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From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Gripes about System 7.0
Message-ID: <1991Jan24.224108.19413@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 91 22:41:08 GMT
References: <5611@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <3810@uakari.primate.wisc.edu> <2899@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
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In article <2899@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad) writes:
>This is another example of how Apple takes "old" ideas and "reinvents" 
>them in the context of the modern world of personal computers and direct 
>manipulation human interfaces.  ... Apple's 
>approach to networking over the years is another good example.

Bad, bad example.  I think Apple BLEW IT on AppleTalk.

The only interesting idea they had was the plug-and-play nature of the
thing.  The protocol itself is horrendously myopic; it just won't scale to
large internetworks.  That's why they've patched in Phase 2.

Even the hardware was bad; nobody in their right mind uses real LocalTalk,
because the cable is expensive and the connectors fall out.  PhoneNet is
cheaper, more reliable, and has fewer distance/topology limitations.

I remember seeing a photo of a part of Apple's network in MacWorld.  Multiple
FastPaths on an ethernet, with *PhoneNet* connectors and phone wires going
off them.  Not an Apple-labelled product in sight.

I think Apple is catching up in networking, not leading the pack.

>IMHO, this is much more interesting, exciting, and important work than 
>simply tacking "GUIs" on top of traditional command-line systems, e.g., X 
>and NextStep on top of UNIX and Windows 3.0 on top of DOS.

I think you are missing something VERY fundamental.  The Macintosh is
a GUI without an operating system.  Raw UNIX is an operating system without
a GUI.  Modern systems will need *both*.

Apple is currently reinventing the operating system part; the UNIX vendors
are trying their hands at the GUI.

Apple has a lot of problems in their task; making the Mac OS a real operating
system (with VM, memory protection, preemptive multitasking, and a filesystem
that doesn't drive you batty) isn't going to be easy.

The UNIX vendors are in a much better position.  There is nothing about
UNIX which makes a good GUI hard to do; they have the freedom to solve
the GUI problems correctly.  Some of the UNIX GUI's are dismal, laughable
failures (eg, SunTools).  Others are arguably as good or better than the
Macintosh (eg, NextStep).

There is nothing keeping these based-on-UNIX GUI's from being sophisticated
GUI's with object-oriented message passing systems (that's what NextStep is).

In fact, with the operating system problems out of the way, the UNIX vendors
can spend more time on the GUI than Apple, who's still figuring out how
to do virtual memory!
--
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!s-dorner