by just inheriting functionality for some common components - etc. You don't have to just dumbly test all scenarios to guarantee sane global behaviors of systems. And you don't get the burden of maintaining the "test cases for all possible scenarios" because you just don't write those tests in the beginning, they are useless in a well behaved system that follows LAWS and properly preserves INVARIANTS and just burn money through their tests-maintainance costs! (Like lots/some of pre-web systems actually were!) We've now built for ourselves a crazy computing world where there are no longer stable (across years and decades) contracts, laws and invariants in software, so we have to defensively code and over-test everything! We could've had-the-cake-and-eaten-it too if we would've just put the effort of building more solid software foundations for ourselves, but instead we're torturing ourselves building Electron web apps on desktops in languages with lacking or handicaped type systems and run them on operating systems that offer no sane components with contractually guaranteed interfaces... </rant> ...imagine if physics worked like that, you'd have to re-test the laws of physics every time you wanted to build a house because the laws could vary by neighbourhood and not even basic invariants like the conservation of energy were guaranteed to hold. Oh, you can't just ask for more than a 1-room rectangular uncostumizable house of standard size, because properly testing anything else doesn't crash on you in our universe with non-uniform physics is just too expensive! Just get used with you sensible defaults citizen, stop questioning the party and the world!
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be something else. This does seem to be the basic philosophy Apple has adopted for its devices. Which is why I don't use them. I don't like their defaults (which means the whole concept of "sensible defaults" doesn't really make sense except in reference to some particular set of users, and there are many such sets with different preferences), I like being able to customize things (because my idea of how I want to work is never the same as some designer's idea), and I'm going to be doing things that the OS designer didn't think of (particularly since I'm a developer). In short, my experience with Apple devices is that they don't let me work the way I want to work. So I don't work with them.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Having different preferences, and using a different platform that serves them better, is absolutely fine. Deciding that the platform that doesn't meet your needs is somehow illegitimate, "not a computer," or somehow morally unacceptable is juvenile fanboy crap.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Your game console, your smart TV, and even your microwave oven all have computers inside, crucial for their interaction with you. But they choose to not expose to you the general computing capabilities they possess. (Yes, there is a reason for that.) Truth be told, a Macbook does expose itself as a general computing device all right.
sylens 5y ago
I'll agree with you on things like the clock - never felt the need to move it, that's just how it is on macOS. But I would expect a mature desktop operating system to have improved window management capabilities in 2022
- LeFantome 5y ago
  Alternative point ( as somebody that uses macOS, Windows, and Linux about equally )… Apple may leave “wobbly windows” or even window manager behaviour as the kind of thing a third-party could add. They might do this because they want software companies to be able to make money making software for the Mac. A rich community of software providers is good for a platform. As a user, this means that high quality software is more likely to be available for the Mac than it is for Linux. Companies struggle to make money on Linux and so fewer companies try. Microsoft used to get roundly criticized for adding stuff into Windows for free that third-parties could be selling for money instead. In fact, Microsoft was branded as “evil” by many for including a web browser for free shortly after Netscape had biggest IPO in history selling theirs for money. I prefer the “everything in my distribution” model myself but calling an OS a “toy” because it does not bundle a utility or functionality that is hardly universal in utility or preference does not resonate with me. Not being able to run the software I need