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What's Keeping You On Windows?
Posted by
Cliff
on Fri Nov 15, 2002 04:25 PM
from the I-am-bill's-anti-trust-monopoly dept.
from the I-am-bill's-anti-trust-monopoly dept.
schnell asks: "Here's something I've wondered about for a long time. While it seems that the majority of Slashdot readers are no fans of Microsoft, recent polls show that 47% of Slashdot Users are using Windows as their main OS (and I bet that number is much higher in server logs). So I have a two-fold question: 1) Is it just the 'vocal minority' that favors alternate OSes over Linux and 2) if not, what's keeping you from 'putting your money where your mouth is' - why are you using Windows? My own situation is that I use an IT-mandated Win98 (ugh) laptop at work, but at home I'm Mac OS X all the way. While I did pay Microsoft for Office for Mac, I try to avoid filling their coffers whenever possible, so for all the family/friends who rely on me for computer recommendations I recommend Mac or Linux. Do people like using Windows? Are games the driving factor? Or is it just 'the right tool for the job?'" It's a perennial question, and one that is fitting to review every so often, if only to see how far Open Source has come, and how far it needs to go.
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What's Keeping You On Windows?
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What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Funny)
Brought to you by the Friday Burn!
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Recently I needed to do some graphic work and didn't have access to Photoshop so I downloaded the Gimp. Honestly, I hated it. But I've been exploring it's features off and on for a couple of weeks now and I'm starting to find that the Gimp is not as weak imitation of Photoshop as I thought. All of the most important tools are there, and the majority of them work as well as the ones in Photoshop.
Basically I'm finding out that the Gimp is indeed suitable for many kinds of real work.
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. Thats the problem. A friend of mine was telling me that I had at least to admit that at least GIMP was a GNU software wich rocked.
Sorry. Its the terribelst thing I've ever seen.
a) the UI is UGLY, *U*G*L*Y*.
b) everybody claiming that GTK is FAST,
c) Linux simply offers NOTHING windows does not offer as well.
History:
I admined about 40 SunOS 4.3 and 20 DEC Ultrix machines. I worked with slackware linux kernel version 0.91 or 0.93. My first "big computer" after my Apple ][ clone was a Mac.
I do not switch to linux for three reasons:
i) everything which is unique on linux (and good working versus other OSes implementation) does
-- not interest me (I do no video editing)
-- is incredible difficult to use (e.g. GIMP)
ii) I have a running Windows system. Why should I kick everything I have on it?
iii) everything which is similar on linux, KDE for example, I allready have on Windows.
Well, I come from MAC. I go back to MAC now where it runs basicly NeXT Step/OS X (BSD).
The whole GNU/Linux movement just behaves as if 30 years of user interface design research never had happened.
One third just does what it likes.
One third sticks to old standards because they think better a standard than nothing (X11/Motive)
One third coppies primaryly the bad examples of Windows(KDE).
None of them can get me into the hazzle of wasting 3 or 4 hours installation of a dual boot system.
Furthermore: how to configure a linuy system?
Its not like BSD, its not like System V, its not like AIX, its not like Solaris.
Even worse: every linux system thinks it has invented the holy gral of how to admin a system.
Today I try to work with Mandrake(my DSL router is a mandrake system) tomorrow I like to use Suse.
I can not copy a single config file from Mandrake to my Suse System
BTW: GIMP, how do you draw a straight line? Start point -> End Point?
You cant do that without reading the manual. The simplest thing, the first thing every user attempts, is impossible without reading the manual.
And in the manual you can not look under: line, straight line or something. No, you have to read it from front to end to stumble over the point where you finaly figure that you have to use the alt key.
I have to admind, I did not figure that my own, no, I had to ask one.
I spend 3 or 4 hours with GIMP, trying to make some smal PNGs. I gave up.
Well, now you come and tell me: most is OS or even GPL; take it and change it.
Sorry, YOU wrote it. If you like ME to USE it, write it in a way that I want to USE it.
If the surface of your software sucks, I do not even like to look into the source code.
Yes, when I work on *nix I use VI.
regards,
angel'o'sphere
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why the major distros don't have quicktime running out of the box.
