5 ms·

> Programmers often get criticized for their fruit salad GUIs, but usually that's the result of having to present plenty of options and data. Simplicity is onl

by mrxd 12y ago

> Programmers often get criticized for their fruit salad GUIs, but usually that's the result of having to present plenty of options and data. Simplicity is only one kind of beauty. It's certainly possible to have a gorgeous interface that still presents a ton of options and data. You often see these in sci-fi movies, like Oblivion, and the aesthetic is in fact about hyper-complexity: http://www.josephychan.com/Oblivion http://www.josephychan.com/Oblivion

mhd 12y ago
I'd say that this is the most common computer aesthetic even in "contemporary" movies and shows -- just think of all the random scrolling code you see whenever something gets hacked or when perp pictures are searched/compared. Not all about beauty, more about trying to present something as arcane as possibly to signify that the character knows what he or she is doing. (One reason for the recent infantile obsession about tiling window managers) Most of that is pretty unusable or superfluous, too. Which is okay, when it comes to movies, of course. But sadly this also sells in big business. Enterprise software is often defined as programs where the one buying is not the one using it. And just show a big screen with plenty of chartbarf and managers will flow to it, yet ordinary call center/sysadmin users are none the wiser. And this is where help would be needed, yet it's quite a bit harder than "use Helvetica and white space". Although you'd be allowed to make it quite a bit less "gorgeous" when you're not -- as in most webapps -- trying to do ad and ux work at the same time.
- lamacase 12y ago
  > (One reason for the recent infantile obsession about tiling window managers) Wait, are you saying that tiling window managers are unusable, superfluous, arcane? Or do you simply object to cargo-culting? I can't actually use stacking window managers anymore. It's a little like the difference between auto-arranging icons, and milling about manually organizing them into little piles. It may seem like you've lost some control with automatic, but it's control over frivolous minutiae. You've shed the responsibility of micro-managing the little file-fiefdoms and their petty squabbles. Who would not prefer a desk where all the papers sorted themselves and squared the corners of their piles?
  - mhd 12y ago
    People who don't have a room for a 10'x10' desk but have ample room for drawers? I'd say that for a lot of people, constant access to other windows and constant re-arrangement (whether manual or automatic) isn't a big issue, so elaborate positioning constraints are barely an improvement over alt-tab. The primary solution for both kinds of users who need to keep several sets of different windows seems to be virtual desktops (or "tags") anyways, whether it's tiling or not. Moving windows between sets is rare enough... And then you've got the problem with in-application windows, e.g. Firefox' tabs or vim/emacs buffers or tmux/screen windows. Yet another nested set of layout methods, constraints and shortcuts. Which is why I fail to see it as inherently better, just like there's nothing wrong with on-desktop icons or scrolling desktops. Don't get me wrong, I'm using i3 myself, as the grid/stacking nature makes for some convenient keyboard shortcuts and I'm fine with the looks, but I doubt that this saves me a lot of time compared with my previous long-term staple of lwm... But yes, the cargo-culting is pretty annoying. Ncurses apps aren't that minimalistic (esp. when you hear this from late-game Plan 9 fanboys), and if your screenshots are just a bunch of music players and IRC windows, I doubt any claims of huge productivity gains.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      "Ncurses apps aren't that minimalistic" Or, generally, that composable.

by mrxd 12y ago

mhd 12y ago

I'd say that this is the most common computer aesthetic even in "contemporary" movies and shows -- just think of all the random scrolling code you see whenever something gets hacked or when perp pictures are searched/compared. Not all about beauty, more about trying to present something as arcane as possibly to signify that the character knows what he or she is doing. (One reason for the recent infantile obsession about tiling window managers) Most of that is pretty unusable or superfluous, too. Which is okay, when it comes to movies, of course. But sadly this also sells in big business. Enterprise software is often defined as programs where the one buying is not the one using it. And just show a big screen with plenty of chartbarf and managers will flow to it, yet ordinary call center/sysadmin users are none the wiser. And this is where help would be needed, yet it's quite a bit harder than "use Helvetica and white space". Although you'd be allowed to make it quite a bit less "gorgeous" when you're not -- as in most webapps -- trying to do ad and ux work at the same time.

lamacase 12y ago
> (One reason for the recent infantile obsession about tiling window managers) Wait, are you saying that tiling window managers are unusable, superfluous, arcane? Or do you simply object to cargo-culting? I can't actually use stacking window managers anymore. It's a little like the difference between auto-arranging icons, and milling about manually organizing them into little piles. It may seem like you've lost some control with automatic, but it's control over frivolous minutiae. You've shed the responsibility of micro-managing the little file-fiefdoms and their petty squabbles. Who would not prefer a desk where all the papers sorted themselves and squared the corners of their piles?
- mhd 12y ago
  People who don't have a room for a 10'x10' desk but have ample room for drawers? I'd say that for a lot of people, constant access to other windows and constant re-arrangement (whether manual or automatic) isn't a big issue, so elaborate positioning constraints are barely an improvement over alt-tab. The primary solution for both kinds of users who need to keep several sets of different windows seems to be virtual desktops (or "tags") anyways, whether it's tiling or not. Moving windows between sets is rare enough... And then you've got the problem with in-application windows, e.g. Firefox' tabs or vim/emacs buffers or tmux/screen windows. Yet another nested set of layout methods, constraints and shortcuts. Which is why I fail to see it as inherently better, just like there's nothing wrong with on-desktop icons or scrolling desktops. Don't get me wrong, I'm using i3 myself, as the grid/stacking nature makes for some convenient keyboard shortcuts and I'm fine with the looks, but I doubt that this saves me a lot of time compared with my previous long-term staple of lwm... But yes, the cargo-culting is pretty annoying. Ncurses apps aren't that minimalistic (esp. when you hear this from late-game Plan 9 fanboys), and if your screenshots are just a bunch of music players and IRC windows, I doubt any claims of huge productivity gains.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    "Ncurses apps aren't that minimalistic" Or, generally, that composable.