3 ms·

> "I'm sorry, but you're going to be the brunt of this small mini-rant about Linux users being incredibly unaware of what we mean when we say pretty" Probably

by Herring 18y ago

> "I'm sorry, but you're going to be the brunt of this small mini-rant about Linux users being incredibly unaware of what we mean when we say pretty" Probably because you're misspelling it. It's written "functionality." You know, ease of use & all that. I hesitate to go into specifics. A few of those you mentioned are in linux & a few aren't. Most don't really matter to me (honestly, text editors?) so I think it's just a matter of taste.

unalone 18y ago
Form and function are one and the same. Pretty things are functional, and vice versa. You can have five thousand extras and be hard to use and I wouldn't call that functional either. The ones I mentioned were the tip of the iceberg. The point is that if you WANT to do something, you can. With Linux basically it's that if you try to do something you often need to tinker. When we say we love our operating system, it's because of how superbly beautiful it is, and part of its beauty is how all of the small things just WORK. Linux doesn't have that. Linux is, excuse my French, shit compared to that. It's more functional if you want to go to the command line and tinker to death, but the beauty of OS X is that you don't need to do that. I doubt you've ever used a Mac from what you've said, so it's hard to explain. But you can't point at rotating cube and use that as a counterexample, because that's not pretty OR functional. It's a waste.
- Herring 18y ago
  You mentioned genie & expose earlier. Not only are those in compiz, but I have them turned off because of the rotating cube. I don't need a windowlist/taskbar; I have enough space that windows rarely get below other windows. I got used to it & working on a different operating system now feels very cramped. Same as I got used to tinkering (aka customization) & using OS X feels like typing with gloves. Like I said, it's pointless to argue. A few more iterations of ubuntu & it should be easy enough for OS X users.
  - unalone 18y ago
    No it won't. Apple has a head start of at least several years, and Apple has not stopped innovating for the last decade. Leopard was an enormous improvement from Tiger, and Tiger was still holding its own. Apple obsoletes Apple. The rotating cube in itself is a failure of Linux because it solves no problem. It's a multiple workstations system: plain and simple. That existed before the cube and solved the same problem. Apple implemented that with Spaces, and with 10.5.2 it ended with a product that I'd argue is better than any of the other workstation set-ups I've seen in terms of pure ease of use. The genie and expose shouldn't HAVE to be turned off. Neither one is intensive whatsoever if implemented well. The fact of the matter is that it's there just in case that sort of thing is activated. I use Expose despite having 9 workstations, because I like running larger windows, and Expose lets me move files back and forth extremely easily. (Unsure if that works in Linux.) The ultimate triumph of the Mac's vision is that it doesn't have spare dangly bits. It doesn't have a rotating cube, because having a cube rotate serves no purpose whatsoever. It's needless gaudy visual. Some visuals (like windows sliding on Spaces) help give you a spatial understanding of your windows. Apple has no un-needed visuals (with the possible exception of the ripple in Dashboard). Ubuntu developers may make something that looks good on the surface as Leopard looks now. I doubt even that. I don't even doubt them being able to replicate Apple's ease of use because it is a sheer impossibility. To quote Daring Fireball: "A well-designed product is not simply harder than a poorly-designed one. It is an entire MAGNITUDE of difficulty greater."

by Herring 18y ago

unalone 18y ago

Form and function are one and the same. Pretty things are functional, and vice versa. You can have five thousand extras and be hard to use and I wouldn't call that functional either. The ones I mentioned were the tip of the iceberg. The point is that if you WANT to do something, you can. With Linux basically it's that if you try to do something you often need to tinker. When we say we love our operating system, it's because of how superbly beautiful it is, and part of its beauty is how all of the small things just WORK. Linux doesn't have that. Linux is, excuse my French, shit compared to that. It's more functional if you want to go to the command line and tinker to death, but the beauty of OS X is that you don't need to do that. I doubt you've ever used a Mac from what you've said, so it's hard to explain. But you can't point at rotating cube and use that as a counterexample, because that's not pretty OR functional. It's a waste.

Herring 18y ago
You mentioned genie & expose earlier. Not only are those in compiz, but I have them turned off because of the rotating cube. I don't need a windowlist/taskbar; I have enough space that windows rarely get below other windows. I got used to it & working on a different operating system now feels very cramped. Same as I got used to tinkering (aka customization) & using OS X feels like typing with gloves. Like I said, it's pointless to argue. A few more iterations of ubuntu & it should be easy enough for OS X users.
- unalone 18y ago
  No it won't. Apple has a head start of at least several years, and Apple has not stopped innovating for the last decade. Leopard was an enormous improvement from Tiger, and Tiger was still holding its own. Apple obsoletes Apple. The rotating cube in itself is a failure of Linux because it solves no problem. It's a multiple workstations system: plain and simple. That existed before the cube and solved the same problem. Apple implemented that with Spaces, and with 10.5.2 it ended with a product that I'd argue is better than any of the other workstation set-ups I've seen in terms of pure ease of use. The genie and expose shouldn't HAVE to be turned off. Neither one is intensive whatsoever if implemented well. The fact of the matter is that it's there just in case that sort of thing is activated. I use Expose despite having 9 workstations, because I like running larger windows, and Expose lets me move files back and forth extremely easily. (Unsure if that works in Linux.) The ultimate triumph of the Mac's vision is that it doesn't have spare dangly bits. It doesn't have a rotating cube, because having a cube rotate serves no purpose whatsoever. It's needless gaudy visual. Some visuals (like windows sliding on Spaces) help give you a spatial understanding of your windows. Apple has no un-needed visuals (with the possible exception of the ripple in Dashboard). Ubuntu developers may make something that looks good on the surface as Leopard looks now. I doubt even that. I don't even doubt them being able to replicate Apple's ease of use because it is a sheer impossibility. To quote Daring Fireball: "A well-designed product is not simply harder than a poorly-designed one. It is an entire MAGNITUDE of difficulty greater."