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does it come installed on Windows? It didn't on this Windows machine. Maybe when Apple makes a Linux version it will be easy to install. Until then, blame Apple for that, not Linux.
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
I had been following Linux for several years and grew excited as it became more ready for "prime time" and after a string of Blue Screens of Death earlier this year, I dumped Windows 98 from my old PC and switched to Mandrake 8.1 (which is basically Red Hat). And found some issues that are still hamstringing Linux. It autodetected my hardware just great, except for the things it had trouble with.
I set up desktop icons for my USB Zip drive and portable CD burner. Problem: if those drives weren't plugged in when the computer was booted up, Mandrake would forget they were ever available, even after rebooting with the hardware plugged in. The solution turned out to be a quick trip to the /dev directory to remind the computer what options it had available, but I had to do it every friggin' time!
Then it couldn't decide whether my CD burner was actually a burner or just a CD-ROM drive -- it changed its mind like a woman choosing between two pair of shoes. And let's not forget how it lost contact with the internal CD-ROM drive on a weekly basis.
And as many /. readers know, Mandrake's included manual is laughable. I did RTFM -- it didn't help and none of the online assistance I found was able to explain the problems or how to fix them adequately. Mandrake's manual left me grasping at straws to try to figure out what it was saying and how to do some basic things. The distro might be aimed at *NIX newbies, but the manual assumes a level of knowledge that most new Mandrake users don't have. And because many of its writers speak English as a second or even third language, it's hard to interpret. It's not an intimidating volume -- it's simply a half-assed attempt at a manual.
My new computer came with XP Home, and while at some point I plan to upgrade to XP Pro, the only problem XP's given me was due to an older version of Roxio's DirectCD software -- a problem that M$ actually found a solution for and posted on its web site.
(Oh -- removing Mandrake from my old computer involved hacking into the master boot record to get rid of its proprietary boot manager, which refused to step aside in favor of BootMagic.)
Linux? Nah. Had enough of it. Don't want to hear about it. Can't recommend it for Joe Lunchbox until the bugs are worked out.
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a
Now, I really do like Linux quite a bit, and as such my personal surfing/whatever I want to do with it system is running RedHat (oh boy! more flames) and I find it to be a great choice, but I know that I could never develop an application as complex as I need as quickly as I need and as easily as I need in Linux.
The next concern is compatibility, virtually all of my potential user base is running Windows, if I were to ignore this fact I would be a complete idiot. If I plan on making money with my software I have to target this market, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I intend to charge a fair bit for my software (When you develop a product that is far better than anything else available you should charge well for it)
Now, in defense of Windows XP, I have been using it for about six months and I have never seen a single crash (sure applications bomb, but the OS is as stable as any version of Linux or BSD that I have used, in some cases much MORE stable).
Now, my one big complaint about Microsoft, I don't understand why they feel that they need to charge $299 for an UPGRADE to XP Pro, it's simply unfair, but as we all know there is a price to pay somewhere, no matter what your choice of Operating System.
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
When you develop a product that is far better than anything else available you should charge well for it.
Now, my one big complaint about Microsoft, I don't understand why they feel that they need to charge $299 for an UPGRADE to XP Pro, it's simply unfair, but as we all know there is a price to pay somewhere, no matter what your choice of Operating System.
Perhaps Microsoft also believes that they develop something that is far better than anything else available, and that they should charge well for it.
Does anyone else smell hypocrisy?
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
The *best* scientific/technical programmers I know program on Un*x and Un*x-alikes.
The *best* GUI/usability/wide-market (meaning applications that appeal to 10s of thousands or more users) programmers I know program on Windows.
