Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!sg1q+
From: sg1q+@andrew.cmu.edu (Simon Peter Gatrall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 'Virtual' Folders - good idea!!
Message-ID: <0Wiq4jy00Xc-16w0=y@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 19 Jun 88 06:37:35 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon
Lines: 21
In-Reply-To: <5942@pyr.gatech.EDU>

The thing that everyone who has been so enthusiastic about this idea
is forgetting is that it is hard to make complicated features like these
transparent.  The more "features" you add the harder it is to make a
consistent, clear interface.

I think this is the biggest problem facing software developers right
now.  When the Mac first came out, it was clean, and simple.  Now,
the "machine for the rest of us" is getting almost as bad as IBM.

Instead of the trend of bigger and bigger systems, and bigger and
bigger applications, Apple needs to reevaluate its whole system.
It would be better if software could be even more compatible than
it is now so that you could use many small applications as building
blocks, instead of these big messy programs.

Whenever you find people making keyboard macro programs and
all sorts of add on features to "symplify" using a computer, you
know something is wrong.  People have a tendency to cure the
symptoms of problems instead of the causes.

-Simon Gatrall