[CrackMonkey] RMS on GNOME

[Paul J Collins]

>>>>> "Alex" == Alex Feinberg <strlen at fix.no> writes:

    >> > target. The original plan was to aim to make a desktop as
    >> > good as the Macintosh, and we should not lower our ambition
    >> > by making one merely as good as Windows.

    Alex> Sick. I do not like the Macintosh interface at all. It
    Alex> relies on all the window to be maximized at all the time,
    Alex> which defeats the entire, in my

Eh?  No, Windows does.  The Mac having the menu bar at the top of the
screen is a feature; you can whack the mouse to the top of the screen
and not have to worry about trying to stop on the menu, because you
can't overshoot it.  It doesn't require you to maximize the document
window.  Since most Windows apps live in a cage, you *have* to
maximize them to get good use of the screen.

RMS isn't proposing emulating the Mac OS verbatim; he said "as good
as", not "the same as".  GNOME can learn from every other GUI there
ever was, Mac included.

The Mac' s interface is, for the most part, smooth and clean, a
quality that GNOME is rocketing towards having.

    Alex> opinion purpose of running a windowing system --
    Alex> WINDOWING. I use X-Window to monitor multiple Windows at the
    Alex> same time and to cut and paste between them. Also, Windows

There is no feature of the Mac's interface that makes that impossible.

    Alex> interface is not as bad, I love the ability to use shortcuts
    Alex> to do much anything, without the use of the mouse.

Windows 9x is much less pleasant to use with a keyboard than Windows
3.x was.  Many programs don't have shortcuts, or else have "tab traps"
that you cannot get out of without the mouse.

By contrast, most GTK programs are a total pain in the ass to tab
around, especially since many of them don't implement a default action
for RET on dialogs.

    Alex> Also Mac interface was design for a Mac Classic, with a tiny
    Alex> black and white monitor and a single button mouse. Please!

The Mac Classic was released in 1991.  The Mac interface was
originally designed in 1983-84, designed for a 512 by 384 pixel
monochrome display.  The Mac interface is tider and uses less screen
space than Windows' does.  Using Windows on 640x480 is nasty; a Mac at
640x480 is already winning.

    Alex> I also like X the way it is. I do not want to emulate and
    Alex> move towards an environment designed for a house wife, I

The Mac interface was designed for house wives only insofar was the
set "housewives" is a subset of "everyone".

    Alex> wish to use something made for a sysadmin and a
    Alex> programmer. Currently on my screen there's emacs, and three
    Alex> visible terminal windows, in addition to many minimized
    Alex> one. Also there indeed is XMMS, Netscape and gaim, so I am
    Alex> using some GUI applications, but I prefer to substitute them
    Alex> with text based applications whenever possible.

Lemme see, what have I got; Emacs (which is handled MP3 playback duty
with aplomb), Mozilla, The GIMP.  Some random xterms.  buttonbox.
gkrellm.  *shrug* Run an X server on a Mac and see if you can't do
that (virtual desktops notwithstanding).

-- 
Paul Collins <sneakums at eircom.net> - - - - - [ A&P,a&f ]
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"Love so deep, kills you in your sleep.  It's true!"