I've programmed on both quite a bit. My preference right now is Windows using C#.NET (I primarily write 'DataAccess Layer' code these days -- basically application interfaces to a database schema). My reasons are the same as the poster above. I can put together a robust application that does useful things in a (small) fraction of the time that I could using J2EE/C/C++ and the like (I'll admit that I don't know Python so I can't comment on it). Various scripting languages are archaic. If you don't have good documentation (stuff like tooltips and intellisense) that doesn't require leaving what you are working on (thus diverting/destroying your train of thought) to 'discover' what you need, productivity drops. Windows is stable and very easy for me to use the apps that are there. Microsoft's Visual Studio (since v6 and definitely
At one time, I was an MPI developer/maintainer who ported MPICH to the Cray T3D, Cray T3E, various NoWS with a variety of network cards (good-ole Ethernet, Myrinet, Giganet, Fibrechannel, and a few others), a few embedded systems (single, dual, quad PPC 603/604 boards mounted in VME chassis comunicating over Myrinet and another using a proprietary fabric), as well as a few completely from scratch MPI implementations for almost all of the above.
IMO, it's kind of like the old argument a long time ago about PCs vs. Macs and 'level of education' as shown by analysis of documents written by students. Documents written on PCs showed a 'grade level' of 11th grade ability. Documents written on Macs showed 8th grade ability. One of the main reasons that came out was because Macs were so damn easy to use compared to PCs... you had to know your stuff to use a PC (remember manually dealing with IRQs, DMA blocks and such?) so the average PC user was older and more technically inclined compared to the easy-to-use Mac.
Anyway, there are a lot of Windows programmers out there who barely scrape by... my theory is that it is just so damn easy to throw a crap program together to 'get by' with VisualBasic and the like compared to the very user-unfriendly Un*x and Un*x-alikes. PC running Windows = easy, low learning curve. Machine runing Un*x = high learning curve. Low learning curves mean more people using it and more average or below programmers who can use Windows and Windows development tools who can't use Un*x/Un*x-alike tools. Most of the apps I use (and have used) on Un*x/Un*x-alike machines look like they were written by engineers. Concepts like workflow, discoverability, and 'foo-foo' features like intellisense are all but non-existant. The guts of the app may be the fastest McFlugglefarther algorithms and it can crank out solutions fast - when you get it started on your problem - because very highly skilled engineers wrote them. But much of the app development pretty much ends at that point. The engineers slap together some clunky GUI to handle the 1324213423 parameters (with a button/box for each one on one screen) and put the product out for use. The app may be great for speed and flexibility but the usability flat blows, making it hard to use.
Autoconf... Emacs.... VI... makefiles... stuff that you have to know something about to use very well. Windows you 'mash' buttons and have an editor that requires no sacrifices to pagan gods to use.
To most people, the ease of use of Windows probably outweighs by far any amount of stability advantage (if any) that Linux has. It's much easier and faster to put up with a few glitches than to deal with Un*x/Un*x-alikes.
Computers and apps are tools to get my job done - whether my job is actually writing programs or generating images. If a tool is non-intuitive and hard to use, it costs me time to learn it... time that could be spent on another app that is easier to use but may even be slower executing but I can see results and I don't experience frustration from not understanding what the hell this clunky app expects me to do or from the feeling that I am wasting lots of time trying to figure out what these 324 dials and knobs do.
Easy = good
Hard = bad
Re:What keeps me on windows? (Score:5, Funny)
"Attrack" thats an interesting new word. Like a combination of attract and attack.
Is this like those blue lights that kill flies ?
Different Goals (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's exactly what they were shooting for anyway. Microsoft's developers are not stupid; they're actually many of the brightest ones out there. Microsoft built it's empire by giving the people exactly what they want.
Here's a quick comparison of the Microsoft's goals versus the Linux approach to development (note that Msft has become much more UNIX-y in the past year or so). Listed more-or-less in order of importance:
- Linux
- Stability - Premeditated instability will not be tolerated. Linus will not accept a patch that he doesn't trust, and features known to decrease stability are almost never allowed outside of development releases of pretty much any package.
- Security - Linux developers absolutely hate the idea of an insecure computer. Security is almost never sacrificed for anything else.
- Speed - Speed is sexy. Many OSS developers get a rise out of making stuff run faster.
- Features - Features are added when someone who needs it knows how to build it. Features are still very important, but shouldn't be allowed to displace things like stability and security.
- Hardware Support - The system should work with all the hardware possible, but adding hardware support most often involves reverse-engineering and a lot of tweaking. It's slow, difficult, and most developers would rather just "make the common hardware work, and the hardware that works common."
