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Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

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Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#261

Post by ywei3410 »

vikramkr wrote: post #258
ywei3410 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: You _have_ to specialize in the fields that you are good at; not what you want to be good at because you can't compete in the other fields. A couple of million years without advancing is hyperbole to the extreme; specialization which you are touting has only existed for 100-150 years or so (see Foucault, Frankfurt school etc...).

Specialization and division of labor is literally a defining aspect of civilization. Did you forget a couple zeros? The industrial revolution alone was starting around 1760, which is 260 years ago, and evidence for the existence of civilization extends quite a bit further back than that...

No; I don’t agree with that at all — the idea of extreme specialization for greater prosperity is from the foundations of Capitalism. /The Wealth Of Nations/ was only published in 1776. The Industrial revolution certainly introduced part of the idea of the modern workforce; see /Discipline and Punish/ [1] for a good overview of the evolution of attitudes, but extreme specialization of /worker skills/ was an alien idea. The existence of cottage industries prior to the Industrial revolution is illustrative of this fact.

/Collaboration/ has been a hallmark of civilization; but it is revisionist to say that we have always specialized to this extreme or seen it as a necessary goal. For example, the blacksmith of feudal society didn’t only make spoons, nor the farmer a single crop. If we want to critique previous civilizations; we even need to be wary of the fact that such systems were determined primarily through morality, such as /Plato’s Republic/ or /Confucianism/ rather than any ideal of prosperity. The farmer was a farmer because that was his/her place not because they were better or worse at it.

Even if I’m being charitable and equate division-of-labour to specialization; which, I think is a /huge/ leap — it does not counter the original point which is there is little autonomy in what you choose to do for a living in the logical conclusion of a system where you must specialize to compete.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#262

Post by vikramkr »

ywei3410 wrote: post #261
vikramkr wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specialization and division of labor is literally a defining aspect of civilization. Did you forget a couple zeros? The industrial revolution alone was starting around 1760, which is 260 years ago, and evidence for the existence of civilization extends quite a bit further back than that...

No; I don’t agree with that at all — the idea of extreme specialization for greater prosperity is from the foundations of Capitalism. /The Wealth Of Nations/ was only published in 1776. The Industrial revolution certainly introduced part of the idea of the modern workforce; see /Discipline and Punish/ [1] for a good overview of the evolution of attitudes, but extreme specialization of /worker skills/ was an alien ide…

A blacksmith is a specialized trade. You cant make up a new definition for an adjective and then use the nonstandard definition to make your point. Division of labor is synonymous with specialization. If you don't like it, make up a new term for what you want to convey.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#263

Post by ywei3410 »

vikramkr wrote: post #262
ywei3410 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No; I don’t agree with that at all — the idea of extreme specialization for greater prosperity is from the foundations of Capitalism. /The Wealth Of Nations/ was only published in 1776. The Industrial revolution certainly introduced part of the idea of the modern workforce; see /Discipline and Punish/ [1] for a good overview of the evolution of attitudes, but extreme specialization of /worker skills/ was an alien ide…

A blacksmith is a specialized trade. You cant make up a new definition for an adjective and then use the nonstandard definition to make your point. Division of labor is synonymous with specialization. If you don't like it, make up a new term for what you want to convey. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour

Leaving aside the fact whether a blacksmith represents a specialist trade; in my post I specifically alluded to a /more/ specialist blacksmith which /only/ made spoons as an illustration of extreme specialization, I believe that my point still stands — that, I challenge your three assertions:

1) Specialization leads to more autonomy

2) Extreme specialization is as "old as civilization"

3) Extreme specialization leading directly to prosperity as an idea is older than the 18th century

On 1) I don’t see any further arguments on your side; so I assume that you have no qualms with such a correction. On 2) I believe that I’ve adequately addressed your concerns — I acknowledge /Plato/ specifically in my reply as shown in your link and my critique on "Ancient theories" is covered in a previous post. The last point overlaps with the 2nd point and I have found no criticisms to the contrary in your answers.

On semantics and pendantry of terms I’m disinterested — we could debate all day and I could argue that the very term "Division of Labour" originated in Adam Smith’s work [1] and therefore isn’t the same as specialization. Such a debate would neither be useful nor productive.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/division%20of%20l...

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#264

Post by wilt »

Way i see it is there are 2 camps of people when it comes to desktop computing. There are most regular people who just see it as a tool and want it to let them do what they want without having to put much thought into it. They will have various levels of skill but don't care much past that.

