Vern,
> The trade off is true stability. If I had to go back to the constant crashing
> of OS 9 I'd likely take a nap in the garage with the car running.
Every OS X system I have been shown and have run has had problems from
kernal panics to bizarre behaviour that any classic OS would have been proud
to inflict. The amount of fiddling that needs to go on is largely going to
continue from hunting down drivers to fixing application problems and the
multifarious issues that any really complex construct like OS X will
inevitably suffer from.
Application crashes are still with us and our data still goes down the tubes
with them just like it always did.
Every time this happens in front of my eyes the owner swears how unusual it
is. The system must sense my contempt! (Now, that is clever)
It's a primary requirement for good usability that the system remain stable
and OS X does do a much better job than Classic OS's ever did or could - but
I mourn what has been lost even more.
I find it amusing that when Apple were leading the way with usability and
the whole environment had class and intelligence, we all sung the praises of
Apple for the attention it spent on the needs of the user an the delights of
the user experience.
Now we have the better stability of a UNIX box but a banal and clumsy user
experience, all that seems to have gone strangely quiet...
Of course, back in the days of A/UX we had both.
I would love to be as phelgmatic as others here but when I see things done
badly I can't ignore it. The values embodied in the early Mac OS's (and the
Newton) were the things that made them a pleasure to work with and gave them
true class are absent now. OS X does the banal things that any modern OS
should do but doesn't manage to lift itself above that banality in other
respects.
Aqua is very pretty but is just lipstick on a gorilla.
The OS X underpinnings, old-fashioned as they are, make life a lot easier
when trying to keep things together - as it did 30 years ago - but I find
many of the choices that Apple have made with the interface, the file system
and the utilization of the HW either incompetent or offensively poor.
Just my opinions, obviously.
Joel.
PS I promise I will never make a comment about OS X again!
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Mon Dec 02 2002 - 22:01:50 EST