Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!unido!gmdzi!strobl From: strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: give me solid facts: why is the mac better than MeSsy DOS/WINDOWS Message-ID: <4255@gmdzi.gmd.de> Date: 10 Mar 91 22:04:25 GMT References: <4196@gmdzi.gmd.de> <29227@cs.yale.edu> <4245@gmdzi.gmd.de> <29390@cs.yale.edu> Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, F. R. Germany Lines: 265 favorini-francis@cs.yale.edu (Francis Favorini) writes: >In article <4245@gmdzi.gmd.de> strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes: >>favorini-francis@cs.yale.edu (Francis Favorini) writes: >By current I don't mean state-of-the-art, I mean recently released and used >by people at the present time. Paradox 3.5 was released less than 6 months >ago, and is used by thousands of people. State-of-the-art programs will >never be used by the majority of people, just like the majority will never >have state-of-the-art hardware. If the majority of people learns the advantages of a standardized user interface and decent operating systems resource management, they will quickly start to use state-of-the-art programs. The software houses will follow. ... >>It is not so obvious. The standard argument against Windows in this thread >>is that it handles old DOS applications not very well. While I don't buy >>the precondition, the whole argument is flawed in my opinion, because it >>doesn't say anything about the quality of Windows as a GUI at all! >I don't find it surprising or unjustified that Windows has trouble running >on top of DOS, running DOS programs, and doing a pretty good job of giving >Windows apps a decent environment in which to run, all at the same time. Nor do I. But we should not forget that these are three different things, which shouldn't be confused. MS-Windows main purpose is to run Windows programs. Like the Mac, Windows comes with its own philosophy, which doesn't allow much deviations. If a DOS programm has trouble running under Windows (note the different wording), the DOS program should go away, in my opinion. Microsoft did quite a good job to emulate/replicate DOS under Windows, but I'd rather like to see them enhancing Windows itself in the future, not enhancing its support for old, nonstandard DOS applications. >The fact remains that this causes problems for people, and it can't always >be avoided. If you look at the most recent PCWeek magazine (3/4?), you >will find an article on the front page about how difficult it can be >to set up and run Windows while using your old DOS programs, too. I don't >have it in front of me (I'm at home), but the comment from die-hard >PC users back up what I have been saying. I will quote them later, if you >want. No need to. But it should be mentioned that even now there are many old DOS programs which run better under Windows than they ever did under plain DOS. Take for example all these programs needing different amounts of extra memory. Some of them need extended memory, some of them expanded memory. With plain DOS, you had to decide what to put into the machine. Now, under Windows, everything is emulated, on the fly. Or think about the ability to cut and paste from a DOS windows. Or the ability to terminate an endless loop. And so on. Sometimes I think these die-hard PC users (plain DOS users, that is) are getting greedy. They view Windows as a DOS task switcher with a few unnecessary graphical add-ons. It isn't. >[Discussion of video cards, fast and slow.] >>Fast SVGA cards supporting 800*600 screens are in the price range >>of 100$ to 200$, so we aren't talking about that much money, here. >It isn't a lot of money for a single user, but if your whole company >was running slow monochrome cards and you wanted to upgrade your operations >to Windows, it could add up to a pretty penny. (and maybe not a justifiable >one.) I won't quibble with you about which cards are fast and which are slow. >Just let me say that to get good performance out of the Windows GUI, >some users will have to upgrade. Monochrome cards (hercules compatible ones, that is) aren't slow under Windows; they are usually a bit faster than current VGA cards, because they have less data to move around. I would not use them, because the current version of Windows seems to be built with color or grayscale video in mind - it doesn't look very weel on a b&w only output device. Nobody said that upgrading to Windows doesn't cost you anything. But it is not much compared to the price of a Mac, for example. And it it is worth the money, in my opinion. Both. [detailed discussion of file manager and program manager features and misfeatures deleted for brevity] >In short, my gripes are: > 1) FM is slow. Yes, it is. It lacks optimization. Reading the whole directory tree is a costly operation on DOS, because the directories may be scattered all over the disk. Some well known third party DOS utilities solve this by caching the directory tree. This could be added to FM, but I'd rather like to get a new file system, for example the OS/2 HPFS. > 2) Inconsistent use of icons. It is different from the Mac, but not inconsistent. In the program manager icons are used for representing parameterized application calls. The icon shown is usually just the first (or only) built-in icon of a program. Different application calls (which have identical icons, that way) can be differentiated by using different annotation text. The program manager is a purely organizational tool managing only references to programs and data which resides somewhere on the disk. There is no relation between the directory hierarchy and the flat group structure of the program manager. The file manager views everything as a file. It is able to differentiate between directories, programs, known documents and unknown documents, and uses icons to show what is what. It is used to move files around, to install them into the program manager, or to launch applications that are not installed into the program manager. > 3) Inconsistent use of nested windows. No. Both use overlapped windows, not nested windows. > 4) Can only view one directory tree at