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Date:      Sat, 16 Mar 2002 13:31:06 -0800
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Chip Morton <tech_info@threespace.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD Chat <chat@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Free BSD
Message-ID:  <3C93B99A.6FA0FEEA@mindspring.com>
References:  <4.3.2.7.2.20020316100234.01b21638@threespace.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20020315181331.01b26160@threespace.com> <20020314204235.L152-100000@pogo.caustic.org> <15505.28725.937368.158235@guru.mired.org> <20020314204235.L152-100000@pogo.caustic.org> <4.3.2.7.2.20020315181331.01b26160@threespace.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20020315190230.01b2a4f8@threespace.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20020316100234.01b21638@threespace.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20020316105413.019e6df0@threespace.com>

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Chip Morton wrote:
> At 10:50 AM 3/16/2002, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote:
> >Ever seen a Mac prior to OS X?  Ever wondered who designed the GUI?
> 
> Yeah, I've passed by a couple of MacOS displays before.  It's
> clean-looking, but it doesn't exactly make me envious as I use my
> Windows/KDE/Gnome displays.  It does the job it needs to.  Whether it's
> attractive or not is a matter of personal preference.

That's "taste", not "preference".

And that's kind of the point of the article: the reason
for the artifact is to do a job, not to be decorative.
If it's decorative to the point of damaging its ability
to do its job, then it fails at its role.

The reason we have the word "gaudy" today is that there
was an architect and designer named Antoni Gaudi, who
designed El Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia... a
church in Barcelona, Spain, from which the word "Gaudy"
arose.

This may be your window manager:

  http://www.m-j-s.net/photo/barcelona/2000-04-44020501.html


> But I note two things about the Classic MacOS GUI:
> 
>    - Aesthetics aside, it still operates much like most other GUIs.
>    - Apple isn't using it any more.

The Classic MacOS GUI has another attribute: it strongly
encourages conformance with the style guide.

No matter what you do to your window manager, it's not
going to change the placement of scroll bars, scroll bar
thumbs, up/down arrows, page up/down regions or arrows,
and other widgest that are aspects of the application
rather than the window manager.

No matter how you slice it, mixing a TclTk program with
an OpenLook program with an OpenStep program with a
Motif 1.0 program with a Motif 2.0 programs (e.g Netscape)
with a Java Swing program (despite it's own appearance
options) is still going to look like crap, because there
is no enforcement of a style guide between windows.

God help you if you use an MP3 player with "skins", or a
chat application that some idiot thought would be "cool"
if it were made to resemble a (now antique) Motorolla
"flip-phone", or the Apple QuickTime player, with its
idiotic rotary volume control that you are supposed to
"turn" without access to a rotary control device.

-- Terry

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