[HN Gopher] Rethinking the computer 'desktop' as a concept
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Rethinking the computer 'desktop' as a concept
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-05-31 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (onezero.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (onezero.medium.com)
| oblib wrote:
| Personally, after all these years, I think the desktop metaphor
| is still ingenious. When I watch kids using it, and touch screen
| phones and tablets, it's pretty amazing how fast they get it.
|
| I didn't read the the article but from others have said here they
| didn't offer a better one.
| deathanatos wrote:
| While I kind of like the idea of fragments, and them being
| universally searchable, IDK: it sounds like a pluggable search
| engine is what that OS needs, more than rethinking the FS.
|
| Search is great, when it works. When it doesn't, it is
| frustrating. Github's file search regularly fails to find some
| files that I _know_ exist (one of our YAML files at work, in
| particular, is _invisible_ ; I've learned to just not even try).
| "Shell" won't find the sea shell emoji in OS X. "sea" will.
| "Place of Interest" (the command key symbol) is also similarly
| frustrating.
|
| > _who cares, disks are big, save it all, forever_
|
| Except they're not. Laptop's preference for SSDs means my work
| laptop has <300 GiB, which was full within a year.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > A "document" is stored in a "file," and that file lives
| permanently in a "folder" (think: filing cabinet) or temporarily
| on your desktop.
|
| Or not so temporarily in my case :')
|
| But yes I agree we need to rethink this. The desktop as a
| paradigm was good to introduce new users to the concept. We can
| come up with better stuff now. I see a bigger future for tiling
| window managers like i3.
| nexuist wrote:
| The desktop is broken not because of the file/folder paradigm but
| because we stopped using files to represent information. Figma,
| Slack, and Notion _should_ save their information to disk. You
| _should_ be able to open a Notion document, or a Figma design,
| from your desktop, instead of through their Web interface. You
| _should_ be able to save a Facebook post or Tweet and their
| replies to disk.
|
| Why can't you? Well, for one, social media companies don't want
| you to save stuff locally, because they can't serve ads with
| local content. Furthermore, browser APIs have never embraced the
| file system because there is still a large group of techies who
| think the browser should be for browsing documents and not
| virtualizing apps (spoiler: this argument is dead and nobody will
| ever go back to native apps again). Finally, the file system
| paradigm fails with shared content; you can't save a Google Doc
| to disk because then how can your friends or coworkers update it?
| It's much easier for Google to store the data on their server so
| that everyone can access it instead of you setting up some god-
| awful FTP-or-whatever solution so that your wife can pull up the
| grocery list at the store.
|
| I'm hoping the new Chrome file system API will bring a new era of
| Web apps that respect the file system and allow you to e.g. load
| and save documents off your disk. However, this still won't be
| good enough for multiplayer apps, where many devices need to
| access the same content at the same time. I don't know if there
| is any real way we can go back to the P2P paradigm without
| destroying NAT - WebRTC tries but WebRTC itself resorts to
| server-based communication (TURN) when STUN fails.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > The desktop is broken [...] because we stopped using files to
| represent information.
|
| This is it right here. Our entire world and notion of the
| internet is based on serving data stored in a file from one
| person to another. Once the developer started drawing too many
| conveniences and started to "move fast and break things", we
| thought it's good enough to just store everything in a
| database, or serve it as Javascript. These technologies are
| great, but they go completely against everything our computing
| paradigm stands for.
| marrs wrote:
| I've been switching away from the web and back to native in a
| big way and it's making my life much easier. The web sucks.
| It's the worst part of modern computing by far. It's like
| wading through treacle. Even this article took an age to load
| and it's just text. Frankly, I'm amazed Medium even allowed me
| to view it. Usually I've exceeded my ration card.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| I wish there would be a way to block rationing websites, so
| that I don't even see them.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > allow you to e.g. load and save documents off your disk.
|
| Isn't this trivial? A download button = "save" stuff from the
| app to disk. An upload button = "load" from disk to the app.
| AFAICT, webapps can already do this via existing file API's.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| This isn't the same: download/upload can be used to simulate
| a file system, but they don't preserve file identities in
| exactly the way open/read/write does.
