> Come to think of it, this is also a problem with the Unix philosophy in general, in that it requires trading off performance (user productivity) for flexibility (developer productivity)
“Sure, Unix is a user-friendly operating system. It's just picky with whom it chooses to be friends.”
~ Ken Thompson on Unix
But seriously, I would argue that Unix is "superuser" friendly - very friendly to advanced users who like their power tools, and is only unfriendly to those who want to have a more casual relationship with their computer (which admittedly is probably 98% of users).
I am not really a developer anymore, but any system that expects me to use a mouse over a keyboard makes me feel less productive.
Arguably a "complicated mess of cobbled together archaicness" describes most old software, Windows included. I think that's just the nature of how software evolves.
We might be in the middle ages of software development. Think of the way European cities grew naturally versus the grid structures of American cities. Perhaps in the future the art of software development will have progressed to the point where creating a new application results in nice, square lines of code that are perfectly navigable.
I wonder if, at that point, we'll wax nostalgic about the way software used to grow organically. Ahhh, to lose myself once more in the meandering spaghetti of yesteryear...
“Sure, Unix is a user-friendly operating system. It's just picky with whom it chooses to be friends.” ~ Ken Thompson on Unix
But seriously, I would argue that Unix is "superuser" friendly - very friendly to advanced users who like their power tools, and is only unfriendly to those who want to have a more casual relationship with their computer (which admittedly is probably 98% of users).
I am not really a developer anymore, but any system that expects me to use a mouse over a keyboard makes me feel less productive.