Comments about Linux/Ubuntu from a former MS-programmer

[Eric Dunbar]

On 10/04/06, Lee Revell <rlrevell at joe-job.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 07:55 +0800, John wrote:
> > >
> > > I think the next revolution in GUI might come from the OSS world, but,
> > > as long as people continue to copy Windows (and, sometimes Mac) we're
> > > not going to see that happen. Of course, it's quite possible that
> > > Apple will have something up their sleeve if they don't completely
> > > drop Mac OS X and become a clone manufacturer ;-(
> >
> > It makes good sense to follow Windows UI until we have good reason not
> > to. It seems to me that many of the differences are present just to be
> > different, and that results in Linux being harder to learn than it needs
> > to be, it results in shared applications (eg Mozilla*, OOo) being
> > different from everything else etc.
>
> Most OSS programmers (look at the comments on /. in any OSX/Windows
> thread for example) consider OSX to be a superior interface to Windows,
> and if they're copying anything will copy that.  This probably accounts
> for most of the differences you mention.

Something about Apple using research to design their GUI  ;-).
Seriously though, to me KDE is more of a Windows clone (by default)
than GNOME but neither are perfect as they borrow too many of the
_bad_ Windows paradigms.

As I wrote earlier in this thread, Mac OS X is a "best of breed" (for
most people's needs)  interface, but, it is still woefully inadequate.

Mac OS X makes _better_ use of the dead space at the edge of the
screen but they are quite horrible at sizing their windows properly to
position the scroll bar flush with a screen edge with no dead space
(for e.g.).

No OS does window resizing properly (Apple has a very easy fix and I
don't understand why they don't implement it).

Windows and Linux have a _bad_ window resizing paradigm in that you
can zoom a window to maximum screen size (good), but all of a sudden
the controls for the window change and disappear. There's no
correspondence between before and after.

Mac OS X has the _potential_ of a better window resizing operation but
they too fall flat on their face. When you zoom a window at least you
don't gain or loose controls (a major plus), but, for some really
backwards reason zoomed windows do not zoom to full screen size unless
you physically set the window to the maximum screen size (extremely
annoying) before you zoom it.

Anyway, I've seen some positive developments in the GNOME realm of
late so maybe in 10 years it'll be the perfect GUI having taken the
best qualities of Mac OS and Windows and married the two. (of course,
now that Mac OS X is on i86 who knows what sort of incestuous
relationship Apple and Microsoft will start).