::scr A PC user speaks

[jonah]

on 27/3/02 4:10 pm, Simon Wistow at simon@thegestalt.org wrote:

> ObAside: Just to get some terminology down, as far as I'm concerned 
> 
> OS == GUI + API + Kernel

Shouldn't that be  OS == I + API + Kernel? My debian box doesn't have X
installed for various reasons, the primary being that it's a server and
router and doesn't need it.

>> There are still a couple of things I don't like though.  Having only
>> one mouse button sucks.  
> 
> I'm actually beginning to not hate this as much as I thought. And of
> course it's not that much of a problem on a desktop and I'm beginning to
> wonder how difficult it would be put a double mouse button on the
> laptops.

Forgive me for trolling here, but I think that all this carping about
single mouse buttons and insistence that a mouse Must Have multiple
buttons shows a disturbing lack of flexibility and
adaptability. :) Seriously, though, what does it matter how many buttons
the mouse has so long as the interface is well enough designed to allow
you to do what you want? Sure, people might have to learn a new way to do
things, but to someone who can learn to use complex Lunix
(sic) command-line actions, learning to work a one-button mouse shouldn't
be too hard. 

In a way, I suppose the one mouse button carp is sort of the exact
negative of the complaints that designers make about using a CLI.
 
ObAside:
I often hear CLI fans espousing the "power and flexibility of the command
line". Which is true to a certain extent - when I first learned to use a
CLI I found it very liberating. But it has fuck all power and flexibility
when you're trying to draw a pony (certain silly perl modules aside). :)

> I can count the number of times I've run X apps over the network on the
> fingers of one very large, mutant hand. But it's not that much. But I
> can see where it could be useful.
> 
> However I'd argue that, in fact, I've used it far more than any Mac user
> would want to (although that's a difficult thing to gauge without there
> ever having been an opportunity before). But in general Mac users don't
> want to run apps over the network. 

Or do they? The deomgraphic/psychographic/shower[0] that makes up mac
users is, by all accounts, changing quite radically right now. Unixbeards
no longer refer to the mac with a sneer (or less of one, anyway). Or at
least the ones I know. Dave is a Mac user. He wants to run apps over the
network. 

> ... there seem to be two types of MacOS X users . Three. There appear to
> be three main Mac OS X users. 
> 
> 1. Those that have bought a Mac because they've heard they're easy to
> use, have been swayed by the pretty boxes and the swish marketing and
> are either the most important people (being, as they are, very much akin
> to the demographic that the original Macintosh was aimed at) or the
> least important people.

Depends on what value of important you're using. They're pretty important
to apple since their love of the pretty boxes and ease of use has fuelled
apple's nascent comeback. 
 
> 2. Old Mac users, many of whom seem to hate  OS X. Whether this is
> reactionism 

Reactionism. Heh, well, not really. I think one of the reasons blech
dislikes OS X is that it's a "cut and shunt" OS in his opinion. The
reliance on NeXT based stuff means that Unix/Linux users can't transfer
their knowledge to the new OS. (Is that accurate Paul?) I didn't find
that, but then I haven't really invested heavily in specialising in any
particular flavour of Unix and so the basic, generic stuff that I'm
comfortable with transfers pretty easily. Those of you with a deeper
knowledge may differ.

There're enough similarities to Linux there for me to be comfortable and
confident when dicking around on the command line, and enough similarities
to Classic, GUI wise, now I've done my tweaking (see ::scr passim) for me
to make efficient, instinctive use of the GUI.

> lying underneath like the nougat in a Double Decker bar (the most
> underated of chocolate bars)

Bullshit. That's Twix.
 
> [0] For the none Unix spods round here this how the X Windowing system
> works :

Thanks, Simon!
 
-- 
matt
Anglia Campus smells of brocade and the real ghostbusters.

[0] Tangent - what's the collective noun for mac users? A giggle?