Re: Desperation
"I'm a traditionalist when it comes to UI, and to me, the archetype of an ideal UI is Windows 2000."
Agreed. It was (compared to the current crop) highly utilitarian in its design, without the needless eye-candy that started with XP. There were some problems, but I still think it was better than anything since. IIRC, in Server2003, they gave us that annoying empty pane on the left in the Services panel, AND they twiddled the "Choose Principal" applet when assigning file permissions to require a couple of extra clicks to get it to give the list of all the available accounts. Niggling annoyances, sure. But still annoyances, and for what real purpose? Then they started really screwing with things in 2008, and by 2012, it's sometimes difficult to get things done quickly unless you create a lot of shortcuts on the desktop. But at least I CAN get things done on my Server 2012 desktop - I feel lost when I have to use Win 8.x or 10. That shit just ain't right.
It's a shame MS is such a "my way or the highway" company. If they could have kept the original 2000 interface, worked out the few kinks it had, and let us still use it with their newer versions of the OS, that would have been awesome. I mean, fuck, they're the largest software company in the world, with billions of dollars in the bank - couldn't they keep 5 or 10 programmers on staff just to keep that interface going? They could even refer to it as "Old People's Interface", so the yoof and the hipsters will never get confused and wind up staring at it's spartan utilitarianism. And the rest of us could just get shit done. But no, that wouldn't play well with their marketing thrust to always look like they are trying to be bleeding edge and pushing the back of the envelope.
Sorry, time for my meds again before I get all stirred up and start jabbering about Novell needlessly letting Netware die.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
