Linked by thesunnyk on Sun 23rd Sep 2012 22:14 UTC
Permalink for comment 536284
It doesn't matter if it's not "bad"
by einr on Mon 24th Sep 2012 11:14 UTC
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"Not bad" is damning with faint praise at best. I could probably put a square steering wheel on my car and it would be "not bad", i.e. I could still steer the car, but why bother?

So it might not be "that bad", but exactly like Windows 8, it is a solution looking for a problem. There was and is nothing wrong with the document-oriented desktop paradigm. Nothing has fundamentally changed about how most computer users manipulate data or use applications. The desktop metaphor and the window management involved are solved problems.

Modelling UI:s after the flavour of the day – today's flavour being the concessions made to phone and tablet operating systems to make them work with the very limited input and output devices of that hardware – is pandering to a fleeting fashion that we eventually will look back at and roll our eyes in embarassment.

I understand the need for trying to innovate by throwing out old ideas, and good things will probably eventually come from these efforts, once things calm down. However, making this highly experimental and volatile system the default and effectively forcing it on many users does little but create unnecessary resentment and confusion.

Not to mention that the "application-oriented" model, as outlined in the article, is so absolutely diametrically opposed to the traditional UNIX model that any GUI that tries to realize it fully while running on an underlying UNIX-like OS will become a lamentable, undiscoverable, opaque Frankenstein monster of a system. I wish folks would try to work with the OS instead of against it.

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