Re: What computer would you buy to replace your //* ?

[glaurent@aye.inria.fr (Guillaume Laurent)]

In article <252d75$agv@kruuna.Helsinki.FI>, cust_ts@kruuna.Helsinki.FI (Tero
Sand) writes:

> >What I mean by "closed" is that you can't customize it easily, you know
> nothing
> >about the system unless you dig up in hundreds of pages of docs.
> 
> This is true of any complex system. Yes, Unix too.

Unix is still easier to customize than MS-DOS, or X Windows than the Mac GUI.

> You are being totally unrealistic.  Throw a complete computer neophyte
> in front of an Unix system and he won't be able to do anything.  The
> same is probably true for a Mac, btw, regardless of what Apple says -
> there might be differences in how much you have to explain, but that's a
> different issue. 

You didn't get my point. I wasn't thinking about a computer neophyte, but of a
confirmed user. Ok, let's take a simple example. I'm in front of a Mac and a X
terminal, and I want to change the label of a button in an application.

Under X Win. all I have to do is edit my .Xdefaults file, which structure is
rather easy to understand, and that can be edited with any text editor. Adding
a line in that file with a simple cut&paste from a similar line, then
relauching the application and that's all.

Under the mac, I have to launch a resource editor, which is not available for
plain users because "ohhh no, it's too complicated for them", that will allow
me to edit this button, but I don't have a fucking clue about which file the
application edits, nor about how it edits it.

Other example : I want to install a new font, on a Mac and an Amiga.

Amiga : just copy the file containing the font in a directory "System/Fonts"
that contains plenty of other fonts.

On the Mac : launch yet another application that will install the font,
probably by copying the file to the directory where it belongs, but I won't
know anything about this.
Ok, by now the Mac OS has separate directories, but Apple itselft strongly
discourage to do any operations in those, and urges you to use proper
installers instead.

In my mind an opened system is a system you can customize with plain tools like
a text editor and a shell. A closed one needs special applications written on
purpose. Guess where the Apple II spirit has gone.

							Guillaume.