My colleague's Mac is TRWTF
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"line" isn't really a measurement in the MacOS WYSIWYG way of thinking.
LOL. I love the dissonance in this sentence.
I mean if you make the window wider, suddenly the whole thing re-wraps, and now your "lines" are all different.
I can't follow why this would be important (aside from implementation details) since people are still seeing the lines right there in front of them.
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Maybe I need to do more research, but putting "why does the mouse fuck off up the screen" just gives me pornography (it's not bad pornography, but that's not the point).
According to Google, [url="https://www.google.com/search?q="why+does+the+mouse+fuck+off+up+the+screen""]this thread is porn[/url].
Removing the quotes leads to some pages with impolite things to say about BonziBuddy. While that may demonstrate proper Rule 34 Compliance, and is quite reassuring in the case of an audit, it's just not the same thing.
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LOL. I love the dissonance in this sentence.
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How so?
What unit is a "line"? In anything except software development, a "line" is useless. Every other type of text entry, the hierarchy goes:
- Word
- Clause
- Sentence
- Paragraph
- Section
- Document
There's no such thing as "line". A "line" is a virtual construct, created by automatic word-wrapping. It's not something you actively type.
Mac Classic wasn't designed with the assumption that all of its users would be software developers.
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Or, and I'm just throwing this out here, there's the parallel hierarchy of visual structure rather than logical structure:
- Glyph
- Character (horizontal advance)
- Line (vertical advance)
- Page ("depth" advance)
- Document
And the Mac Classic was allegedly designed with the assumption that some of its users would be typesetters and publishers, which factored into the decision of 1 pixel == 1 point.
But apparently that doesn't apply to usability...
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But apparently that doesn't apply to usability...
How do you figure? I think you're trying to imply something here, but I have no idea what it is.
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Actually, nevermind that part. I thought the thread was still an argument about shortcut keys.
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What unit is a "line"? In anything except software development, a "line" is useless.
A "line" is only useless to the computer outside of software development. It's still very important to the human looking at the page. It's an obvious part of the "What You See" part of what you wrote about. You seem to be arguing that there's no logical reason that the developer or his program should care about this, which is hilarious, since you're always going on about how important the interface is and here you're arguing that he should ignore a normal and obvious way that humans interact with text.
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A "line" is only useless to the computer outside of software development.
Right; that's my point.
Classic Mac wasn't designed for software development. Generally-speaking. In fact, Apple was downright hostile to software developers for many, many years. (They still are, kind of.)
It's still very important to the human looking at the page. It's an obvious part of the "What You See" part of what you wrote about.
Yes, but there's no point to having a quick keyboard shortcut to put the insertion point at the beginning or end of a line.
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@boomzilla said:
A "line" is only useless to the computer outside of software development.
Right; that's my point.
No, you're totally missing it. I'm talking about the difference between what's important to the computer as opposed to what's important to the user. Who sees all these lines of text on his screen.
Classic Mac wasn't designed for software development. Generally-speaking. In fact, Apple was downright hostile to software developers for many, many years. (They still are, kind of.)
It's still very important to the human looking at the page. It's an obvious part of the "What You See" part of what you wrote about.
Yes, but there's no point to having a quick keyboard shortcut to put the insertion point at the beginning or end of a line.
Because suddenly you don't see the point in making software easy for people to use?
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Oh, so we are still debating keyboard shortcuts. Why do you say there's no point to having a quick keyboard shortcut to put the insertion point at the far left or right of "What You See"? Normal people do fine navigation by horizontal and vertical space, not by clauses or sentences -- they go "where the caret is, but all the way to the left," and there should be a way to express that. Some people know you can also navigate by word or paragraph with correct chording.
Are you also arguing that the "up" and "down" arrow keys should navigate by paragraph, since "lines don't matter"? Because that seems like the logical next step to your argument.
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I'm talking about the difference between what's important to the computer as opposed to what's important to the user.
"The Computer" talks in binary, it doesn't give a shit for either way of looking at text. But I try not to anthropomorphize "The Computer" because it's just a dumb machine following directions by dumb people. Nothing's "important" to it; it has no emotions at all.
I'm sure you don't believe me, but I honestly and truly don't understand what you're trying to tell me.
Because suddenly you don't see the point in making software easy for people to use?
How would having a keyboard shortcut that takes me to the start of a line make my computer easier to use?
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I'm sure you don't believe me, but I honestly and truly don't understand what you're trying to tell me.
I am almost always willing to believe this.
How would having a keyboard shortcut that takes me to the start of a line make my computer easier to use?
I'm sure it wouldn't, because you'd find some reason for it not to.
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Are you also arguing that the "up" and "down" arrow keys should navigate by paragraph, since "lines don't matter"? Because that seems like the logical next step to your argument.
