🚀 go-pugleaf

magidj@cellbio.duke.edu (Jonathan Magid) writes:

   i think you miss the point: its the little fact that apple wishes
   "everyone else who designs a GUI to go to just as much trouble as
   they did" that is so bad for the computer industry.

I disagree.  The Macintosh user interface is pretty bare-bones, especially
from a programming standpoint, just as the Macintosh Finder is a bare-bones
desktop (although System 7 is a noticeable improvement).  Having to "go to
the trouble" of innovating is *good* for the industry.

For example, my own project team wouldn't be nearly as productive as it
is if we didn't have the explicit goal of making the Macintosh look like
a prototype made of duct tape and baling wire.  It's a lot of fun to see
a bunch of world class Mac programmers take out their frustrations
with the Macintosh by building something that's an order of magnitude
better.

I *like* competition.  I *like* having to think about what I'm building,
and look at the problem in new and different ways.  It seems to me that
a lot of the anti-Apple whining I hear seems to be ceding the field to
Apple a priori.  Apple doesn't have a monopoly on good user interfaces;
nobody does.  Doing something differently than the way Apple does it is
an *opportunity*, not a restriction.

Sometimes I'm reminded of the patent office employee who resigned because
he decided that everything had already been invented.


Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
-- 
"Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are
 called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are
 software."	--Richard P. Brennan