Being stuck for weeks on end writing software for Windows, including Windows 8, it feels like I'm getting fed up of using computers. I wouldn't touch my MacBook Pro, and end up on my iPad, avoiding any form of "general-purpose computing" that could be confused with work.
If I'm lucky, at times I have to interact with my Linux machines, and there's a sense of relief. Even Cygwin feels reasonable compared with the pseudo-DOS command-line prompt of Windows. Yes, the GNU Coreutils are far better than whatever kludge you can do on DOS.
And now, for a few minutes, I'm back to Mac OS X. Oh, what a relief. Fonts that don't suck. A perfectly working trackpad and scrolling mechanism, even when inverted. A multi-lingual system for free. Here, right now, I'm typing this on the beautiful editor Byword, with a slight colour gradient on the top and bottom, and that subtle off-white colouring and font that would make Bateman jealous. Oh, and it supports transparent auto-saving to iCloud or the local drive, like most 10.8 applications, so no more command-S reflex. Heck, if I wanted to, I could just go back to Vim on the built-in UNIX terminal, with its elegant alpha-channel transparency and shadow. To think that two days ago a coworker was complaining that in Windows 8 desktop there's no drop shadow anymore, making it even more difficult to tell which window was active…
True, there are many feats of engineering in Windows 8, but all of that is moot given its jarring virtualization layer, the half-forgotten desktop mode, and just the lack of design quality that only people "in the know" (or those who care) annoyingly notice. It's like comparing Windows Server and a well-maintained Debian GNU/Linux box. You can almost tell where the money was wasted and what was designed by a committee of shills.
Published on November 16, 2012 at 20:43 EST
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