Hm maybe. But I didn't design Mac Classic.
I'm just saying it's not at all obvious that Home and End going to the beginning or end of a line is a reasonable behavior, compared to what Mac Classic used those keys for.
And for the record, since I learned computers on Mac Classic, I spent YEARS getting fucking pissed that the End key (from my perspective) "didn't work". That's why I'm adamant that the best behavior for Apple to implement is the same thing it's always done.
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I am almost always willing to believe this.
Well I'd love to hear an explanation of what "the computer" thinks is important. Because my computers are just rock-stupid machines.
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Are you also arguing that the "up" and "down" arrow keys should navigate by paragraph, since "lines don't matter"? Because that seems like the logical next step to your argument.
Next, PageUp and PageDown shouldn't navigate by pages, since a "page" is useless to the computer, a "virtual construct, created by automatic division of text into units of arbitrary height, just as word-wrapping divides text into units of arbitrary width."
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Well I'd love to hear an explanation of what "the computer" thinks is important.
No, I don't think you would. You already seem to understand it anyways, when you talked about it being useful in software development. You're just being stubborn and trollish about your pet peeve involving anthropomorphizing things and your famous deficiency in dealing with metaphors.
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You already seem to understand it anyways, when you talked about it being useful in software development.
If I already understand it, why did you post that?
Whatever, I give up.
You're just being stubborn and trollish about your pet peeve involving anthropomorphizing things and your famous deficiency in dealing with metaphors.
It's not a pet peeve, computers literally do not think things are important. You might as well talk about your Ford's favorite flavor of ice cream; it's gibberish.
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If I already understand it, why did you post that?
To point it all out to you. You've never encountered a situation where someone understood what was going on at a conceptual but was confused by the terminology used? Please answer yes...
It's not a pet peeve, computers literally do not think things are important.
Did you see how I even used the word metaphor and you you even quoted it?
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Can't we focus on what actually matters, like application support and stability?
The thing is that this thread started out with some subjective complaints, and just about all the issues raised against using Macs here so far have been subjective — mostly boiling down to “It doesn’t do what I’m used to.”Application support doesn’t seem all that relevant to me: you can get an app that does just about anything reasonably mainstream for any of the modern common OSes. Sure, if you want to do things only a small number of users want, you probably won’t find a Mac version — but you might also not find a Windows version, if said small number of users tend to use whatever flavour of Unix their niche favours.
Stability, I’ll grant you OS X has gone downhill a bit in recent years while Windows has improved compared to back when I used it (that was one of my main reasons for going to Linux). If I’d have to guess, I’d say they’re probably about level these days, though I have no idea what I’m basing that on
As of ease of use - as I repeated several times already, it matters only if you don't know your environment.
Yes and no, I’d think. An environment that’s easy to use will be more quickly learned, leading to more ease of use for people who’ve become accustomed to it. And ease of use is in the little things, so that even when you’re used to your environment, you’ll probably get things done more quickly or with less aggravation than doing the same things on another system with lower ease of use. Trying to separate ease of use from ergonomics seems like it’s not a viable exercise to me.I try not to anthropomorphize "The Computer" because it's just a dumb machine
Commie mutant traitor alert!
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To point it all out to you.
The point WHAT all out to me? I still have no idea what point you're even making!
Ugh this is frustrating.
You've never encountered a situation where someone understood what was going on at a conceptual but was confused by the terminology used? Please answer yes...
Yeah I'm in it every time some developer starts talking about "design patterns", which is "stupid names used to describe stuff software developers have been doing for decades without giving them stupid names".
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I still have no idea what point you're even making!
I know right?
Ugh this is frustrating.
Yes, but predictable and a little funny.
Look, the concept of a line is useful for software that deals with software development. The concept of a line is useful for a person who does software development or for the user who inputs or edits pretty much any text on a computer. This is because the line is an obvious thing that we see and mentally process and to which we can relate.
It's like the concept of Up and Down. Why should those arrows take you to earlier and later, respectively, in the document? Just ask yourself, does Home have Buddha nature?
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Look, the concept of a line is useful for software that deals with software development.
Right; we all agree on that.
The question is, do software developers get to define the function of the Home and End keys? Even though they are a tiny percentage of the computer-using population? Is the use Apple chose more useful to more people than the use Windows/Linux chose?
I honestly don't know the answer, but I'm not going to knee-jerk and say "SOFTWARE DEVELOPER IS KING!"
Why should those arrows take you to earlier and later, respectively, in the document?
Now there's time travel involved!
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I honestly don't know the answer, but I'm not going to knee-jerk and say "SOFTWARE DEVELOPER IS KING!"
