On Saturday March 15 2008 02:45:05 James McKenzie wrote:
> You must not have been around when Window95 was introduced. It was a
> massive leap forward. Too bad the Mac interface did not fair as well.
Yes, it was. But "was" is main word here. Difference between XP and 2000 is
much less than between Windows 3 and 95. And many people think that Vista is
much worse than XP, but other people think otherwise ("it's better"). In other
words, this is a matter of individual opinions... And almost no one today
consider Windows 95 as user-friendly (but I remember how I was using it in
the past)... So opinion can change with time (especially when you can pick up
better alternatives - say Windows XP instead of Windows 95).
"Opinions and preferences can change with time for individual user and might
be different between different users" - this is what I actually want to say
here.
> Linux with Gnome or KDE is much second-class, or even third-class as far
> as a user friendly interface.
This isn't true. I have used MS-DOS, and then Windows up to XP for years (and
even never tried Linux at all). But it was so ugly and slow (after few months
of active use after each reinstall) that I decided to switch to Linux
(otherwise it was just difficult to use my PC). And even today, I have
Windows XP in VMWare to run some Autodesk programs. And I'm very unhappy with
its GUI. I do not even mention here instability of Windows, etc. (and that it
is necessary to reinstall Windows from scratch sooner or later) - that's
another story.
In Linux I have not only great and convenient GUI and months of uptime but
also it's fast even after few years of use, many upgrades, etc... And BTW,
whole my family uses Linux without trouble. Even my old parents use it
successfully (they know very little about computers so good GUI is essential
for them).
So it is incorrect to say that "on Linux UI is worse than on
Windows" (or that "on Linux UI is much better than on Windows). This is a
matter of individual taste. At best we can say something like "Linux has
learning curve X for certain set of tasks Z for group of users Q, and Windows
has learning curve Y for this (or similar) group of users". But that's all.
You (or anyone else) cannot actually tell what is better for everyone.
Because for everyone it is better to have a choice.
* * *
Conclusion (and what actually I want to say). What UI is better is always
*individual* opinion (as you can see my opinion is different than yours - and
this is OK, nothing wrong here).
Someone like MacOS and think it is better than both Windows and Linux.
Someone likes Linux more than anything else... And don't say things
like "Linux UI is second-class" or that "Windows UI is second-class". This is
pointless. Why? Because there is *no* widely-accepted definitions for
these "classes". Main reason for this - lack of agreement what is perfect
user interface.
For example, all people know what is perfect circle. But no one knows what is
perfect user interface. And in fact there is no such thing at all - perfect
interface should be different for different users (and this is of course
impossible to implement reliably in modern PC's yet for obvious reasons).
So please, let's discuss something WINE related instead;
discussion "Windows or Linux: what is better?" is offtopic here (but it is of
course OK to say what we should improve in WINE to make it more
user-friendly).
Discussing individual tastes is OK but discussing whose tastes are better
*isn't*.