| Nursie wrote:
| > spoiler: this argument is dead and nobody will ever go back
| to native apps again
|
| I think in the world of app stores this is a little odd to
| argue. Native apps on the desktop do seem to be on the way out,
| but less so on tablet and mobile phone.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Ironically VSCode is a great example of a "web app" that does
| almost all of it's work on disk.
|
| To be fair others exist. Element (Riot.im) saves your backup
| keys to disk on demand.
|
| I agree. More of this please.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| The great quality of iOS apps is a testament how good native
| apps really are vs whatever cross-platform nonsense being
| churned out today en masse.
|
| Maybe not the biggest factor, but the difference is certainly
| percievable.
| pedalpete wrote:
| There is lots of good thoughts in your argument, but I disagree
| with the " _should_ save their information to disk ".
|
| This may make sense for technical people with a specific goal,
| but for most users, they shouldn't care where it is saved, ala
| dropbox. They just want to access their files. Online, offline,
| everywhere, that's what they want.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > Well, for one, social media companies don't want you to save
| stuff locally, because they can't serve ads with local content.
|
| This i do not understand - mobile and web content has easily
| been monetized for a long time now, why would desktop software
| be any different?
|
| For example, i use software called RaiDrive for mapping network
| drives on Windows (https://www.raidrive.com/). In their free
| version, they show ads on the main app window after you open
| it.
|
| Why isn't this the norm on desktop - ad supported but free
| software? Why aren't there ad networks for desktop apps like
| there are for mobile apps and web content?
| smoldesu wrote:
| We did rethink the desktop, about twice on a large scale.
|
| MacOS tried a scorched-earth approach at supporting hardware,
| which allowed for a pretty impressive software stack to be
| maintained with (relative) stability. The issue is that MacOS
| takes countless shortcuts to reach that final level of
| presentation. APFS is a mess compared to it's contemporary
| filesystems, and the entire underlying ethos behind getting an
| app to work on MacOS depends on how well you're willing to work
| with Apple and integrate into that central stack. Their idea of a
| desktop is one where the first party is in control, and they
| provision you permissions where they see fit.
|
| Windows has to accommodate for a much larger pool of hardware,
| but also has the advantage of market dominance. Everyone develops
| for Windows because it powers more than 70% of consumer PCs. It's
| a no-brainer if you want the biggest audience possible. Microsoft
| also breaks from Apple in providing a much more robust
| compatibility layer for legacy software. It's reliance on
| antiquated internals also helps suppress newer technologies from
| entering the desktop. The Windows shell pared-back and lacking,
| even compared to most Linux desktop environments. Their idea of a
| desktop is one where the third parties are in control, and you
| provision them permission where you see fit.
|
| I've seen people be productive with both, and I certainly can't
| knock them for being the predominant platforms, but I eventually
| just got fed up with fighting my computer to do basic tasks and
| switched to Linux. Everything is a file here, that's canon.
| Microsoft won't try to sell you more OneDrive storage, and Apple
| won't second guess your authority here either, since the user is
| sacred. It's that kind of dedication to simplicity that tips the
| scales in Linux's favor for me, and I can't imagine I'll be going
| back to Windows or MacOS until either of them show a similar
| dedication to empowering the user with simple tools.
| BoppreH wrote:
| Fun fact: in Windows, the location of the Desktop is dynamic and
| can be changed via SHSetKnownFolderPath. This allows you to
| display the contents of any folder in the desktop.
|
| Years ago I made a gadget that sat on the top right corner of the
| desktop[1]. It contained a stack of buttons, one for each folder
| that I was working on. You could add more folders by dragging
| them on the gadget.
|
| It's liberating not having to keep a file explorer window to
| access the current project, and you can easily access it with the
| Windows+D hotkey that minimizes/restores all windows. Use it to
| open files, or drag stuff to/from other open applications.
|
| [1]: The magic incantation was: # Requires
| pywin32 from win32com.shell import shell, shellcon
| shell.SHSetFolderPath(shellcon.CSIDL_DESKTOP, 'C:/new/path/', 0)
| shell.SHChangeNotify(shellcon.SHCNE_ASSOCCHANGED,
| shellcon.SHCNF_IDLIST, [], [])
| moraziel wrote:
| Reminds me of Deskmate (on the Tandy 1000) which allowed you to
| choose a current directory. It would display files in the
| current directory under the icon for the relevant program.
| whatever1 wrote:
| MacOS specifically does terrible job at visually managing apps.
