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The entire desktop metaphor is still basically perfect for systems that have a mouse. I can't really think of anything I would change about the Windows/Cinnamon

The entire desktop metaphor is still basically perfect for systems that have a mouse. I can't really think of anything I would change about the Windows/Cinnamon/KDE experience. Proboards type forums are also pretty much perfect. Section/Thread/Post, no further levels, full size posts with signatures, pagination for everything. Excel has the distinction of being basically the only way a normal person might ever consider writing a program. In that, I consider it one of the coolest technologies out there. Not only that, but they had reactivity like what, 20 years before web dev commonly used it? In an alternate universe, somewhere millions of people are making programs with Excel 12.0, which lets you make pages that are actually Vue templates referencing your data. Most editors have solved their editing domain pretty well. If you go back to 2000 or so, any most editor will be fine aside from lack of nondestructive stuff. They added over time but the core model is the same in new vs old Photoshop, gimp, DAWs, video editors, etc. I like Android's UI, but lately touch devices have been getting so heavily gesture based and I constantly accidentally switch tabs or refresh pages. The vast majority of UIs from 1990-2005 seem to have held up just fine. I think UIs that don't hold up are because they're trying to model something inherently hard and make it easy(Like anything 3D) or they're working with limited hardware and don't have full size screen and a mouse. Without a mouse you have to encode things in timing that would otherwise be encoded in the different button presses. There's no separate hover and click, no right click, no middle click. I wonder why there isn't more phones with touch sensors on the back that can actually as a mouse, or why GBoard doesn't have a laptop touchpad type interface for dealing with legacy non mobile sites.

rvba 3y ago
> I can't really think of anything I would change about the Windows/Cinnamon/KDE experience. Windows taskbar is getting degraded over time: -the "sleek" design means it is unclear which window is open -autogrouping - is an antipattern for most office workers, who have few things open (say few emails, few spreadsheets). In most jobs you constantly move around them - and when they are grouped you lose time -when you jump the hoops to disable auto grouping, windows still groups the programs by type (e.g. all folders are near each other, then all outlook emails, then all spreadsheets -> when often you would prefer to have them in the taskbar relational to the time they were opened) -Windows 95 radiobars and shading was just visually better, often the interface is unclear -you cannot sort the fucking control panel, seriously open it - it is sorted vertically? (it is living hell if you find a guide in English and then you try to translate to your own language, but you cannot sort easily alphabetically -> if windows wanted to have same icons in same place, then name them with numbers 1, 2, 3... but they dont want to do this, because then they would have to stay consistent and stop changing things for the sake of proving that product managers are needed)
PaulHoule 3y ago
Excel is such an interesting case because people don’t really understand how it is related to “writing software” and there are so many gaps such as: * pounding out something in Excel vs, writing something correct. (There was that time I had gotten back to Ithaca and gave the same talk I’d just given in NYC and somebody pointed out I’d screwed up a graph because I made a common mistake people make with Excel. I can laugh about it but the person who made a $100M bad trade because of Excel has less to laugh about.) * tools for making enterprise software with the convenience, accessibility and reactivity of Excel * all these gawdawful “reactive” javascript frameworks that seem uninformed by the reactivity of Excel, workflow engines, etc. It just seems to me there is a “no code” revolution hiding in plain site that is obscured by “this is a spreadsheet” and “this is a programming language” which is is hard to breach as the “can’t you tell that a phone is a phone and a computer is a computer, silly?” mindset that is so widespread today. (For that matter it is so amazing Lotus Notes disappeared without a trace before the patents expires…)

rvba 3y ago

> I can't really think of anything I would change about the Windows/Cinnamon/KDE experience. Windows taskbar is getting degraded over time: -the "sleek" design means it is unclear which window is open -autogrouping - is an antipattern for most office workers, who have few things open (say few emails, few spreadsheets). In most jobs you constantly move around them - and when they are grouped you lose time -when you jump the hoops to disable auto grouping, windows still groups the programs by type (e.g. all folders are near each other, then all outlook emails, then all spreadsheets -> when often you would prefer to have them in the taskbar relational to the time they were opened) -Windows 95 radiobars and shading was just visually better, often the interface is unclear -you cannot sort the fucking control panel, seriously open it - it is sorted vertically? (it is living hell if you find a guide in English and then you try to translate to your own language, but you cannot sort easily alphabetically -> if windows wanted to have same icons in same place, then name them with numbers 1, 2, 3... but they dont want to do this, because then they would have to stay consistent and stop changing things for the sake of proving that product managers are needed)

PaulHoule 3y ago

Excel is such an interesting case because people don’t really understand how it is related to “writing software” and there are so many gaps such as: * pounding out something in Excel vs, writing something correct. (There was that time I had gotten back to Ithaca and gave the same talk I’d just given in NYC and somebody pointed out I’d screwed up a graph because I made a common mistake people make with Excel. I can laugh about it but the person who made a $100M bad trade because of Excel has less to laugh about.) * tools for making enterprise software with the convenience, accessibility and reactivity of Excel * all these gawdawful “reactive” javascript frameworks that seem uninformed by the reactivity of Excel, workflow engines, etc. It just seems to me there is a “no code” revolution hiding in plain site that is obscured by “this is a spreadsheet” and “this is a programming language” which is is hard to breach as the “can’t you tell that a phone is a phone and a computer is a computer, silly?” mindset that is so widespread today. (For that matter it is so amazing Lotus Notes disappeared without a trace before the patents expires…)