From: tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why Macs are better (and the others aren't)
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:35:09
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609-2280
	<1992Sep25.064430.27111@ugle.unit.no> <strobl.717604304@gmd.de>
	<0_hzlck@rpi.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
In-reply-to: johnsd2@jec325.its.rpi.edu's message of 27 Sep 92 16:38:43 GMT

In article <0_hzlck@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec325.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:

   In article <strobl.717604304@gmd.de>, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
   |> In <1992Sep25.064430.27111@ugle.unit.no> terjer@ifi.unit.no (Terje Rydland) writes:
   [deletia- tons of it, about user interfaces]
   |> >> 
   |> >> Question: did Apple succeed?
   |> 
   |> >Yes. Very much so. There are a few companies that insist on breaking those
   |> >rules.
   |> >One of the main offenders is Microsoft. 
   |> 
   |> Perhaps because Microsoft has had to keep a standard look and 
   |> feel for its applications on a bigger scale, which dosn't just 
   |> include the Mac platform, only?

   Oh, c'mon.. Windows and the Mac aren't that different. Would it have
   hurt THAT much to have Excel do real Cut+paste, for instance?

   If you are saying the MS SHOULD make the Windows and MacOS versions
   as close as possible, I disagree. This is annoying to people who
   are using them and other apps on one machine. Id rather have it annoy
   people who use just the one app, but do so on various machines.

I think the idea that Microsoft was working on was that a good number of
people DO work 'across platforms'.  Either they have one system at work
(a Mac, DOS, NeXT, Sun, or Wimpdows) and a different one at home, or
they share files (which, btw, I must thank Apple for making possible via
SuperDrive) between differring systems.  Gee, wouldn't it be nice if, instead
of learning two differents programs which just happen to have the same
name, I could just learn one and be done with it?  Isn't that the main
selling point of a Mac anyways (that applications are intuitive, ie, easy
to learn once you've learned one)?

Granted, MS, I'm sure, has overstepped the bounds of necessity here (as
they often have).  But they started out with a pretty good idea, one
which solved a problem which had been nagging users since the home
computer came out.  Also, not to forget, it gave them a good share
of the market, which is about all MS cares about anyways.

   In any case, they are very similar anyway, so I doubt it would be
   much of a problem.

I don't know.  The differences between Windows and System 7.0 are far more
than face-deep.

The place where they are definitely NOT similar is the programming area.
Both environments are openly inhospitable, and porting from one to the other
(I have been told) is more than slightly tedious.

   [deletia- about switching GUIs]
   |> 
   |> >The point being that it is the data (document) that is important, not the
   |> >applications
   |> >that are used for creating those data.
   |> 
   |> I don't unterstand that. Neither the document nor the application make
   |> any sense without the other. Quick: what is more important: your
   |> laserprinter, or the paper it prints on?

   The paper, once the paper has been printed on. :) After all,
   that's what you were trying to get. And that makes perfect
   since without any laserprinter. [good analogy, btw :)]

(I won't get into oo)

   [deletia- a desktop corruption example]
   |> 
   |> >No. It is not a setup problem. Have you ever used a Mac? 
   |> 
   |> Yes, obviously. :-)
   |> 
   |> Joking aside, yes, I have. It heavily used one about six or seven
   |> years ago, but very seldom afterwards.
   |>

   There have been some changes since then. :)

I must agree here.  You owe it to yourself to play with one sometime
every few years, just to keep in perspective these toys Macoids are mumbling
about.  :->

   [deletia- explaination of desktop database, advice to rebuild it]
   |> >Your friends desktop file (or database) was obviously corrupted, and all
   |> >you 
   |> >needed to do was to force a rebuild of the desktopfile/database.
   |> 
   |> It wasn't obvious to him (or me) how to do that. After you explaination,
   |> it still isn't obvious to me. 

   That's cuz he didn't say how to do it. It isn't obvious.
   what you do is hold down the command and option keys while
   the hard drive (or whatever) is being mounted. It then throws up
   a dialog asking if you want to rebuild its desktop.. click okay
   and its off.

I have to give Apple credit here, though.  Of course it isn't obvious
how to fix that; it doesn't happen every day!  (at least ... I *hope* it
doesn't...)  Therefore, having a message coming up every time you
boot up asking if you want to reconstruct the database would be unnecessary
and stupid.  It SHOULD, however, be able to sense (when it looks for an
application and can't find it, or whatever) that something has gone wrong,
and at least point you in the right direction.

   |> Application to file association isn't fully automatic under Windows
   |> (in comparison to the way the Macintosh seems to handle that), but
   |> it isn't a big problem: you can do it manually, by using the the
   |> filemanagers "associate" menue entry, but usually the setup 
   |> programm of an app makes all the necessary changes. And the
   |> automatical method has its own problems, imho.