|
| I frequently end up with a bloated dock with a ton of icons
| signalling that the app behind them is open (the little dot on
| top of them).
|
| When I close all the windows of an app why on earth does the app
| stay open? Why do I need to have Powerpoint open in the dock with
| no Powerpoint windows open? Especially today that we have SSDs
| and fast processors that can launch an app within a couple of
| seconds?
|
| If an app needs to run in the background without UI, there is the
| menu bar for them.
|
| Linux and Windows have much more rational UX regarding desktop
| usage.
| Torwald wrote:
| > When I close all the windows of an app why on earth does the
| app stay open?
|
| Because you said so in System Preferences.
| whatever1 wrote:
| I dont see why this option should exist in the first place.
| Let alone being the system default.
|
| edit: Is there an option now in the MacOS Big Sur to enable
| this? I have a 3rd party app to achieve so.
| Torwald wrote:
| To save loading/startup time. Also has to do with oldschool
| Macintosh usability, which is a important feature that
| veteran Mac users want to have.
| noptd wrote:
| Or more accurately, because you didn't say otherwise in the
| System Preferences.
| samatman wrote:
| If you want to close a program, that's Cmd-Q. 95% of the
| programs I run will not harass me about closing down, they just
| instantly do it.
|
| If you want to close a window, that's Cmd-W.
|
| Why would you expect a Cmd-W to turn into a Cmd-Q if it's the
| last window open? That makes no sense to me. Just close the
| program you aren't using.
| whatever1 wrote:
| The UI only offers a big red X button. You have no idea what
| it does, until you click it. Maybe it will close a window.
| Maybe it will close the last window leaving the app running
| in the background with no UI. Maybe it will quit the app.
|
| In KDE/Gnome/Windows you know what the X buttons does. It
| closes an instance of an app. If it happens to be the only
| instance of the app, it will close the app as well. You don't
| have to babysit the open apps.
|
| For the very few exceptions that an app needs to run in the
| backround, you will be notified that by pressing X the app
| will go to the taskbar.
|
| MacOS also has a taskbar for apps that run in the background,
| but it also has apps running in the background in the dock.
| It made sense a decade ago with the slow hard drives, now it
| is just a peril of the past. Similar to the C drive in
| windows.
| egypturnash wrote:
| It still might be doing something. Mail, for instance, is
| sitting there occasionally checking for new mail even if you
| have zero windows open.
|
| And I dunno about you, but my 2017 Macbook Pro still takes a
| significant amount of time to launch Big Serious Apps with a
| ton of plugins. I like being able to tab over to Illustrator
| and hit command-n and be fucking around in a new canvas with
| absolutely no waiting. We have virtual memory, open apps in the
| background doing nothing but waiting around to be used will get
| frozen to disc, then get restored a lot faster than they boot
| up. I generally _hate_ it when apps auto-close themselves
| without asking when I close the last document like Windows
| tends to.
| city41 wrote:
| When I was a Mac user I just hid the dock. cmnd-spacebar, cmnd-
| tab and cmnd-tilde make the dock not needed IMO.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| I disagree, I much prefer the macOS model. Just because I
| closed the last window doesn't mean I don't wish to open a new
| one in the same app.
| yosito wrote:
| Anyone have a non-paywalled link?
| bellazeus wrote:
| Nearly everything this article takes issue with could be fixed by
| treating rich metadata at the filesystem level as a first class
| citizen, and enhancing basic dialog functions to reflect that
| metadata.
| dang wrote:
| Unrelated, but could you please stop creating accounts for
| every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This
| is in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a
| community, users need some identity for other users to relate
| to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no
| community, and that would be a different kind of forum.
| https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| I personally like and appreciate how messy and chaotic the
| desktop computing experience is. My computer is super
| disorganized, practically every file is some variation of
| ooisajfisajfasjfdaosijfdaoisdjfaoisfdjasdfoijsafd.jpg. But when I
| need to go find something, it's fun, because I get to shuffle
| through all my files and see everything, and that experience is
| like perpetually a fun reminder of all the stuff I've collected
| on my computer. If it was easier to find things instantly every
| time, I'd never go looking at all the stuff scattered around
| everywhere, like someone who has a bunch of old pictures they
| have in their attic and never see again.
