jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton) (01/13/89)
This is a fun issue, so I thought I'd be even more radical (or heretical :-) than Steve: > Most DOS users are (shall we say) less than sophisticated, in fact, > some are just downright ignorant. (I said SOME not ALL, after all > I am also a DOS user -- a very sophisticated one.) Even with the caveat, I think this a little too strong. One of the reasons why DOS-based personal computers have been so successful is that they are cheap enough to be used as dedicated "application engines". For many people, a PC is essentially a spreadsheet-, word processing-, etc. machine. They don't waste time learning more about how to use the computer since they won't ever need to know. This is one area in which the workstation can (and is definitely trying to) learn a lesson from the PC world. > The average user on a UNIX/X Window platform is bound to be far more > sophisticated one than their DOS counterpart. About computers, unfortunately so. Not only does this limit the size to which the market can grow but it also places a burden on the more "computer- sophisticated" users by denying them access to the potential benefits of a wide range of easy to use applications. For some things, it's fun to dive into the details; but for many others it's a lot nicer to have something that just works without having to burn up any brain cells. > I don't believe that the X Window based UNIX user interfaces will > ever be driven by what is going on in the PC world, however, I > dare say that the UNIX application world could stand to "borrow" > a few ideas from some of the more elegant DOS applications. I go even further and say that it would be foolish to dismiss some of those ideas. Much as I and others may denigrate the hardware and systems software that DOS machines use, they do have the right idea: making the computer a tool for solving problems. I like to quip that we at the X Consortium are "just trying to make the world a little safer for graphics applications." But, I think the whole issue of what role all of this should play was best summed up by somebody from the building across the street: "UNIX and X are just technological underwear." Jim Fulton