david@randvax.UUCP (David Shlapak) (04/02/85)
"Oh that," he said. "That's not a bug, that's a feature..."
To the gentleman from Apple:
First of all, let me thank you for responding to the complaints on the
net. It's good to know that someone Up There (i.e., Cupertino) is
listening.
Right off the bat let me say that I'm of the "If it ain't broke, don't
fix it" school; thus, contrary to the tone of your message, I tend to
expect
explanation and justification from those who propose changes, as opposed
to those satisfied with the status quo. So, let me turn the question
around on you and your colleague: Exactly what are you buying by
making non-foldered items non-items?
Granted, the current Finder is slow; how much speed will this change
garner us? Will it result in a reduction in the size of the Finder
of, say, 75%? If not, then I really don't see what purpose such an
alteration will serve.
For the last two-and-a-half years I've been deeply involved in one of the
more ambitious applications software development efforts around, and the
one brutal lesson I've learned is that changes for the sake of changes,
or the sake of the developer's personal aesthetics, are invariably poison.
So please, since you've graciously opened this dialogue, go the next
necessary step: tell us what the user is going to gain from this change.
In closing, let me suggest that the most distinctive, and most valuable,
quality of the Macintosh is its transparency; you get to concentrate on
the problem you want to solve, rather than the problem of communicating
the problem you want to solve to the computer. Any changes which put
arbitrary obstacles in that man-machine interface inhibit this
transparency, and thereby decrease, in my opinion anyway, the intrinsic
value of the computer. So think carefully, please, before you add any
"rules" to the Macintosh game. Without it's front end, the Mac is just
another overpriced number-cruncher.
So tell us: what's the gain from the proposed change? We're the client;
we're the ones who sell Macintoshes, not TV ads, or Computerland sales-
people (I've had mine two months and sold eight more in that time).
Convince us that we want the new Finder, or re-think the changes. In
my experience, that's the only way to avoid grief in the long run.
Thank you for you attention. I think I speak for most of the net in
saying that I look forward to your reply.
Cheers.
--- das2141smh@rduxb.UUCP (henning) (04/04/85)
> Right off the bat let me say that I (believe) "If it ain't broke, don't > fix it"; thus, contrary to the tone of your message, I tend to expect > explanation and justification from those who propose changes, as opposed > to those satisfied with the status quo. So, let me turn the question > around on you and your colleague: Exactly what are you buying by > making non-foldered items non-items? > > Convince us that we want the new Finder, or re-think the changes. In > my experience, that's the only way to avoid grief in the long run. **** **** From the keys of Steve Henning, AT&T Bell Labs, Reading, PA rduxb!2141smh I hope that you aren't suggesting that the new finder should be designed by the committee of net.newsers. If apple botches up the finder, everyone will buy Jackintoshes and Apple knows this. No vender in his right mind is going to open up a forum which openly encourages people to shoot arrows at a new product before it is on the market. Apple has solicited suggestions and we should respect that openness and not put them on the defensive because they want to be responsive to their customers problems. If Apple can speed up the finder and put it in ROM so we can have a little space left in our discs, I'm sure everyone will jump for joy. However, I have a feeling that Apples main concerns are for the 1986 product year since 1985 was really a rather bleak year for new products and sales.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (04/04/85)
> So tell us: what's the gain from the proposed change?
I think -- though this is just a guess on my part -- that the finder change
may be intended to cover up a flaw in the current filesystem.
Presently the Macintosh filesystem is extremely primitive. It's primitive
compared to Unix; it's primitive compared to the Macintosh user interface.
The folders do not implement a true hierarchical filesystem because the
folders are not directories, they are essentially just name-modifiers which
serve to cluster groups of files together (and on top of which an image of
a file folder has been built) within a flat namespace.
There appears to be a problem with the folder implementation besides the
fact that they don't make the directory system heirarchical: when you move
a file onto the desktop, the identity of the folder it came from is
apparently lost. When you use the (soon to disappear) "put back" feature
from the desktop, the file does NOT go back to the folder it came from, it
goes only back into the disk window of the disk it came from. (At least,
this is the case with the 1.1g finder I am using.)
It's been awhile since I had access to an Inside Macintosh, and I don't have
the $25 one yet, so someone else will have to verify whether this is indeed
a problem, and what the cause of it is. I vaguely recall that there is an
integer field that identifies which folder a file is in, but I can't recall
why one of the finder flag bits couldn't be used to indicate "currently
on the desktop". In fact, it's not clear to me why the files don't go back
to their proper folders NOW when a "put back" is done.
I can see how some problems could exist with "put back" -- i.e., when is
a file only temporarily in a folder, vs. when is it permanently put there;
yet this could be solved by having "clean up" make folder assignments
permanent, with movements being temporary until then.
But somehow I suspect that the current "improvements" are intended to
circumvent flaws that it would be harder to fix than have disappear. I'm
not sure this is a good idea, although I can see how difficult it would be
at this late stage to completely rework the filesystem, given the need for
compatibility with previous versions.
--
Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos
UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer
US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC;
2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642furuta@uw-beaver (Richard Furuta) (04/05/85)
Personally, I don't put files out in the "gray gunk". Someone I know puts the files out there because it allows him to simultaneously select files from two different disks---useful for starting up applications on files of type TEXT, for example. --Rick
tmb@talcott.UUCP (Thomas M. Breuel) (04/06/85)
The only time when I put files onto the desktop is when I wish to select a group of files that originally came from different folders. Rather than having to put the files onto the desktop, I would prefer if it were possible to (shift) select several files in different folders at once. It would be unfortunate, however, if neither mechanism were available, because then operations like copying a large number of files would require even more mousing around. Thomas.