| [deleted]
| ksec wrote:
| Any non-paywalled Link?
| stm17 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ZHayD
| [deleted]
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I've thought about this a fair amount and have a working app/os
| that shares a lot of underlying ideas with this article here are
| my additive thoughts:
|
| I'm building a ui from first principles, ostensibly in 2012 it
| started as an itch to scratch because I found that no note taking
| software met my needs, the way people used email sucked, jira et
| al sucked, and I couldn't wrangle non-nerds into interoperating
| with me on emacs.
|
| Instead of the computer as desktop or some other abstraction I
| started with an interface predicated on the idea that reality
| itself has 3 first class citizens: Time, Space/Structure &
| People/Minds.
|
| As an organizing principle applications are just metadata on data
| structures (_App_tributes on a node if you will) in the same way
| a function is a file in a directory or hosted on a cloud service.
| "Data first" happens when you get rid of the "container"/desktop
| metaphor.
|
| First Class: Nodes, People, Time
|
| Second Class Enablers: Namespaces, Fragments, Timestamped
| Messaging, Specialized sub-interfaces
|
| The reason projects like chromebook try to hide or delete
| structure is because App based interfaces are more conducive to
| advertising and because people use APP as a visual reminder of
| "functionality". A person or org must have complete "write"
| control of their data if they are using a first class
| data/structure interface (MS Word can't have in doc advertising),
| apps are a weird abstraction that make it easier to sneak "ads"
| into your workflow.
|
| I am nearing 80% of my time in this interface, the plan is to
| have a consumer friendly note taking/sharing app (the best damn
| cross platform note taking app) that becomes the core UI
| experience to replace existing OS interface in future. As an
| aside, I muse that the way computing evolved from TTY interfaces
| created strong adherence to single line CLIs and software
| engineers never really overcame that, and that's one of the core
| oversights of human interfaces in computing.
| infinitezest wrote:
| This sounds really interesting. I too haven't found a note
| taking app that I love. Is there a place where I can follow
| your progress?
| eigenspace wrote:
| But first, can we please rethink the concept of hosting blogs on
| services like Medium?
| MikeDelta wrote:
| When I see an HN message pointing to medium, I first check the
| comments to see what it's about. I don't even want to click on
| the link.
| jarenmf wrote:
| I use outline extension to clean the clutter
| https://outline.com/MjZh2m
| asymptosis wrote:
| Not some bad ideas in there, but it suffers a bit from not taking
| a universal perspective on computation.
|
| The flexibility of computers means you don't have to try to come
| up with one thing that works for everyone. Something different
| can always be implemented for those who want that something
| different.
|
| The article would be stronger if, in addition to prescribing some
| macro ideas, it grounded them in a first attempt at
| implementation. For this new type of non-desktop computer focused
| on tracking fragments in an air traffic controller model ...
| where is the code?
| olivierduval wrote:
| Reminds me of OpenDoc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc
|
| The idea was that the main element of a computer shouldn't be an
| application but a document... and a document is a composite of
| pieces like spreadsheet, video, etc.
|
| At the time, the idea was to have an open standard to replace the
| Microsoft apps... and to be able to replace MS apps with any
| other, piece by piece. It didn't work out then but, in a way, we
| now have a kind of open standard to build composite document
| (even including applications inside): HTML (with javascript).
|
| Maybe it could be a good time to give this idea a new look?
| mnutt wrote:
| I see some analogues in Sandstorm.io, for the web: they're
| self-hosted web apps, where instead of the app being the atomic
| unit, each document ("grain") is separately managed by
| sandstorm, and there's a separate instance of the app running
| for each document. It pulls things like security and access
| control up a level, and will have even more benefits as
| sandstorm grain management matures.
| bobmaxup wrote:
| > you couldn't search your hard drive in those days
|
| When was this the case? Not in the "1980s and 1990s"
| leephillips wrote:
| I guess this article is only about Macs, or something. I found
| I didn't know what he was talking about. Why do you have to
| "clear your desktop" to make a video call?