once. I hate this, too. >I like: > 1) Graphical directory tree. > 2) Iconizing windows in PM. You mean iconized group windows? ... Things I don't like: The program manager uses the same icon for all groups. Its algorithm for aranging icons in group windows leaves something to be desired - I always arange them by hand. But this is tedious. It is inconsistent that moves of icons beween groups are memorized immediately, but icon positions are memorized only at Windows termination. The is especially annoying because there is no obvious command for asking Windows to store the icon positions immediately. An icon represents an application call. Unfortunately, there is no obvious way to specify a start directory for the running application. The file manager lacks a feature complementary to the installation procedure for documents. Making a document known to the file manager should be possible using the mouse, not by typing the programs name, only. It should be able to store its window layout, like the program manager. The file manager lacks a "program manager compatible" view mode for directories, which shows all the applications in a directory as if they where installed into a program manager group. It would be nice if the file manager would be able to create a actual group in the PM from that view. It should be possible to use the file manager to locate a file, from within a file dialog, i.e. without having to retype the path/file name. Both PM and FM lack a programmability similar to what Word for Windows has. >>>[I complain 640k DOS memory and other RAM problems.] >>>It may have nothing to do with Windows, but it has everything to do with >>>PCs. The point here is that you have to be compatible to your previous >>>mistakes, unless you can afford to alienate your current user base. >> >>This is misleading, because there is nobody alienating their current >>user base, here. >You couldn't be more wrong! See below. >> PCs are manufactured by many different hardware >>producers as part of their computer equipment line, while Microsoft >>is a software house selling application software and operating system >>software for these and other systems. So a PC is the result of the >>combined effort of different companies, which is quite different from >>the Macintosh, where the essential parts, the hardware and the system >>software come from exactly one producer, Apple. >So what. Microsoft obviously feels it has to be compatible to its >previous mistake (DOS) or there wouldn't be a DOS box in Windows. This doesn't follow. Most Unix adaptions for '86 processors have DOS boxes. The Mac has a PC emulator using DOS. Why shouldn't Windows have one? And why do you call DOS a mistake? It obviously was a big success for Microsoft. >And if there weren't, there would be a hell of a lot fewer Windows >sales than there have been, and an even lower percent of people who >have Windows and actually use it day to day. True. But one should differentiate between why people move to Windows, why they *use* it, and what it is good for. ... >>>PC users have to deal with this, and it is a problem. >> >>You can't both have the cake and eat it. A PC user has the choice >>to select from a rich supply of hard and software of different price >>and quality. With this freedom comes the ability to make the >>wrong choice, of course. >I think freedom is not always the driving force, how about necessity. Oh, there is always IBM. No necessity to exercise your freedom :-) >> But let me ask a specific question. What is wrong with the file >>dialogs used by the standard Windows programs, say notepad or calendar? >The Save As.. box in Excel doesn't allow you to pi >a scrolling list. You just have a box to type in the file (and path, >if you want). This is bogus. I con't name specific prgrams in the >following, 'cause I'm at home on my Mac. Sometimes you pick files from >one list and directories from another. Sometimes both from one list. >Only occasionally can you go easily to the current directory' parent. >Sometimes there is a button labelled "UP". Sometimes, you can click >on ".." in the directory list. Sometimes you have to type ..\*.* >in the filename text box. This is ridiculous. I guarantee you if >you timed someone navigating ten different Windows apps' File Dialogs and >someone doing the same for Mac apps, the Mac user would be done much >faster. Perhaps. But the situation is not as confusing as you describe it here. Most applications implement the file dialogs as follows: There are the four file menu entries, in that order: New Open Save Save as and perhaps more. Only "Open" gives you a standard file dialog box, where you can navigate up and down the various directory trees in order to find the file you want to open. Older Windows versions - and older Windows applications implement this by giving you an edit field where you can enter a file name directly, and a list box where you see all the files and directories of the current directory, and placeholders for all the disk drives. The current Windows version - and newer applications - have split this single list box into two - the files of the current directory to the left, and the directories and drives to the right. New and Save don't use a dialog. "Save as" assumes that you want to create a new file in the current directory, so it asks for a name, only. If there is a name clash, the application usually asks wether you want to overwrite the file or not. There are deviations from this standard practice, sometimes for good reason, sometimes just because the programmer was lazy or incompetent. ... >>... But it is not very productive to >>compare "the" PC and "the" Mac, because the results are arbitrary and >>only reflect the current prejudices of the people. >Show me a comparison of any two things that is not arbitrary and does >not reflect the current prejudices of the people comparing. For example a comparison of Windows running on a decent PC and a decent Mac, from a software point of view. A pure hardware comparison would be not so simple. (Rest of message deleted; I'm running out of time :-). Perhaps later) Wolfgang Strobl #include