- Interface - Lets face it, most Linux programmers absolutely suck at interface design. An interface should be good enough to make it work. The real beauty of a program is in what it does, not what it looks like.
The reason why most users prefer Windows to Linux is because Windows was based on what the common user wants. That's who they develop for, that's who they impress. The rest of us are stuck with it because, well, that's what everyone else uses.note that Linux is worked on by a much more diverse group of developers. Each has his own goals. This list represents the more common goals of the core OS develpers.
off topic: where did you get that load of crap? (Score:5, Interesting)
There might be aspects of Windows that Microsoft concedes internally are a POS, but it certainly isn't the NT kernel. I remember reading an interview by Dave Cutler around the time MS canned MIPS/Alpha portability. He said it was frustrating because other parts of MS didn't always get it, what the NT team was trying to accomplish in terms of portability and stability.
I've read a lot over the years on both sides of the fence. Never once has anyone I respect claimed that Windows sucks because the NT kernel sucks. The NT kernel was SMP enabled from day one, was portable from day one, was Unicode enabled from day one, was modularized from day one.
I have heard it claimed that they made some decisions in how they handle their threading model that negatively impacts their scalability at the Enterprise scale. I've also read Linus laughed at the cost and complexity of NT kernel transitions. They made a dubious move when the video subsystem was pulled back into the kernel (probably unavoidable with the breakneck advances in video performance), but I can't imagine anyone seriously thinks they couldn't yank the video subsystem back out of the NT kernel if they really wanted to.
OK guy, tell me who those executives are spilling the beans with that gives you access to this precious channel of private communication between his Billness and his personal minions? It wasn't the Register. I read that. It wasn't the Inquirer. I read that. It wasn't the Microsoft Systems Journal. I read that. It wasn't Computer Reseller News. I read that.
Let me think, who could it be? Larry Ellison? Scott McNealy? Carly Fiorina? Oh, yes, of course.
From: Executive Minion of his Billness
To: Carly Fiorina
Subject: I send you this message for your advice
Message: the NT kernel sucks goat
The Sircam confession. Well, that's the best I could come up with for how you obtained your priviledged view of the inner sanctum that no other scribe anywhere has heard before.
The problem with flinging vacuous insults is that pretty soon people will start to say MS isn't as bad as it's made out to be, and they'll be right.
Re:Different Goals (Score:5, Insightful)
>>> in what it does, not what it looks like.
I don't care how fast, powerful, featureful, or otherwise sleek and sexy a program is, if it's a pain in the ass to (learn to) use. That is, while Windows may have the lion's share of issues, overall, in terms of speed, reliability, and interface, it is a pleasure to use. If I could say the same for linux, I'd never look back.
When it get's right down to it, every time I try a new linux distro, it's always the GUI (or, lack of a truly usuable GUI... and I've tried quite a few) that kills it for me.
As much as I love being able to do things through a shell and command line, the majority of tasks are more enjoyable in the GUI environment. Put another way, if I could, I'd love to be able to work in Linux, with only the features I need in each peice of software I use to get done what needs to be done. But, when it comes to relaxation and entertainment, I like my software (and OS) to have a polished, responsive, and intuitive _interface_.
Hell, I'd love to use Mac OS X. But, at the risk of spawning another eternally unsolved agrument, I just can't get past the slow, expensive, PowerPC hardware. Give me an alternative OS, x86 version of a Un*x based OS with a mature GUI and I'd be an happy user. Of course, you'd have to throw in the ability to play most of the new computer games available today, and even the ability to change the interface settings around to be more Windows-like -- in terms of window and task management, rather than Mac OS like.
Funny thing. The last point I made leads me to the reason I think most folks can't hack an OS switch. This is something that I'll certainly fess up to. It may have a bit to do with my failed attempts to swith OS (to linux). Fact of the matter is, when it really comes down to it, the factor that 90% of users care about IS the interface. Most folks I've found don't like windows, macs, or linux, not because of how it works, but because of how it does NOT work in the manner that they're used to. That is, those other OSes are NOT the OS that we actually, already know how to use.