for work is a more legitimate beef. I love Linux and I can use it for almost anything. I have to admit though that even just using it for my work email or calendar is a far inferior experience to either Mac or Windows. For most people, an article about how Linux is still a toy because it poorly integrates with iMessage or Face Time may even make more sense than complaints about NFS. I do not like macOS as much as I used to but there is a lot bundled into it. Even simple apps like Preview work a lot nicer than what I have on Linux. The Linux printing subsystem ( CUPS ) is a gift from Apple. Again, I like Linux more than Mac these days. I am thinking of putting Garuda Linux on my MacBook Pro later today in fact. That said, this article did not hit with me.
SSLy 5y ago
>What on earth is the point of that? Monkey brain sees shiny things. Monkey brain releases dopamine. Monke brain happy.
q3k 5y ago
> And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that? To have wobbly windows.
toper-centage 5y ago
There are different brains out there, and they think differently, and understanding that is half way to developing empathy, but also extremely important when developing accessible applications. Maybe I don't want to see the clock whenever I look at notifications, or vice versa, because that's extremely distracting. Lack of customisability gives us less accessible software. Apple is really good at accessibility, but at the same time really bad. > And he wants his windows to wobble? Some people are fun at parties, some are not.
Mikeb85 5y ago
Window snapping is a pretty basic thing that every non-Mac OS and DE does... And it's annoying AF to not have it.
- mmis1000 5y ago
  That's why people always use fullscreen in mac. Because window just don't really work well. The only time I ever use window is dragging file from finder to vscode. Because mac is dumb enough that don't allow drag happen between different desktop. (Or I would just drag file from finder to vscode on different screen)
  - wingerlang 5y ago
    Who are these people? I absolutely hate fullscreen in macOS and literally only use it for fullscreen videos and the like. What part of the window doesn't work well?
    - mmis1000 5y ago
      Snapping/alignment, gesture. The alignment, it don't even support snapping, place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible, and the + on window go fullscreen unless you hold opt. You can't just swipe to switch between window. You can only swipe between desktop. I'd wonder which part in mac's window manager actually works well (compares to other desktop manager)?
      - lilyball 5y ago
        > place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible macOS has supported automatic snapping while dragging windows for years now. Just drag it slowly when you're approaching the edge of the other window and the window you're dragging will snap to it
      - wingerlang 5y ago
        Swiping up with 4 fingers will display all windows for you to select the one you want. Then CMD+TAB or CMD+` if you want to cycle. Like macOS by default might not be exactly fitting for everyone, but surely it works well enough for 99.999% of the population. And coming from Linux users who love customizability... I mean there are multiple ways to make it work exactly as you want. I have snapping, and multiple gestures to position and resize exactly to my liking, through BetterTouchTool. And I am a very light user.
generalk 5y ago
> Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is > and get on with your job. I have an ultrawide monitor. I would very much like for the macOS clock to be centered in the menubar (except when using the built-in display, which for some ungodly reason has a notch in it) or failing that at least to the left of the menu icons. It makes a huge usability difference for me, as otherwise I have to physically turn my head, and sometimes crane my neck depending on how my eyes are treating me. This is impossible out of the box, and maybe possible depending on what third-party tools I hack together. IIRC command-dragging used to work on the clock, but either it never did and I'm misremembering, or the clock and the iOS-replica Quick Settings panel are special and exempt. > I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why? Sometimes it's badly designed for a use case you're unfamiliar with, and needs a fix. Sometimes it's just hobbyists being hobbyists. This forum is called "Hacker News," after all.

