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Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

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Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#91

Post by jackpirate »

sankara wrote: post #52
emilsedgh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If it weren't for Bill Gates, we might not be having this conversation..." I hate it when people give Bill Gates and Microsoft credit for whole computer and IT advancements. We are having this conversation because many many people worked hard on these technologies. Microsoft and Bill Gates are only one of them. Of course, DOS and Windows accerelated wider adoption of personal computers, but even if they havent, some…

>>but even if they havent, someone other company would've done so. This is a hypothetical statement and there are n different ways our world could have diverged. Better not to speculate on how things could have moved forward. In any case, it didn't look it was a natural progression of technology before Windows became popular as the preferred OS for a personal computer.

>>> If it weren't for Bill Gates, we might not be having this conversation...

>> but even if they havent, someone other company would've done so.

> Better not to speculate on how things could have moved forward.

It is impossible not to speculate. The GGP is just speculating in the opposite direction as the GP. We simply must back our speculation with reasons. Personally, I like the GP's reasoning.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#92

Post by dredmorbius »

sriramk wrote: post #50
dredmorbius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. It's used frequently in corporate mail systems. This doesn't mean it works well. Threaded mail clients FTW.

Stuff gets forwarded around, attached to various systems, etc. Having the entire thread, unmodified, has been a lifesaver for me more times than I can remember.

Having the entire thread is also a major PITA most of the time it's included.

With a threaded mail client, if it's necessary to send the entire thread to someone, I can select "Attach mail" -> Tag the entire thread -> and forward it as a MIME-attached mbox.

If the recipient has, say, a powerful, thread-capable mail client, they can open the mbox, read it, filter it, search it, expand it, and collapse it in ways that aren't possible with the horribly lossy Microsoft Outlook format.

As I said: it's used extensively. This doesn't mean it works.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#93

Post by podperson »

o1iver wrote: post #89
podperson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clicked you up but: 1. Seriously, try iWork ;-). Not only does Pages kick Word's butt, it can sit in the middle of a Word-based workflow (e.g. preserving change tracking). 2. Visual Studio doesn't kill Realbasic (from a tiny developer) or Xcode. Xcode has a different level of abstraction, but the result is that Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs. But yes, it's pretty darn g…

Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs What is that statement based on? It is an absurd idea. If "more polished" means better code then this statement is just not true. I just completed an internship in a big technology company and the code produced there (for automation/control in the energy and utilities sector) is quite certainly "more polished" than any iPhone application o…

"within the industry"

Ah yes. The industry.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#94

Post by podperson »

shriphani wrote: post #88
podperson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clicked you up but: 1. Seriously, try iWork ;-). Not only does Pages kick Word's butt, it can sit in the middle of a Word-based workflow (e.g. preserving change tracking). 2. Visual Studio doesn't kill Realbasic (from a tiny developer) or Xcode. Xcode has a different level of abstraction, but the result is that Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs. But yes, it's pretty darn g…

With the exception of Keynote, Numbers and Pages have not behaved well for me when given large documents. Numbers in particular struggled with datasets that Excel would handle very easily. I would rather use Google docs than bother with Pages / Numbers.

I'm certainly no advocate of Numbers. Pages I use for pretty demanding stuff and I've had no problems. Word has problems editing a simple letter, but it certainly may scale to very large documents better than Pages -- but if you're doing that kind of thing, I'd recommend Framemaker.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#95

Post by podperson »

nxn wrote: post #84
podperson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clicked you up but: 1. Seriously, try iWork ;-). Not only does Pages kick Word's butt, it can sit in the middle of a Word-based workflow (e.g. preserving change tracking). 2. Visual Studio doesn't kill Realbasic (from a tiny developer) or Xcode. Xcode has a different level of abstraction, but the result is that Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs. But yes, it's pretty darn g…

> Xcode has a different level of abstraction, but the result is that Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs. But yes, it's pretty darn good. Don't you feel like you're ignoring some very important variables by saying that? For example: Cocoa vs Windows Forms, Cocoa vs WPF, etc?

No, because I'm actually saying the reverse of what you think I'm saying. I believe Cocoa tends to operate below the level of typical Windows APIs -- low enough to have complete control over the UX but high enough to make things that ought to be easy, easy.

Windows tends to be friendly for lousy developers (typical systems integrators, of whom I have a great deal of experience). At a very low level it doesn't make much of a difference -- good coders will deal with the hand they are given.

I think you can make a case for selection bias in that Mac development (the old Mac OS toolbox now called "Carbon" and Cocoa today) is too difficult for hacks which filters out a lot of the crap that people who can cobble together junk using Visual Basic or whatever. (There used to be a website devoted to really awful Mac apps, most of which were built using Realbasic, but lousy Realbasic apps are cross-platform :-) )

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#96

Post by muppetman »

dredmorbius wrote: post #92
sriramk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff gets forwarded around, attached to various systems, etc. Having the entire thread, unmodified, has been a lifesaver for me more times than I can remember.