Then there are the people who I think of as enthusiasts. Who have have different things they care about and cause all the arguments and pedantic nit picking. There are the fanboys who love tech created by a company and always like to have the newest thing from them. There are the people who really into making their desktop look pretty. Finally there is the group who likes to have total control of their workflow and hate having features taken away (group i belong to).

So looking at all of this it is no wonder most people are not interested in desktops and the group that is are only going to like it if its from their brand of choice.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#265

Post by Volt »

72deluxe wrote: post #162
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #160

Honestly I think a lot of ideas about where to go with Desktop OSs these days are just complexity fetishist slashfiction. I don't think we need new complicated paradigms, instead we should take a look at our history of what worked and what didn't and build based a simple combination of good ideas we already have. My opinion, short version, hastily written, and incomplete: 1) Applications are self-contained objects th…

All of these points sound like macos apart from 4, possibly 6 and definitely 7. Your home directory is your profile/account (what's the difference on a single computer?).

>macos apart from 4

AppleScript?

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#266

Post by jmnicolas »

izacus wrote: post #185
jmnicolas wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Dex mode brings you? Mobile apps arranged like a desktop that's it. Where is Android studio ... on Android?

In the place where Xcode for iPad is. And yet iPad is still very useful computing device for millions. Dex has fully functional browser, office apps, media software and file management. That covers huge amounts of use-cases.

> And yet iPad is still very useful computing device for millions.

Frankly I'm amazed at the efforts some people do to make iPads work as laptops (at least from what I saw on YouTube). Once they add a keyboard it's almost as heavy and bulky than a laptop. Some add a HUB with a mouse and even plug a RaspberryPi in USB C to SSH into ...

I'm not convinced it's worth the efforts.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#267

Post by gerash »

douglaswlance wrote: post #164
gerash wrote: post #118

In my workflow all I need is a good window manager. The one on MacOS is not good even with extra apps (Rectangle). There is too much degree of freedom in moving a window pixel by pixel. I want it to automatically lay out the windows. The other problem is a lot of things open are Chrome tabs nested within a Chrome window. I wish there were no tabs and the OS window manager would automatically surface the right tabs an…

Try Amethyst: https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst It's a great window tiling manager.

I just tried it and so far it's really good. It's still rough around the edges though and feels like someone's side project.

I feel existing OSes are simply missing out on creating a wonderful window manager. Something like this can get better defaults, animation, a tutorial, some ML smartness on making better initial choices and perhaps a dedicated hardware on the laptop (a la touch bar) just for window management.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#268

Post by nly »

soapdog wrote: post #110
nly wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surfaces are tablets with plug in keyboards. I'm talking about a cellular device that you can slip in your pocket

The problem with that vision is that people break/lose phones a lot more often than laptops. We tend to carry your phone all the time with us, that leads to it being potentially exposed to way more dangers than our laptops. What happens to all your stuff when your phone is stolen in a pub? or when it fall into that subway gap? If the answer to this is: it is all backed up automatically into the cloud and your new dev…

In my experience your average Joe carries most of their important stuff on their phone anyway (photos, contacts, payment options, email, instant message history) and very little of importance on their laptop.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#269

Post by DonHopkins »

zepto wrote: post #224
DonHopkins wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no escape key! How do you get out of VIM insert mode? Control-[? Might as well use Emacs. At least there's an Option key for Meta.

What do you mean ‘no escape key’? All the terminals I have used swap out the suggestions bar for a row of extra keys, with escape in the place you would expect it.

I'm referring to the physical Smart/Magic Keyboard for the iPad from Apple, not the onscreen keyboard:

https://www.apple.com/shop/ipad/ipad-accessories/keyboards

I just learned you can type command-. to send an escape on an iPad keyboard. And also as freehunter mentioned, iPad Settings / General / Keyboard / Hardware Keyboard / Modifier Keys lets you remap caps lock to escape.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/23/ipad-pro-magic-keyboard-escap...

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#270

Post by mikewarot »

_where wrote: post #15
mikewarot wrote: post #9

I'm looking forward to the day Genode brings capability based security to the desktop. We can actually have computers that don't turn traitor at the first string buffer overflow. I want computing as secure as when we had MS-DOS and floppy disks. You knew what disk (and therefor what data) you were risking at any given time. You could write protect the OS. We can have it back... it's a matter of time now.

Security is hardware level first, at multiple levels. So, I don’t think we’ll get it back, at least until eternal love beats evil.

Even with insecure/imperfect hardware, if the OS does its job, nothing gets to the point where it can exploit the odd corner case.
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