sseagull 5y ago

Because people have different needs, expectations, and preferences. It’s part of what makes humans interesting. Computers should be made to serve people, not the other way around.

chrisseaton 5y ago
I don't know - I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be something else. I'm not sure there can really be any reasonable requirement to move the clock. I think that's just being fussy. For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested. Every boolean option you add doubles the state space of the application!! Less is more. This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool.
- wara23arish 5y ago
  You believe moving the clock is a wacky feature? You can already move the macOS dock, so its not like it’s unheard of in that world. Sensible defaults are great, but after spending most of your day glued to a screen, you start noticing little improvements to your workflow. e.g. i dont want to turn my head all the way to the right to look at the clock (using external monitors) Thats not a big change, but I believe the sum of all those little changes add up
- sseagull 5y ago
  I somewhat agree, except maybe: > This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool "Professional" is a wide category for sure, but I would argue professionals are the ones who need more customization, not less. They are the ones with esoteric tools and workflows, and where customizing their environment to match how their mind works allows them to focus on the problems at hand and not their tools. > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested True. However, these are trillion-dollar companies. Look at all the options for cars, or refrigerators, or whatever. And all these have the constraints of the physical world. And all made by companies with a heck of a lot less cash than Apple and Microsoft.
- m3adow 5y ago
  Funny enough he's answering your complaints in the last paragraph. You're telling him he's "holding it wrong". Except individual taste can rarely be wrong.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Nobody said his taste was 'wrong'. I don't even know what that would mean? I'm saying he'd get more out the tool by learning and embracing the design of it, rather than wishing it was something that it isn't. Go with the flow, rather than fighting it. Reduce entropy not create it.
    - sseagull 5y ago
      I'll give a bit of a different example. I was recently playing the remastered Dark Souls on Switch. For some reason, they used the Japanese button mapping of B and A rather than the usual mapping in the US. And you couldn't change it. I mean, no big deal, I can learn the new mapping. And I mostly did. But even after 50-100 hours, I would still occasionally press the wrong button (accepting rather than cancelling). The previous configuration was so ingrained in me that I could not overcome my muscle memory without conscious thought. So even when I really try to "go with the flow" there is friction. People come from different backgrounds, using different software and different paradigms, and it's not really easy at all to remap their way of thinking, even if they want to.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      The maker controls the tools, the tools do not control the maker. You're asking "but why not let the tail wag the dog?" The tool works or it does not.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > The tool works or it does not. That's the point. macOS works just fine without wobbly windows. We don't need the extra complexity of wobbly windows.
- catchclose8919 5y ago
  > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested. No, it doesn't. We seem to have forgotten that there are more general ways to think about software and engineering and math and the world. You can just design a system that is guaranteed to work fine: - regardless of where widget X is positioned - regardless of what font and font size (from an interval) and color is selected by the user for a certain UI components - ...and you can have all UI on all apps on the whole computer be customizable in the same way without having to write any (zero!) extra lines of code by just inheriting functionality for some common components - etc. You don't have to just dumbly test all scenarios to guarantee sane global behaviors of systems. And you don't get the burden of maintaining the "test cases for all possible scenarios" because you just don't write those tests in the beginning, they are useless in a well behaved system that follows LAWS and properly preserves INVARIANTS and just burn money through their tests-maintainance costs! (Like lots/some of pre-web systems actually were!) We've now built for ourselves a crazy computing world where there are no longer stable (across years and decades) contracts, laws and invariants in software, so we have to defensively code and over-test everything! We could've had-the-cake-and-eaten-it too if we would've just put the effort of building more solid software foundations for ourselves, but instead we're torturing ourselves building Electron web apps on desktops in languages with lacking or handicaped type systems and run them on operating systems that offer no sane components with contractually guaranteed interfaces... </rant> ...imagine if physics worked like that, you'd have to re-test the laws of physics every time you wanted to build a house because the laws could vary by neighbourhood and not even basic invariants like the conservation of energy were guaranteed to hold. Oh, you can't just ask for more than a 1-room rectangular uncostumizable house of standard size, because properly testing anything else doesn't crash on you in our universe with non-uniform physics is just too expensive! Just get used with you sensible defaults citizen, stop questioning the party and the world!
- pdonis 5y ago
  > I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be something else. This does seem to be the basic philosophy Apple has adopted for its devices. Which is why I don't use them. I don't like their defaults (which means the whole concept of "sensible defaults" doesn't really make sense except in reference to some particular set of users, and there are many such sets with different preferences), I like being able to customize things (because my idea of how I want to work is never the same as some designer's idea), and I'm going to be doing things that the OS designer didn't think of (particularly since I'm a developer). In short, my experience with Apple devices is that they don't let me work the way I want to work. So I don't work with them.
ubermonkey 5y ago
Having different preferences, and using a different platform that serves them better, is absolutely fine. Deciding that the platform that doesn't meet your needs is somehow illegitimate, "not a computer," or somehow morally unacceptable is juvenile fanboy crap.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Your game console, your smart TV, and even your microwave oven all have computers inside, crucial for their interaction with you. But they choose to not expose to you the general computing capabilities they possess. (Yes, there is a reason for that.) Truth be told, a Macbook does expose itself as a general computing device all right.

sylens 5y ago

I'll agree with you on things like the clock - never felt the need to move it, that's just how it is on macOS. But I would expect a mature desktop operating system to have improved window management capabilities in 2022