Having the entire thread is also a major PITA most of the time it's included. With a threaded mail client, if it's necessary to send the entire thread to someone, I can select "Attach mail" -> Tag the entire thread -> and forward it as a MIME-attached mbox. If the recipient has, say, a powerful, thread-capable mail client, they can open the mbox, read it, filter it, search it, expand it, and collapse it in ways that…

Yea, you do. Sadly you've just gone 6 levels over the head of Sandy the PR person. And that's why it's still the default, because it works for everyone.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#97

Post by mikecsh »

o1iver wrote: post #89
podperson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clicked you up but: 1. Seriously, try iWork ;-). Not only does Pages kick Word's butt, it can sit in the middle of a Word-based workflow (e.g. preserving change tracking). 2. Visual Studio doesn't kill Realbasic (from a tiny developer) or Xcode. Xcode has a different level of abstraction, but the result is that Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs. But yes, it's pretty darn g…

Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs What is that statement based on? It is an absurd idea. If "more polished" means better code then this statement is just not true. I just completed an internship in a big technology company and the code produced there (for automation/control in the energy and utilities sector) is quite certainly "more polished" than any iPhone application o…

I never understand people who think that VS is the greatest IDE. Sure, when I first started using VS2003 having been doing all of my C coding on the command line prior to that point it felt revolutionary and the best thing since sliced bread. Having used every iteration since then for my day job programming C# applications, I actually cannot stand VS. My dev machine is a dual core 3GHz processor with 4GB of RAM. Yet, compiling a reasonably sized project takes an age.

Frequent recompilations which are unnecessary as no code has changed. I can't make a code change while the application is being debugged. The sliding panels really get on my nerves, it's slow to open projects and to close projects. It's difficult to get fine grained control over the build process within the IDE itself. Every single "visual" feature, such as ASPX designer is dog slow to switch into from code view, or back out of. This has been the case with every version of VS and every dev PC I've had for the last four years.

However there are some things which I like about it - it has a good plugin API (Resharper is awesome) and a nice integrated debugger. My biggest issue is that it is a resource hog and incredibly slow.

I've also coded in Xcode and before that Project Builder for even longer than I've been using VS. The lack of published plugin support is annoying in Xcode but that is probably my biggest gripe. I make no comments about the level of "polish" that an IDE allows a user to provide as I don't think the IDE makes a difference. I would however say that I find myself probably twice as productive coding in XCode than I am in VS.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#98

Post by dredmorbius »

muppetman wrote: post #96
dredmorbius wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the entire thread is also a major PITA most of the time it's included. With a threaded mail client, if it's necessary to send the entire thread to someone, I can select "Attach mail" -> Tag the entire thread -> and forward it as a MIME-attached mbox. If the recipient has, say, a powerful, thread-capable mail client, they can open the mbox, read it, filter it, search it, expand it, and collapse it in ways that…

Yea, you do. Sadly you've just gone 6 levels over the head of Sandy the PR person. And that's why it's still the default, because it works for everyone.

Don't you dare start putting reality in the way of my geek fantasy!

You've got a point, and throwing mutt at your typical office worker might not go far. Then again, my (very technophobic) father was dealing with mainframe-based "business productivity tools" in the 1980s. Including some (by current standards) very, very clunky email tools.

I'd throw the problem at Apple. I think you'd find that they'd figure out a way to sort out when it made sense for someone to forward an entire thread to someone and handle it that way. Probably, these days, within a Web interface, though possibly through a mail client / app.

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#99

Post by bitwize »

Maro wrote: post #33
lurker14 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think the email is weird or unique because they are surprised that Bill Gates made 40 Billion dollars by running a company that builds products that bring intense pain to it users, and he appears to as frustrated as anyone else about the problem, and yet is completely powerless to stop it, even though he is in charge of everyone involved. It's bizarre to see someone who knows he is doing everything wrong and i…

Come on now. > products that bring intense pain to it users I'm a Mac user and I love Office (over OO and iWork). > as frustrated as anyone else about the problem It's not "a" problem. It's a large organization with tons of products, and some are more sucky then the rest. > is completely powerless to stop it He wasn't the CEO anymore when he wrote this. Also, even if he were the CEO, he can't go in and fix every anno…

The Xbox is a piece of shite from a hardware standpoint. It comes with an insanely huge power brick that could be a medium-power game console in its own right given its size and weight; the hard disk clip doesn't work and of course there's Mr. RROD.

Why did it win? The same reason why anything from Microsoft wins: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

Re: Flame from Bill Gates Re: Windows Usability

#100

Post by Maro »

mikecsh wrote: post #97
o1iver wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xcode devs consistently produce far more polished apps than Visual Studio devs What is that statement based on? It is an absurd idea. If "more polished" means better code then this statement is just not true. I just completed an internship in a big technology company and the code produced there (for automation/control in the energy and utilities sector) is quite certainly "more polished" than any iPhone application o…

I never understand people who think that VS is the greatest IDE. Sure, when I first started using VS2003 having been doing all of my C coding on the command line prior to that point it felt revolutionary and the best thing since sliced bread. Having used every iteration since then for my day job programming C# applications, I actually cannot stand VS. My dev machine is a dual core 3GHz processor with 4GB of RAM. Yet,…

Compiler != IDE.

I don't know much about the WYSIWYG parts of VS, I only write textual code.

If your machine is too slow, get more RAM and an SSD. It's your daily tool, it's worth the investment.

"I don't think the IDE makes a difference" - Huh? Then why are we having this discussion =)

I myself spend the vast majority of my time in XCode [writing a database], using VS only to maintain the Windows port and C# client libraries. I find that I'm roughly equally productive in both, but if I had a choice I'd take VS over XCode.

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