But you are going to knee jerk and misinterpret what everyone else is saying to imagine they're saying "SOFTWARE DEVELOPER IS KING!"?
Now there's time travel involved!
Shit be crazy bro. Fucking words, how do they work‽
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@blakeyrat said:
WTFYI try not to anthropomorphize "The Computer" because it's just a dumb machine
Commie mutant traitor alert!
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But you are going to knee jerk and misinterpret what everyone else is saying to imagine they're saying "SOFTWARE DEVELOPER IS KING!"?
Nah that's just plain ol' exaggeration for comic effect.
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@boomzilla said:
But you are going to knee jerk and misinterpret what everyone else is saying to imagine they're saying "SOFTWARE DEVELOPER IS KING!"?
Nah that's just plain ol' exaggeration for comic effect.
No, I'm serious. You're the only one who's bringing this idea up. No one else is making the argument that we should do this stuff because it's useful for development. They're saying it's useful when working with text. Of course, when I say, "working with text," I don't mean that the next cube over is occupied by a worker who is a bunch of words and stuff. I'm just talking about typing stuff on a computer to make patterns in the RAM or disk and the screen or maybe even ultimately put onto a piece of paper so that a human can look at the patterns and process them so that if things go well, communication happens.
Plus, lumps of letters can't make a new pot of coffee when it runs out, so fuck them.
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Plus, lumps of letters can't make a new pot of coffee when it runs out, so fuck them.
Obligatory
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Look, Home and End behave differently on Mac than they do on Windows/Linux. Do they behave better? Or worse? I don't know. All I know is they behave differently.
Cartman seems to think it's worse, but he's saying that as a knee-jerk reaction.
Whatever, I'm done with this.
Plus, lumps of letters can't make a new pot of coffee when it runs out, so fuck them.
I dunno about your office but neither can my co-workers.
The worst invention in the universe is that little transparent strip on the carafe which allows office workers to purposefully leave about 2 sips worth of coffee in it.
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All I know is they behave differently.
Yes, but you were asserting other stuff about lines being unimportant. You went a bridge to far. Literally. I mean, not literally literally. But just literally.
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Yes, but you were asserting other stuff about lines being unimportant.
For the type of user Classic Mac was built for! It was a goddamned typesetting machine, basically designed to drive early laser printers.
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@boomzilla said:
Yes, but you were asserting other stuff about lines being unimportant.
For the type of user Classic Mac was built for! It was a goddamned typesetting machine, basically designed to drive early laser printers.
Yes, I can see how a person dealing with text meant to be printed would never even think about a line. Especially when the lines of text are just sitting there on the screen, staring them in the face.
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Applying text commands to file icons and creating those greyed-out "cut but not removed yet" files are actually two of Windows 95's greatest fuck-ups in Microsoft's lame and broken "spatial" file system.
Genuinely curious - why? When I first discovered I could ctrl+X/Ctrl+V files, it made total sense to me...
Of course, this may be answered in the next 100 messages, but
's and all...
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Genuinely curious - why?
Because it completely breaks the desktop metaphor. (Well, Copy doesn't-- but applied to files, Classic Mac called it "Duplicate".)
You have a piece of paper in a folder. You want to move it into another folder. How do you do that? You grab on to it, drag it into the other folder, then let go. You do not get out scissors and start cutting shit.
On the other hand, you have a drawing of a dog and you want to add a collar to it. It makes perfect sense to grab a pair of scissors, Cut out the collar, move it over the dog's neck, and Paste it in place.
Likewise, in a word processor, you can certainly edit a document by using scissors to Cut some text, moving it where you want it, and Pasting it back into place.
Inside documents of virtually every time, the Cut/Paste metaphor works. In the file browser, it's nonsensical.
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So, it sucks not because of any actual reason, but because it breaks your
cardesk analogy? They would magically become a much better idea if they changed the words to, say, levitate/drop?
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Then what keyboard shortcuts would you use for moving files in a file browser? The thing with Ctrl+X is that it's already a familiar shortcut. It's basically been borrowed from other software. So what if, in the file system, it doesn't have a real world analogy?
Expand your mind and deal with the fact that not everything in the computer world is going to have a perfect analogy in the real world.
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So, it sucks not because of any actual reason, but because it breaks your cardesk analogy?
It's not my metaphor, it's the one Apple chose.
Why the fuck do you people keep blaming me for this stuff? I was like a baby when this was all being designed.
They would magically become a much better idea if they changed the words to, say, levitate/drop?
The point is, moving a file is a different operation than cutting text or images or audio or video footage (cutting film).
If you wanted to name it "levitate/drop", fine. As long as it didn't use the same commands as Cut/Paste. Which are a different operation entirely.
