Subj : Re: Old computer
To   : TALIADON
From : boraxman
Date : Wed Jun 29 2022 10:42:51

 TA> The majority of programmers are like doctors: doing something good or
 TA> interesting for humanity is a great thing, but it's the benefits, house,
 TA> car, and foreign holidays they're ultimately after. Personally, I love
 TA> the idea behind the GNU movement, but nothing motivates innovation quite
 TA> like cold hard cash.
 TA> 
 TA> I don't ever see Linux becoming a truly mainstream desktop, because
 TA> there isn't enough money to attract the necessary talent and there are
 TA> simply too many cooks trying to bake the same piece of pie. Without
 TA> standardisation, software development on Linux will always be
 TA> problematic for commercial developers - DPI support is one of many
 TA> issues that M$ and Apple solved through standardisation.
 TA> 
 TA> In fact, M$ stole the entire PC market in the early 90s when they
 TA> decided to assimilate an established hardware standard into their WDM
 TA> driver model: instead of building to the IBM PC standard, third-party
 TA> manufacturers would now build to their own specifications and
 TA> standardise via the WDM model - without a Windows driver, you couldn't
 TA> use the hardware. This is when the IBM PC truly became the M$ PC, and
 TA> Linux devs have been reverse engineering WDM drivers ever since.
 TA> 
 TA> I'd love to see the Linux desktop become a standardised environment
 TA> where both users and developers can thrive, but Apple already did this
 TA> 20 years ago and called it Mac OS X. When looking for a truly viable
 TA> Unix desktop, Mac OS X is where most commercial/corporate developers
 TA> will go.
 TA> 
 TA> ==================================================================
 TA> TALIADON (Lee Westlake) | TALIADON BBS (taliadon.ddns.net:23)
 TA> FidoNet: 2:250/6 | fsxNet: 21:3/138 | Email: taliadon-bbs@mail.com
 TA> ==================================================================
 TA> 

Standards are missing, but standards are only standards when people choose to follow them.  Discipline and willingness to abide is really the issue, not the existence of standards.  I struggle with Windows, and the myriad of different "save as" dialog boxes that present themselves to me during the working day.

I think Microsoft ruined computing, the way that Henry Ford ruined transportation.  The motive was to make it as available to everyone, as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and the result is a mess.  It's hard for people to see that, because we know nothing else, and we are brought up to believe that personal innovation and individual success is the be all and end all.  A very American way of looking at things, and ultimately, a dead end.  Computers at work now are utterly awful because of Microsofts vision and goal.  I spend so, so, so much time juggling applications, files, and so much time doing things manually that could, should, be automated.  It is this way because computing evolved with a particular business model, the one you described, and with the 'cloud', things are getting worse as we cede autonomy and sovriegnty of our own digital lives to corporations.

We kind of intuitively know the Windows/sold software model is broken, because a LOT of software is bespoke, created to solve a particular purpose, not a shrink wrap product.  The problem is that software still is packaged and tries to be THE solution.  The GNU way makes more sense.  You have hardware, tools, and you put them together in a way which solves your problem, modifying, writing new software, or commissioning it as you see fit. It leans itself more to asking "how can I make this computer do X" instead of "where can I find an app that does X".  Your OS should be 'the app', and you interact directly with it to solve problems, do you work, instead of merely being the vehicle to launch apps from.  For example, "how can I make the computer file a specification, update the database of products the specifications refers to and supercede the old one by taking necessarily input from a single dialog box and then automating all the later processes" would be a question answered by creating a workflow within the OS.  Instead, we use all these different "apps" to do each of these tasks manually, which means humans grappling with machines.

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