Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"

Post by jbm » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 9:42 AM UTC

uid0 wrote: post #175

whyenot wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs releasing some new shiny thing that makes the lives of some very affluent people (on the global scale for wealth) magrinally better, doesn't compare, is not even in the same ball park, as ensuring that hundreds of thousands of people don't go blind in central Africa. That is my belief, and of course I understand that not everyone else shares it.

> Steve Jobs releasing some new shiny thing that makes the lives of some very affluent people (on the global scale for wealth) magrinally better, doesn't compare [...] Aren't all people equal?

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 10:14 AM UTC

lkozma wrote: post #96

loumf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Eric Raymond on Cups for a Unix perspective. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html

Here's a reaction to it by Gruber: http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/spray_on_usability

Post by jodrellblank » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 10:37 AM UTC

pkaler wrote: post #95

Elepsis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, no one took away the check boxes that let you choose which Windows Live programs you want to install when you're trying to run the installer. The installer doesn't even download any of those apps if you leave them unchecked. If you don't want Messenger, Photo Gallery, or even to sign up for a Windows Live ID, you don't have to get/do those things. Most people find that this is actually helpful, though, beca…

I'd suggest downloading the iWork demo and installing it. http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/ It's a magnitude easier than installing anything on Windows: Click Link. DMG gets mounted on desktop. Click continue a couple times. But really that's quaint, too. Install iMovie on the iPhone or iPad: Search App Store. Click Install. Enter Password. Expecting users to do anything else at install time is expecting too…

Post by eru » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 1:32 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #113

ssp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has made a bunch of very good products: - Windows 3.0 and 3.1 clearly hit exactly the sweet spot between DOS and OS/2 - Word and Excel were legitimately better than the competition (and still are, although there is not much competition left). - Internet Explorer 4 was so much better than Netscape 3 and 4 that it wasn't even funny - Windows 2000 and XP were very good operating systems

Nice list. Continuing the "Microsoft and Apple are different" theme, the thing that's worth considering is that the "goodness" of these products is the goodness of well engineered compromises. Current Word is actually a fusion of DOS word and the original Windows Word and while it has a huge feature set, this set is not terribly consistent. It's an achievement to make thing feel as good as it does. Similarly for the…

Post by ido » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 2:56 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #147

ido wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all releases of the NT line were good (including Win 7). Was there any OS contemporary to NT 3.51 that was better than it at anything (beside win 95 when it comes to compatibility with more software & hardware)?

Solaris 2.5 was a very solid OS and better than NT 3.5 in most respects unless a defining criteria for "better" is "runs well on PCs", which it didn't. OS/2 was also a good OS for x86 PCs. At least as good as NT, unless, again, you want it to run software designed for Windows.