Then what keyboard shortcuts would you use for moving files in a file browser?
I dunno; IIRC, Apple didn't allow using the keyboard to move files except by using the numpad as a virtual mouse.
Expand your mind and deal with the fact that not everything in the computer world is going to have a perfect analogy in the real world.
Again: this shouldn't need to be said, but I did not design Classic Mac. I just used it and read quite a bit of material about it.
What the fuck is wrong with you people.
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The point is, moving a file is a different operation than cutting text or images or audio or video footage (cutting film).
But cutting text is a different operation from cutting audio. Which is a different operation than video footage.
I know, you didn't do this stuff. It's a difficult task to start at an early stage and realize that some metaphor is really more general than you thought it was. Then other innovators come along and fix your mistake.
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But cutting text is a different operation from cutting audio. Which is a different operation than video footage.
I disagree. Especially in 1984, when all of these operations were literally done with scissors and tape.
It's a difficult task to start at an early stage and realize that some metaphor is really more general than you thought it was.
I think the cut & paste one was remarkably clear, actually. (PRE-EMPTIVE NOTE TO STUPID PEOPLE: I DIDN'T INVENT OR IMPLEMENT THIS METAPHOR PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME AN IDIOT FOR SOMETHING I DID NOT DO.)
Then other innovators come along and fix your mistake.
Apple's "mistake" was lack of keyboard accessibility. Windows fixed that by allowing cutting and pasting of files. Apple... eventually used the same solution.
Is there a better solution which breaks the metaphor less? Maybe. I don't know.
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I disagree. Especially in 1984, when all of these operations were literally done with scissors and tape.
I know. But I set my literal interpretation dial higher than yours that time. Fun game, no?
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Why the fuck do you people keep blaming me for this stuff?
Because you're defending it?The point is, moving a file is a different operation than cutting text or images or audio or video footage (cutting film).
And walking in Doom is yet another operation not connected to the above.If you wanted to name it "levitate/drop", fine. As long as it didn't use the same commands as Cut/Paste.
Are you saying Doom shouldn't use arrows for walking because MS Word already reserved those for text navigation?
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PRE-EMPTIVE NOTE TO STUPID PEOPLE: I DIDN'T INVENT OR IMPLEMENT THIS METAPHOR PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME AN IDIOT FOR SOMETHING I DID NOT DO.
In the eyes of atheists, adopting someone's broken metaphor makes you even bigger idiot than the one who originally invented it. It gets even worse when you start telling people it's not broken at all.
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Because you're defending it?
I am?
I'm just explaining it.
Are you saying Doom shouldn't use arrows for walking because MS Word already reserved those for text navigation?
Macintosh was built for desktop publishing, not playing video games. Apple hated video games for a long, long time.
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There's no such thing as "line". A "line" is a virtual construct, created by automatic word-wrapping. It's not something you actively type.
I note that you don't have "pixel" in your list, meaning it is also a virtual construct, created by autotomatic word-wrapping. And if you make the window wider, suddenly the whole thing re-wraps, and now your letters are all under different pixels.I guess what I'm saying is: the mouse is useless for moving the cursor when editing text.
(And like I said above, I use home/end when editing prose nearly as much as I do when editing code.)
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I see. A single key combination should only do one thing regardless of context, where thing is defined by what action you would perform in material world that yields the same effect you're trying to get in virtual reality, and if it's not applicable in current context, the combination shouldn't do anything.
But only on Mac.
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Well get out your timepod, go back to 1982, and start bitching at Apple designers. I'm done with this shit. I apologize for offering explanations, you can all go fuck yourselves.
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The point is, moving a file is a different operation than cutting text or images or audio or video footage (cutting film).
Guess that's the difference - I don't see them as different. To me they're conceptually the same.
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This post is deleted!
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I apologize for offering explanations, you can all go fuck yourselves.
Oh, I'm very grateful for all your explanations. They let me understand better how terrible with computers the decision-makers of Apple were back in eighties and what a happy person I am that I never had to deal with their products in my life.
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I dunno; IIRC, Apple didn't allow using the keyboard to move files except by using the numpad as a virtual mouse.
Who said anything about Apple? This discussion was started when @dcon quoted this:
Applying text commands to file icons and creating those greyed-out "cut but not removed yet" files are actually two of Windows 95's greatest fuck-ups in Microsoft's lame and broken "spatial" file system.
No mention of Apple there.
Again: this shouldn't need to be said, but I did not design Classic Mac. I just used it and read quite a bit of material about it.
And no one was talking about the Classic Mac until you just brought it up.
What the fuck is wrong with you people.
We can actually keep the conversation in context instead of
. But that's more what's wrong with you than what's wrong with the rest of us.