| Firehawke wrote:
| No kidding. I don't see why you'd need to clear your desktop
| unless you're screen sharing and have things open you really
| don't want the other person seeing. If you're trying to find
| something on the Windows desktop, Win+D once to minimize
| everything, then a second time to bring all your windows
| back.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Well, "we" might have already abandoned the metaphor. On my
| Chromebook there is a filesystem but I can ignore it, and the
| filesystem lacks a thing called "desktop". There's no way to
| litter the root window with files, like there is on macOS or
| Windows or Ubuntu. Ephemera such as screenshots and downloads go
| in a little stack in the corner of the screen and eventually
| disappear, unless I pin them. Access to files is generally by
| search instead of folder traversal.
| swiley wrote:
| My first laptop ran fvwm and didn't draw files on the root
| window, I've mostly stuck with that because the alternative is
| super distracting.
| ridiculous_fish wrote:
| > The option I want is the one that's missing: quit, but keep all
| the documents.
|
| This option is totally available! Just hold down the Option key,
| and Quit will change to Quit and Keep Windows. Command-Option-Q
| also works.
|
| If you prefer that as the default, you can toggle "Close Windows
| when Quitting an App" in System Preferences -> General.
|
| Source: I wrote that feature! (And yeah I wish it were a button
| in the dialog)
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| We have rethought the computer 'Desktop' as a concept and it is
| what we have with Android / iOS and it consists of two separate
| launchers.
|
| The Applications that run on these devices also generally use a
| paradigm where they don't really store files but really store
| objects which can have Hierarchies. They do have search and some
| of them support a stylus as input.
|
| Another aspect is the ability to use your voice to interact with
| computers which is still quite limited.
|
| VR looks like it may offer something different eventually but it
| will have to be explored more.
|
| The problem with replacing the computer 'Desktop' as a concept is
| that it generally is extremely hard to replace. It looked like a
| combination of a stream of information with the ability to search
| a stream or separate streams could have replaced it but we only
| see this in web applications (a good example is Facebook or
| Twitter).
| egypturnash wrote:
| God, I do not use my Mac in _any_ way resembling this hell of
| URLs and meme gifs that this dude is complaining that it is badly
| suited for.
|
| And if I wanted to hide the Preview window full of my porn for a
| video call (I'm assuming that's why he wants to close that
| Preview full of a bunch of stuff), I'd just hit f3 for Expose or
| whatever they're calling it this year and switch to the desktop I
| keep tedious public-proper work shit on and leave Preview where
| it is.
| KeepFlying wrote:
| That dialog also invokes so many issues with computers today.
|
| When I open a program, I want to use that program. I don't want
| to update it, I don't want to see all the new features, I want to
| USE it. I opened it because I had a task to complete and all this
| junk is getting in my way.
|
| And same when I close a program, as the author hits on very well.
|
| Basically, the computer/program/etc always wants me to do
| something for it, but it never asks for those things at an
| opportune time.
|
| No, I don't want to update my computer right now, and no,
| updating overnight tonight isn't good either because I need to
| keep this program running until tomorrow. I understand that your
| new UX is better for me, and I'm sure I'll love it, but forcing
| that on me right now is preventing me from doing what I need to
| do. I see your error dialog describing some odd issue, but I
| don't have time to triage that right now and decide to take the
| time to fix it.
|
| I wish software would respect the human element more. My time and
| attention is valuable, please don't interrupt it carelessly.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Seconded. It seems like over the years I spend a greater and
| greater fraction of my screen time either setting something up
| or un-fucking it after an update/new version ruined it.
| blowski wrote:
| It's a balance though isn't it. If they hide everything away so
| as to respect your time, then another user will be frustrated
| by the constant magic going on in the background. Even you
| might want more prompts in some situations.
|
| Maybe some applications could have an alert mode, similar to
| logging levels. But then it will probably get more buggy.
|
| Honestly, I rarely get annoyed by the number of popups in most
| of my software. I'll happily take a few extra dialog boxes for
| extra control.
| the_af wrote:
| I think this is it.
|
| The extreme alternative to "device, please don't ask me when
| you want to update something, just do it" is losing control
| of your computer. If you're comfortable, like the author
| mentions, having your digital "home" be away from your
| devices, to "live in the cloud", I guess this doesn't matter
| (at least, while your favorite cloud providers and services
| don't shut down taking all your data with them, decide to
| hike prices, or ban you for breaking some ToS rule).
|
| If you want to fully own your computer, it matters. You don't
| want to give away all control over it.
