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Value Of Windowing Is Questioned (1984)
- striking 12y agoAnd that is why I am a happy customer of dwm (http://dwm.suckless.org/ http://dwm.suckless.org/)
- chriswarbo 12y agoIndeed, the article was focusing on a false dichotomy: either you must exit one application before using another (no windows), or your applications must be relegated to unusably small fractions of the screen (windows). If you don't like either option, there's a third choice: run multiple applications, only show one at a time and allow fast switching between them.
- Jezparov 12y agoAnyone remember DESQview? It allowed you to run multiple fullscreen text mode applications and switch between them by double-tapping the alt key. I used to run Telix and Wordperfect at the same time and could still get a DOS prompt if I needed one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview
- AshleysBrain 12y agoInteresting perspective, but 1984 machines would have all been incredibly tightly resource-constrained with very low resolution screens, making it difficult to even display two windows at once. Fair enough to question it in 1984 but times have changed!
- rwmj 12y agoExcept on tablets of course, where "single app visible at a time" is common.
- sparkie 12y agoProbably Gnome3 soon too, the way it appears to be heading.
- keithpeter 12y agoOddly enough, I use almost all windows in maximised mode on this small old laptop. That is with Gnome 3 and/or MATE. Just seems to make more sense.
- chipsy 12y agoin some ways the article was right at the time. The first Windows was pretty bad, and so was the second. Whether windows, tiles, or single screen is better still comes up, but we've all come to expect multitasking.
- digi_owl 12y agoThis article seems to equate windowing with multitasking (in the computing sense, not the workflow sense).