OSOpinion's John Holms says that "Apple should have designed its classic UI as a default feature and left all the customization options for the PowerUser." In his column entitled: "The Age of Everyman Tech: Bill Cosby Lied. Classic Was Better," Holms says: "I don't really care about the insides of [OS X] or any OS quite frankly. Truth be told, I am no more than a glorified EndUser. I use computers to make a living, but computers are not my life. While I do enjoy computing, I don't believe that a person must know an OS inside and out to use it. A computer to me is just a tool.... I turn it on and off. I'm not interested in the source code. I'm not interested in CLI. I am interested in whether OSX behaves like a Mac, not a UNIX box, and certainly not NeXTOS ... a rejected OS."

I gotta pretty much agree with John. Like him, I make my living with computers, but I am ignorant of all but the simplest programming concepts (I find AppleScript challenging enough), and my interest in OS internals extends only to how smoothly and transparently it supports the user interface so I can get my work done.

Holmes notes that "If you've only used System 6 on a MacPlus for the past 13 years and you suddenly found yourself in front of a G4 with OS9, the experience would be basically the same. You would know what the Apple menu did, what the control panels did. Sure the technology has evolved, but you would know what you were doing. You would be productive."

I agree again, and I've made the observation a number of times that while the OS under the Mac interface certainly did need upgrading, a lot of the jiggery-pokery that's been done to the user interface in OS X seems to be change for the sake of change, or a switch to an inferior set of protocols.

"Mac users have been pleased with the GUI for over twenty years. I don't think they're wrong," declares John Holms.

I could go on quoting John and agreeing with him for some time here. His article is of substantial length, and he and I seem to be pretty much on the same page on this issue. However, better that you read it yourself.

You can check it out at:
http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/JohnHolmes/JohnHolmes1.html

Charles W. Moore

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