| amelius wrote:
| > If they hide everything away so as to respect your time,
| then another user will be frustrated by the constant magic
| going on in the background.
|
| How did we update software in the 80s? Simple, by taking an
| action: inserting the floppy with the new software, starting
| the update program, etc.
|
| Why can't it be like that? (Except the floppies replaced by
| opening a menu and clicking "update")
|
| Why do updates have to be performed at a pace controlled by
| the vendor of the software and why do I need to be reminded
| about updates?
|
| I'll just install them when I think I need them, thank you.
| harikb wrote:
| Well, there is value in an upgrader that keeps _everything_
| up to date. But we didn't get that either - at least on
| desktops.
| amelius wrote:
| I don't agree. Updating is not always an improvement.
| Even if only the UI is affected: often you just want
| things to be the same.
| [deleted]
| wvenable wrote:
| Personally I almost never agree with these "the desktop is
| dead" kind of articles. If anything, the problem this author
| has to be exacerbated by the move away from the traditional
| desktop style than an embrace of it. That preview close dialog
| is not something you'd see 20 years but is something you see in
| "apps" all the time.
|
| Perhaps the problem is, as you allude to, that software is
| hostile to the user now. There's always something more than
| simply being a tool that you buy, use, and close. Now most
| programs are merely portals for "services".
| asymptosis wrote:
| This is spot on. People want to hand over responsibility for
| their computations to some big company offering a "free"
| service so long as you use the official app, and then they
| wonder why they don't feel like they have any power or
| freedom.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| The (graphical) software program with guaranteed internet
| connectivity has become a control vector for the software
| author, many times the company employing the software author,
| over the user. Users are being "used", as suggested by the
| original author of GCC.
|
| For whatever reasons, non-graphical software seems to suffer
| less from this problem.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Non-graphical software is almost exclusively used by people
| who are extremely tech literate.
|
| Forfeiting control of a system doesn't really bite as hard
| when you didn't understand the system enough to control it
| much anyway.
| marrs wrote:
| It used to be used by people who were moderately to hardly
| tech literate.
|
| Not sure if that's relevant but it feels like it should be
| leephillips wrote:
| I guess the software I use respects the human element more,
| because it never does these things to me. Why not choose better
| software?
| oblib wrote:
| Same here. I don't install much new software anymore and I
| have removed software that does that.
| yunohn wrote:
| Do you have some good examples of such software, to share?
| leephillips wrote:
| I think that random examples without reference to a
| particular arena would be...random. If you would like a
| recommendation for an email client, or a web server, or a
| programming language, I would be happy to share what works
| for me. I do everything on Linux, by the way.
| hulitu wrote:
| Because there is no better SW. See Windows 10 or Android for
| examples.
| fsflover wrote:
| Just use GNU/Linux (on mobile, too!).
| infinitezest wrote:
| Are there any GNU/Linux distros for mobile that are
| actually worth using? I'm not aware of any but I'd love
| to be proven wrong.
| hparadiz wrote:
| My SO switched from Gentoo to Fedora and loves it.
| coder543 wrote:
| For _mobile_
| marrs wrote:
| I think some are getting quite good. I'm following
| Manjaro/Phosh, and it's showing promise. I'm not using it
| for much yet, just watching it develop. I believe other
| distros are further along.
| tomrod wrote:
| Fedora and Ubuntu seem to work great.
| mrighele wrote:
| > No, I don't want to update my computer right now, and no,
| updating overnight tonight isn't good either because I need to
| keep this program running until tomorrow. I understand that
| your new UX is better for me, and I'm sure I'll love it, but
| forcing that on me right now is preventing me from doing what I
| need to do.
|
| I especially love when Firefox decides that he _really_ needs
| to update, and I cannot open any new tab until I do so. Who
| cares if I am on a crappy connection and the download that I
| need to finish will take 20 minutes more; it 's either restart
| it or wait until I finish. And that other thing in that tab
| that I need time to finish but I cannot really save ? Who
| cares.
| modzu wrote:
| this x1000! ^ this guy gets it. its the main reason i switched
| to linux full time. microsoft are you listening?
| kiba wrote:
| The essay did not convince me the need to rethink the desktop or
| sufficiently explain the idea of fragments versus work products.
|
| Yes, search is great when it works. You know what also works?
| Organization. I used search within folders of very large category
| to rapidly narrow stuff down.
