Re: Windows; its way or the highway. (Was Re: RISC OS 6 - no shadow modes?)

In article <gemini.jgb3p0002earr01tg.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
VinceH <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 10 Apr 2007, John M Ward wrote:
In article <gemini.jfwy97001bdnn01s8.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
VinceH <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[Windows apparently encourages users to file things by type]

John, there is no easy or particularly polite way to say this,
so I'm just going to be blantantly rude about it: you do not
know what you are talking about.

Incorrect. You are looking at it all from *your* point of view:

Incorrect. I'm looking at it from the point of view of someone who
deals with real-world users. They are included amongst those
bizarre group of people I laughingly refer to as "clients".

Ah! Are these exclusively corporate clients, I wonder? I ask only
because I am aware (both generally, and specifically from how things
were set up under the DTI's Osprey system, and now within the council)
that corporate set-ups are generally designed fairly well.

I am dealing with real-world users, many of whom are *not*
brand-new users starting out within the past handful of years
with their first systema and only Microsoft applications.

I've just noticed the subtle change you've made.

In <4ecd4a86e2john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (2/4/07) it was "because the
Microsoft way is app-driven rather than data (including filing
system)-driven."

That is correct.

In <4ecd4bcd52john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (2/4/07) where you give a "real
world example" you conclude that you can "see no signs of this
situation being addressed in (e.g.) Vista either now or in
future."

Still correct -- but it's the philosophical approach that underlies how
the system operates (e.g. save and load dialogues) rather than any token
or other partial attempt to address the issue.

The following day, in <4ecda08401john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> that changed
from suggesting the blame lay with the operating system provider
to the users: "The problem for *most* users is that they have a
system whose design leads them to filing "per app" rather than
(e.g.) "per client"

All part of the same overall situation. It isn't a simple, single
faceted, black-and-white issue.

The following day being after a couple of people pointed out that
"the Microsoft way" (to borrow your term) is to have users place
their documents in "My Documents" or a subdirectory thereof.

It is now -- and that still ends up in a mess for a large number of such
users, where everything is dropped in the same place -- when saved from
apps compliant to this newer way of working. I've seen it so many
times.

And this followed today by the above, which neatly
completes that shift of the blame away from Microsoft by saying
it's not their apps that are the problem.

It's not a shift: just more of the same problem created by the original
philosophy in the design of the system.

Let's face it: the concept of load and save dialogues is absolute
garbage (especially the way they are implemented in the "Wintel"
scenario) and the whole system leads to lazy (and poor) file management,
whatever the fine details of the result might be.

So now it's no longer "The Microsoft way" which shows "no sign of
being addressed in Vista" and is a result of long time users who
haven't managed to learn anything better than what they started
out doing.

It's all the same thing. It's no good trying to compartmentalise it
into little boxes and then try to claim that one contradicts the other.

By contrast, I (and all RISC OS users I know well enough to have
discussed this with them) have *always* stored their documents in a
sensible structure, and many have adapted that structure with time. As
with me, they have no only been encouraged to do so by having a system
that leads that way, they have also found it easy to do.

Technically, the same facilities are there in other systems -- but not
the incentive or ease, so it just doesn't happen. Even in corporate
situations, there will still be users with all their files (certainly
from one app, and possibly from all of them) lumped in together, though
the little Load dialogue filename list will show only three or so at a
time, so it won't be immediately obvious that there are hundreds or even
thousands of files to be scrolled through.

I've dealt with everyone from self-confessed Luddites to full-blown
techies (including training someone to do my job when my office was due
to split into two separate Government Offices), ages from late teens to
beyond retiring age so have seen it all, more or less. Over the past
twenty years I've dealt with sorporate and government (both national and
local) set-ups, small businesses, home users -- the lot.

Although I try to discourage Wintel users to ask me to sort out their
problems, they still come to me -- most recntly just a couple of days
ago. I'd rather not have to battle with their systems, and try to find
where the picture file is that they want to email but can't.

Two of my fellow councillors have had this problem recently, and I have
had to trawl through hundreds of files in "My Pictures" to find where to
look for the file to attach, as sending it by email from its location
would not work. Tthese pictures needed to be at the printer of our
election materials by a deadline, so I agreed to deal with it this time.

Here, of course, I just drag and drop the file from wherever it is,
straight onto Pluto's attachments arrow. Microsoft users just don't
work that way, even if it is possible (and I am aware that a lot of
drag-and-drop operations that are the norm to us don't work on MS
anyway). They know one way -- the bad way -- and are never interested
in learning another way. They just want me to "fix it", they don't care
how I do it, and don't want to know. Next time, it'll be the same
again. They have been turned into MS user zombies...

--
John Ward in Medway, Kent - using RISC OS since 1987
Now using an Iyonix, an A9home, 2 RiscPCs and Virtual-RPC!
Acorn/RISC OS web page: www.john-ward.org.uk/personal/john/computers
.

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