From: becap@cs.mcgill.ca (Brian CAPSON)
Subject: Re: All GUIs are not alike
Keywords: NeXT Windows, GUI
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 05:21:37 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.220306.16787@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)  
writes:
> 
> OS/2 is far better than Windows, and superior to the Mac.
> 
> I use - *daily* - Mac, NeXT, Motif, and OS/2 2.0 PM.
> 
> The Macintosh is what I define as a minimally acceptable GUI. 
> You notice I don't have Windows anywhere among what I use? 
> That's right.  Not acceptable.  I have better way of spending my
> time.  I avoid OpenLook also.  It has too many brain-dead things
> that get in the way (can you say lame scrollbars?).
> 
> I'd put NeXT at the top of my list.  It's polished, pretty, fast,
> and gets in the way very little.
> 
> I'd put OS/2 & Motif very near each other somewhere in the
> middle.  OS/2 has drag-and-drop for setting things, a better
> overall look than Motif, and is more user friendly if all I was
> was a user and not a developer.  But OS/2's command shell is weak
> (REXX is nice, but it isn't quite csh/ksh/sed/awk/grep/find yet...). 
> 
> So: (currently)
> 
> =====================================================================
> ^                      ^    ^                          ^            ^
> Windows                Mac  OpenLook            Motif & OS/2     NeXT
> 
> Scott Byer                                   NeXTMail: byer@adobe.com
> Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
> 1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
> Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't share your complete enthusiasm for the NeXTStep Interface, in fact I 
actually find Windows superior in several ways. Why do I have to click twice 
on a window to change cursor position if that window is not currently active?
Why is there no way in Edit to select text using the keyboard? Why don't  
submenus collapse out of your way after you've selected something from them?  
For that matter, if I have my menu on the right side of the screen, why isn't  
NeXTStep smart enough to pop the submenus up on the left if they don't fit on  
the screen? Why is there no easy way to get a list of the open windows, or to  
toggle between them? There are other things that have bothered me that I don't  
come to mind right now. Maybe ther are ways to do some of these things, but  
I've been using a NeXT for about a year and haven't been able to find them,  
whereas windows does these things quite easily. What about object manipulation  
and embedding? What about dragging files to the dock to launch an app with that  
file? For an  interface that's supposed to be so object oriented, I don't see  
any evidence of these, and I can do them in Windows. The Windows Help system is  
definately alot better than help on the NeXT, especially for developers. I  
would say that Windows 3.1 with Multimedia is a very viable alternative to a  
NeXT, with equivilent hardware. On my machine (a 486 '33) in 1024x768x256, it  
even faster (then my NeXTstation monochrome w/ 16megs). Take a look at the  
Windows Bookshelf for Windows. While I know it's not part of the interface, I  
think it adequately shows its capabilities. It kicks the ass of the NeXT  
Librarian.
Just my opinion, but I'm tired of people talking about NeXTStep like it god's
gift to GUI's. It's extremely good, but not alot better than Windows (except  
for its scroll bars). Sure the Windows File System sucks, but that's a function  
of DOS (Like the NeXT's is a function of UNIX), not of the GUI.

- Brian