mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (05/24/88)
<background:
< I have been a Unix & X window user for about 2 years (unix under ISI's
I have been a reasonably happy MS-DOS user who was recently given (free)
a PS/2 Model 80 to do MS Windows programming on. I'd like to comment,
as a person who has used Windows a fair bit (but not a lot), and has
written two programs for it.
>** FLAME ON **
> The overall experience of using MicroSoft Windows after Unix & X is
>one of complete disgust. This is a toy system. I have heard people comment
>on DOS that it seems like it was written by a few undergraduates for a not
>so well taught OS-101 class. Well those that did not pass the class must have
>decided to write MS-windows. Its user interface sucks, the environemt it
>supplies sucks. the whole thing has left me with a great desire to vomit on
>my keyboard.
>** FLAME OFF **
My general impression is the same.
>Comments on Micro Soft Windows 2.1
>POOR COMMAND INTERACE. Yes it is graphical, but only in that DOS like
>commands can be "typed" with the mouse. i.e. to delete a file your
> (lots more lines deleted)
Yes, the environment in the Windows commands processor sucks! I find
it hard to believe taht it is so bad.
>POOR APPLICATION ENVIRONENT. I am not too familiar with the worms eye view
>(from the application out) but the birds eye view (from the user in) is
>very sparse. You can put itmes in your startup file to say which applications
>you want started up and specify a few defaults like system wide border size
>and color but that is about it. The biggest hit seems to be a lack of
>position and size info (ala standard X geometry specs). So everytime you
>start up an application it uses its default size wich is usually the whole
>screen. The same holds true for all the rest of the resources/default values
>that you can specify in X, nothing like it exists in MS-windows.
I am not familiar with "X",but it IS possible to write a MS windows
program so that the user can change startup defaults. Sizes, positions,
colors, all can be easily set either with a "profile file" or internally
with a control panel (which would write out to a control file). I'm
not sure that a USER could change resources after compilation, like one
can do with ResEdit on a Mac. If you are using a very hi-res monochrome
display I doubt that you are like the typical Windows user; a 350x640x
8 color display would probably be the norm. Some people may be using
200x640 monochrome: they NEED full screen. Many windows programs
probably start up with Windows stupid default window sizes.
>POOR WINDOW MANAGEMENT. One of the things I lke about the X uwm window
I think that Windows does OK in this area. Remember that it is designed
to be useable WITHOUT a mouse, and it is.
>POOR DIALOGUE BOXES. There are a million (ok maybe only 20 or 30) dialogue
>boxes that keep poping up to ask "ARE YOU SURE?" and so on. This would not
>be so much of a pain if the box was positioned correctly so that the default
>button (the one highlited and clicked by hitting the enter key) was
>positioned under the mouse. Since the various dialogue boxes all seem to
>have fixed positions, this is never the case hence requireing much mouse
>movement. Again it is more of a command line interface put into windows
>then a window interface. I would suggest in the general area that any item
>in a menu that has subsequent dialogue boxes should be equiped with a
>command button off to one side of the menu button, but IN it. Then if I
>select print but am not within prints inner command button, it just prints.
>If I select print AND do so by being in the command button it goes through
>all the questions. Thus 90% of the time I need not pay for the hassel of
>going through options that I only need occaisionally.
An excellent idea. This could be done by the program writer, but it
would be a nuisance, and against the Windows style guide. The idea of
positioning the dialog box under the present position of the mouse is
worth a try. I point out that carriagereturn activates the default
button, so that if you are a left handed mouser, you just hit "enter"
with your right pinkie. This is one case where lefties win.
>MICRSOFT WRITE. Any supposedly WYSIWYG window oriented editor that does not
>allow multiple rulers is a toy. enough said.
>applications do not "see" files without their extensions. So for example if
>importing a raw text file into MS-write, you must name it with a .wri extension
>for MS-write to be able to open it. But the format is checked anyway and you
>are asked if you would like to convet it (more dialogue boxes). It all seems
>to be a very half baked idea, no maybe only a quarter baked.
True, except that you CAN type in a filename without the WRI extension.
>PRINTERS AND FONTS. A very anoying item is that the printer state is not
Yes, Write is a botch.
>Perhaps it was asking to much to think that MS-windows might make DOS an OK
>system, it does not. Some of the applications are very nice on the inside,
>but the world they live in is a slum.
I think that I have NEVER seen a Unix program that lived up to the best
available under MS-DOS (or the MAC for that matter). Please give me
examples of 5 killer programs for my PS/2 Model 80; specify which flavor
of Unix I would need to get for it to run them all; list prices.
Please include a good editor - a nice cheap version of Emacs would
be nice. I find vi the most loathsome thing on the face of the earth.
I would need a good word processor, a Tex, something like Autocad,
something like Mathcad, and a good paint program. Plus, oh my,
Infocom games :-) .
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Having programmed inside windows a bit now, I do have some respect for it.
The output part of its programming model isn't half bad, and in some
cases its output is reasonably speedy, while in others it is dreadfully
slow. The input part is an awful mess - I have named all my window
functions "MicrosoftWindowsEatsShit". The basic problem is that it is too
godawful complicated. The fact that it isn't true multitasking is a
terrible botch.
Doug McDonaldmcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (06/07/88)
To continue on the theme of MS Windows bashing, I just today discovered another gotcha. There is no way, given the tools provided when you buy Windows, to write equations or Greek letters. The required symbols, which are present in the normal IBM character set, are deleted in Windows. There are no symbol fonts, like there are on the Mac. One could paste in graphics, but that will only work for one screen or printer - there is no way to distribute such files as documentation for a program. If IBM and Microsoft are serious about Windows and the OS/2 PM, they had better address these problems. Soon.