The 'associate' command in the Windows File menu is a paltry attempt at
object orientation.  If you and all other users of your system (as well
as all the programmers who write programs and include information
files along with them) kept the exact same extension structure (.DOC for
documents, .TXT for text, .XL? for Excel, .WP for Word Perfect ...) the
system would work just great.  How many times have I double-clicked on
a 'read.me' (or worse, a readme without the extension ...) file, just
to get a 'No Association Exists for this file' message.  I could go through
and make the extension '.me' mean 'Notepad', but that would accomplish
little (as there are also 'readme', 'readme.1st', etc files).  To sum up,
Windows' File Manager's association feature needs a few doo-hickies
before it can be of any use:
	1)  A way to pass arguments (more than just a file's name) to
		a program.  The Program Manager also needs this, without
		setting up some elaborate 'pif' file.  I know, I could
		use the 'Run ...' command, but that is tedious.
	2)  A better masking system than just the .ext for associations.
		For example, make *read*.* bring up notepad, or ltr*.wp
		bring up Word Perfect within a certain directory ...
	3)  A default association.  If no association exists, it's not a
		.exe, .com or .bat, I probably meant to view it.  If it is
		not an ASCII file (more than a quarter of the characters have
		scan codes > 127) I probably made a mistake in double-clicking
		on it.  Checking to see if a file is ASCII is simple enough
		to do; the text viewer I use in UNIX does it automatically.
		(of course, it's not object oriented ... but ...)
If Windows could get these things thrown together, I would probably actually
*use* my File Manager, instead of shelling out to DOS if I have to do
something with files.

   Such as? [assuming nothing is corrupted.. I doubt windows would work
   too well if it was corrupted, either...]

This is true.  But I wonder how often *that* happens.  Any info, anyone?

   [deletia- system file drag&drap, using the font tool to add fonts in windows]
   |> 
   |> >Why a font tool? In system 7 you just drop the font on the system folder
   |> >and that's it.
   |> 
   |> Why a font tool? For example in order to show you details of the
   |> font to be installed or removed, including a sample of how it looks.

   To get this, you double click the fonts icon. A window comes
   up displaying a sample. You can tell if a font is truetype or not
   by its icon, and also because you get samples at various sizes
   if its a truetype font. If its a bitmap font, you just get the
   one size that the font is bitmapped in.

   |> Why a control panel at all? It is quite possible to encode each
   |> and every parameter change in the system into some kind of file
   |> movement ("Move the 'Green' file to the 'BackgroundColor' folder"),
   |> but I doubt that this is the way to go.

   This is why the Macintosh has a control panel also. Actually,
   it has a control panels folder, and there are control panels inside
   of it. You can move htem, rename them, etc like files (they are files);
   You can add new ones that do c00l things. Its a very use-friendly
   way to extend your system.

   I dont know if that is possible in Windows. Care to enlighten me?

Sure.  It is *not* possible in Windows.  Microsoft feels that its
product can do without any improvements or modifications, thank you very
much.

This is foolish of MS.  (by far not the *most* foolish thing they have
done, but ... )  No product is as perfect as they want to believe Windows
is, which is becomming more and more apparent to more and more users (many
of whom are at least considerring dropping the whole thing for an os with
some real power -- os/2!).  Also lacking, similarly, is a heirarcial system
of folders within Program Manager.  The Manager is fortified from modification
so that the best an add-on can do is replace it or make it useless (which 
many 'folders' programs only succeed in doing.

   |> > 
   |> >> There aren't such things as desk accessories in Windows.This is
   |> >> an outdated concept.  
   |> 
   |> >Nor are there in System 7 - this is indeed an outdated concept.
   |> 
   |> Fine, finally we can agree on something. :-). Nice that the
   |> Macintosh OS has finally caught up to Windows, after six or seven
   |> years. (Sorry, couldn't resist - in fact I don't like that sort 
   |> of remark much; I just hear it all to often).

   <grrrr>

   Anyway, I dont know when Multifinder came out, but we didn't need
   DAs after that... although the apple menu didn't support non-DA-thing
   until System 7. However, Windows did (and still doesn't) have an
   Apple menu equivalent. Ya still gotta use teh program manager.

This is the only Windows add-on which I have found somewhat useful.  It's
called 'Add-Menu', and basically it adds any command you want to the 'System
Menu' (the '-' box on the upper left corner of the active window).  Put
Print Manager or whatever in there, minimize the Program Manager icon once
you have started your application, and never turn back!


   So I dont think its 6 or 7 years.

   -- 
			   - Dan Johnson
   And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

   These opinions have had all identifiying marks removed, and are untraceable.
   You'll never know whose they are.

Finally, let it be known that I am NOT a Windows user, so I may not have
knowledge of the 'newest advances'.  IMHO, Excel is the only product MS
put out which is worth anything.  Windows is just some necessary baggage
for Excel 4.0.

My 1200 pesos.

		---- tomster@wpi.wpi.edu


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