|
| If the desktop ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing.
|
| Instead, I am thinking about all the dark patterns and anti-
| patterns, as well as performance hog, endless constant update, as
| well naggers trying to upsell you shit.
|
| There's a reason why I returned to linux. Microsoft, please fix
| your shit.
| zokier wrote:
| How many people are actually effectively organizing their data
| in files? If a system doesn't work for vast majority of users,
| then it does deserve rethinking. Its great that desktop model
| works for you, but I strongly suspect you are not
| representative of the greater user base.
| asymptosis wrote:
| Rethinking is fine, if it leads to action. If the desktop
| isn't working for the vast majority of users, then it's
| certainly the prerogative of anyone in the world to code up
| something which is guaranteed to make every one of those
| users happy.
| superkuh wrote:
| >If a system doesn't work for vast majority of users, then it
| does deserve rethinking.
|
| No, if a _commercial for profit system_ doesn 't work for the
| vast majority of users, then it does deserve rethinking.
| Linux is a great example of an operating system that was not
| written for the highest profitable denominator until
| recently.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The majority of users don't even realize they're interacting
| with files. The mantle falls entirely on developers to ensure
| that their programs are simple.
| Quekid5 wrote:
| Most users have no idea of what is even _possible_ with a
| computer, organization-wise.
|
| I don't disagree that interfaces should be designed for
| users, but they should be designed to EMPOWER and teach
| users, not to just dumb everything down to the lowest common
| denominator. Because, let's face it, most people are awful at
| organizing stuff that materially matters a _lot_ to their
| lives and well-being.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I feel like the author's proposed solution of better
| searching through tagging and semantic associations over
| manual organization _also_ requires user care and effort. I
| don't think the desktop model is broken so much as the
| average person isn't very organized to begin with.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I agree with most of these complaints, but only if you're
| speaking purely about MacOS. Everything is fine on Windows and
| Lubuntu (I use all three more or less daily.) Only MacOS treats
| my every instruction with either helplessness or malicious
| compliance. I think the author should try a different desktop
| before they give up on desktop computing entirely.
| leephillips wrote:
| "malicious compliance": nice.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| These observations are 20+ years old and no solutions or new UI
| designs are proposed.
| analog31 wrote:
| Okay, I'm dating myself, but when I was in grad school, there was
| a campus computer store, and they gave out a little pamphlet: "Do
| I need a personal computer?" It listed a number of pro's and
| con's, but the message that has stuck with me is this one:
|
| _Don 't expect your computer to organize you. If you have a
| messy desk, you will have a messy computer._
|
| Decades later, I have both a messy desktop and a messy computer.
| I think there is something about personal organization that, if
| it eludes you, it will elude your computer too. I've made peace
| with the fact that I will never be a hyper organized person. The
| best thing I can do is to put my stuff _somewhere_ and hope that
| it 's searchable.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| I'm incredibly annoyed by needing to think about _where_ my
| files are, at all. It shouldn 't matter. All I should need to
| do is tell how many times I want a file replicated on my
| personal device network, and optionally tag it.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Sounds vaguely like Lifestreams (stream processing on a time
| series of documents, e-mails, visited web pages, etc.):
| http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html
| Ticklee wrote:
| This honestly speaks more to the authors inability to organize.
|
| I personally seek to intentionally stay away from walled-gardens,
| reduced reliance on huge corporations seems like a winning move
| in the long run.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I think we are law the old desktop metaphor - but for different
| reasons.
|
| Once upon a time there was a "manager" whose job primarily was to
| communicate via memo with his peers and superiors, and the cycle
| time for data to pass from his (yes, his) employees, to him, then
| he processed by him on his desktop and sent out to his peers etc
| was at least a day usually a week.
|
| So there was plenty of time for him to arrange things in a single
| "document" called a spreadsheet, and maybe update a memo on
| Wordstar and send that via the typing pool etc etc
|
| But the cycle time is now down to maybe hours if not immediate -
| and if the company is doing its job right in automation terms
| there is no need for manager to send out his documents - the data
| is in several warehouses already.
|
| The desktop metaphor is as dead as middle management.
|
| Want a new metaphor - look at Jupyter Notebooks - that's a layer
| _on top_ of the existing data - kind of like middle managers were
| on top of their employees.
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