As a Macintosh professional, I take real offense at this. But you've just switched, so you're still getting used to everything being new. I can understand that. I think you'll change your tune about OS X in a few months.

Take offense if you want
 

I'm certainly not the only person who has made the same observations. There are a number of articles from long time Mac users about the loss of user interface efficiency out there, some of them pretty scathing.

http://www.asktog.com/columns/061PantherReview.html

Are there advantages to switching to X? Certainly ..or I wouldnt have done it. Expose' is great stuff. The interface wasn't one though. I'm also faced with a huge expense of replacing my CAD software, so the switch wasn't a trivial decision for me. Obviously the reasons why outweighed why not.

Gary

Loss of interface efficiency is all about perception.

I disagree
 

Its not perception, its time and work performed to accomplish an end result. Same holds true for any line of work. Method is a huge part of that.

I have worked in many and owned several cabinet shops. Take the same machines in the same square footage, change the shape of the space or the arrangement of the machines on the floor and you can cut time and steps and the work flows so you dont even think about the shop itself, or you can make your work day a nightmare of entanglements backtracking and tripping over yourself.

Just by arrangement.

Thats 26 years of in the trenches experience talking.

What you perceive is efficient or inefficient might differ from how I perceive it. Neither of us is right or wrong.

Personally, I find OS X a wonderful departure from the click and wait of OS 9 and pre-OS 9. Threaded processes makes me far more efficient at what I do and am able to do. Darwin is a huge improvement for stability and configurability and support.

4 years ago I made the switch to OS X as my primary OS. It was not easy and there were a lot of growing pains (especially) as I dragged all my users with me. Now when I have to deal with OS 9 or pre-OS 9 boxes, it makes me cringe. Because my perception has changed.

But this is all a tanget from what the original discussion was all about. Your vote was, "I have no plans on upgrading". Thanks for voting!

I will agree that as a
 

"computer operating system" this is far better in every way that can be thought of. Which is why I made the change, even though it will cost me huge amounts of time, trouble and money to make that change. The price of the CAD software is more than the computer and all the rest of the software put together.

Classic OS still has a denser, more efficient interface that enables you to lay your hands on what you want with fewer steps and clarity.

I edited my first post to include examples of what I mean.

Cheers ... speaking of work .. I have to get back to it

Gary

MS-DOS was both very efficient in terms of resources, and the software was often cheap too.

Perhaps we should have an 'Will you be upgrading to MS-DOS?' poll. :cool:

very cheeky
 

not applied to the issue at all and utterly ridiculous .. if the X interface was so good, why has it undergone such major changes with every release? It has nothing to do with under the hood what you cannot see function, it has to do with interaction of a person and a machine in a work space.

I agree with what is outlined here:

http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
(and the prior link) From someone directly involved with Mac OS interface design ..its all very cute, but not efficient.

In the Coat Room, one's sense of humor needn't be checked at the door. :rolleyes:

Gary, I like your quote. It reminds me of another that I once read on a restroom wall:

"Reality is for those who can’t handle drugs." ;)

chuckles
 

maybe why that why I gave up on drugs 25 years ago ..*rolls eyes*

I'm afraid my sense of humor on this subject is tempered by customers after prints and extra damn hunting around for what I need .. working with what this thing will do so I can lay my hands on what I want when I need it with the minimum of fuss and the impending prospect of 1.5-3 thousand dollar price tags of software.

What have you been imbibing, Gary? That’s one hell of a sentence structure. Reads like a Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Allen Ginsberg stream-of-consciousness poem... without the literary merits. :D

rotflmao
 

too many hours and never enough time

Hmm, we all have 168 hours a week.
Now let’s see, if we’re working 40-50 hours a week...

"All you have to decide is
what you're going to do with
the time you are given."

JRR Tolkien
(Gandalf, Lord of the Rings)

Somehow they always manage to include one feature that I really want in each new OS. If it comes out before a major gift giving holiday, I'll get it a whole lot sooner than otherwise.

I fully agree. I've been on OSX since it was a full release, but really just a public beta, however it has been a rocky road. Once I committed though it was hard to go back. I became trapped by long file names and file types that were unreadable in OS9.

We could start a thread just on things that suck in OSX.

Starting with:

Cmd shift N for new folders: Why the NEXT programmers foisted this one on us was beyond me it is directly opposite what happens internally in everything except iTunes.

Inconsistency in the GUI: This is a continuation of the above. The GUI in OSX is all over the place compared with OS9.

Lack of navigation shortcuts: In OS9 I could jump quickly and accurately to almost anywhere within Finder and dialog boxes using keyboard shortcuts.

Disorientation: The UI in Classic was so tight it was hard to get lost. Even after all these years in OSX I am constantly having to triple check where I am, whether files have really transferred, whether file types have taken etc.

The mishandling of fonts: This has been a killer for designers.

Slow downs: Even in Tiger it runs slower than with OS9 and I get all sorts of erratic painful waits for the system to catch up with me, sometimes for over a minute.

Networking glitches: I can't get the simple filesharing of OS9 to even remotely work the same in OSX and on top of that security upgrades knock off what worked before. I waste so much time on this. Even Windows looks simple by comparion.

Progressive incompatibilities: Ever since OSX knocked off effectively SCSI and my scanners it has gotten worse with every version. Something else goes each time to annoy me. That is why I dread the upgrades.

These are just a few items in a long long list. Not that I am anti OSX, after all I am using it day to day. I love the stability, superior multi-tasking and long file names, but foolishly thought we would get all this with all the benefits of OS9 as well. The NEXT programmers went out of their way to throw the baby out with the bath water. I think this was either professional arrogance or jealousy maybe both.

What does everyone else think?

I think it's time to start a new thread.

That's fine by me.

I think we have got past the point where devoted users could not bear any critiscm of OSX because it was taken as disloyalty to the "cause".

I generally agree with the principle that the UI should not take precedence over or preclude efficiency. However, every GUI does impact performance negatively; if you want the most speed, use the CLI. The question I guess is where to draw the line.

When people say Windows XP is ugly, I tell them I don't buy computers because they are pretty. However, I do find the OS X interface to be more productive and quicker for ME to use. I achieved that efficiency in a couple of days, after using Windows since version 2, and being a Windows/DOS support person for 20 years. You can make XP as pretty as you want, and you can make it look exactly like OS X, but you can't make it *behave* like OS X.

So what you're saying is that Windows XP is perfect, because it hasn't been updated in five years? When people ask me why OS X might be better for them than Windows, one thing I point out is that Apple has had four major releases while Windows remains stagnant with nary an improvement, although processors have about tripled in speed in that time. Processor speed is relevant because UI improvements need more performance, most of the time.

That's what has driven me toward OS X; the constant improvements and adjustment to user needs make for a better UI.

Good. Then do so.

You might as well review this too.