LeFantome 5y ago
Alternative point ( as somebody that uses macOS, Windows, and Linux about equally )… Apple may leave “wobbly windows” or even window manager behaviour as the kind of thing a third-party could add. They might do this because they want software companies to be able to make money making software for the Mac. A rich community of software providers is good for a platform. As a user, this means that high quality software is more likely to be available for the Mac than it is for Linux. Companies struggle to make money on Linux and so fewer companies try. Microsoft used to get roundly criticized for adding stuff into Windows for free that third-parties could be selling for money instead. In fact, Microsoft was branded as “evil” by many for including a web browser for free shortly after Netscape had biggest IPO in history selling theirs for money. I prefer the “everything in my distribution” model myself but calling an OS a “toy” because it does not bundle a utility or functionality that is hardly universal in utility or preference does not resonate with me. Not being able to run the software I need for work is a more legitimate beef. I love Linux and I can use it for almost anything. I have to admit though that even just using it for my work email or calendar is a far inferior experience to either Mac or Windows. For most people, an article about how Linux is still a toy because it poorly integrates with iMessage or Face Time may even make more sense than complaints about NFS. I do not like macOS as much as I used to but there is a lot bundled into it. Even simple apps like Preview work a lot nicer than what I have on Linux. The Linux printing subsystem ( CUPS ) is a gift from Apple. Again, I like Linux more than Mac these days. I am thinking of putting Garuda Linux on my MacBook Pro later today in fact. That said, this article did not hit with me.

SSLy 5y ago

>What on earth is the point of that? Monkey brain sees shiny things. Monkey brain releases dopamine. Monke brain happy.

q3k 5y ago

> And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that? To have wobbly windows.

toper-centage 5y ago

There are different brains out there, and they think differently, and understanding that is half way to developing empathy, but also extremely important when developing accessible applications. Maybe I don't want to see the clock whenever I look at notifications, or vice versa, because that's extremely distracting. Lack of customisability gives us less accessible software. Apple is really good at accessibility, but at the same time really bad. > And he wants his windows to wobble? Some people are fun at parties, some are not.

Mikeb85 5y ago

Window snapping is a pretty basic thing that every non-Mac OS and DE does... And it's annoying AF to not have it.

mmis1000 5y ago
That's why people always use fullscreen in mac. Because window just don't really work well. The only time I ever use window is dragging file from finder to vscode. Because mac is dumb enough that don't allow drag happen between different desktop. (Or I would just drag file from finder to vscode on different screen)
- wingerlang 5y ago
  Who are these people? I absolutely hate fullscreen in macOS and literally only use it for fullscreen videos and the like. What part of the window doesn't work well?
  - mmis1000 5y ago
    Snapping/alignment, gesture. The alignment, it don't even support snapping, place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible, and the + on window go fullscreen unless you hold opt. You can't just swipe to switch between window. You can only swipe between desktop. I'd wonder which part in mac's window manager actually works well (compares to other desktop manager)?
    - lilyball 5y ago
      > place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible macOS has supported automatic snapping while dragging windows for years now. Just drag it slowly when you're approaching the edge of the other window and the window you're dragging will snap to it
    - wingerlang 5y ago
      Swiping up with 4 fingers will display all windows for you to select the one you want. Then CMD+TAB or CMD+` if you want to cycle. Like macOS by default might not be exactly fitting for everyone, but surely it works well enough for 99.999% of the population. And coming from Linux users who love customizability... I mean there are multiple ways to make it work exactly as you want. I have snapping, and multiple gestures to position and resize exactly to my liking, through BetterTouchTool. And I am a very light user.

generalk 5y ago

> Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is > and get on with your job. I have an ultrawide monitor. I would very much like for the macOS clock to be centered in the menubar (except when using the built-in display, which for some ungodly reason has a notch in it) or failing that at least to the left of the menu icons. It makes a huge usability difference for me, as otherwise I have to physically turn my head, and sometimes crane my neck depending on how my eyes are treating me. This is impossible out of the box, and maybe possible depending on what third-party tools I hack together. IIRC command-dragging used to work on the clock, but either it never did and I'm misremembering, or the clock and the iOS-replica Quick Settings panel are special and exempt. > I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why? Sometimes it's badly designed for a use case you're unfamiliar with, and needs a fix. Sometimes it's just hobbyists being hobbyists. This forum is called "Hacker News," after all.