Windows 8: Does Microsoft’s Split-Personality OS Make Sense?

(The previous arguments not withstanding), I assume that touch interfaces for large screens are going to eventually incorporate interface embellishments to conveniently enable greater precision, when desired or necessary.

I also assume that executive offices will have special VIP desks with "desktop" screens built into the actual desktop. Perhaps "twinned" with a more conventional, more vertical screen.

Such arrangements appear to be already be establishing a presence in appropriate specialities such as some CAD work and special use scenarios (for example, workstations or "worktables" as presented in CSI seem credible).

???

Quoting:I get the feeling that youngsters love these new interfaces, because it's different from the "stodgy" interfaces the older guard uses (gotta be a rebel) and they haven't had to be productive in a way that had their butt on the line. If there is no pressure to perform, these new toy interfaces get the job done, albeit too slow and clumsy.

You've obviously never seen my nieces or nephew with those interfaces. Teens today, who see that interface as natural, fly on it in a way I never could.

Permit me to second Caitlyn's remarks on the amazing ability of youngsters to use the touch interfaces of smartphones and pads. I watch them at it and sit back staggered at what they can do with a few touches, swipes, "squeezes", etc. etc. - and they learn young too.

At a restaurant recently, I watched a 5 year old playing a game on a device resembling a pad. To play it required finger touches and swipes and she did it without even missing a beat.

All of this makes me really feel antique. To these youngsters, it's simply how you interact with these hand held computers. To me, well, honestly, it's "white man's magic" as they used to say and I shall remain content to watch, marvel, return to the known and friendly enclosure of mouse and keyboard.

I have no doubt that young people fly with these interface on pads and phones. I have no problem with these interfaces on pads and phones. They are designed to be usable on pads and phones.

What i do have a problem with, is these interfaces on anything other than pads and phones. It is an ill fit. Quickly swiping and tapping on a "PC era" device? Even if it has touch capabilities, it is cumbersome. In their quest to make "one size fits all" a reality, interface designers are destroying 20 years of developments on large screen, mouse and keyboard controlled devices.

KDE has the right idea. Use modular software and adjust the interface to the type of device used.

Quoting:KDE has the right idea. Use modular software and adjust the interface to the type of device used.

indeed.

Indeed, indeed......which brings us right back to the start. The way I see it, you cannot use the same system of touch interaction that is great on hand-held and largely horizontal oriented smartphones/pads when you shift to the conventional desktop which consists of more or less vertically oriented interfaces designed to be controlled by mouse and keyboard. In my book, KDE has the concept correct; Win8 doesn't.

I agree with the last three comments about KDE. However, I am not at all convinced that younger people will see the new desktop paradigm the way we do. To them it's simply familiar and comfortable.

Speaking of kids, a coworker and I were exchanging stories about the ones in our family. My coworker was describing his five and eight year old daughters providing technical support to older members of the family and just how easy computer technology is for them. Perhaps, finally, the idea of socializing girls away from technology is dying a much needed and belated death. That gives me hope that sexism in IT may follow.

@caitlyn -

Girls can work computers? Won't their Barbies get jealous?

LOL. One of my friends got her niece a Computer Engineer Barbie. Yes, such things exist.

Sorry everyone. Tony private message

@caitlyn --

Cool.

I still remember 7-8 years ago shopping for Lego blocks for my youngest girl. We were trying to decide which set to get, and I'm sure we were saying things like "Do you think she'll like this one or that one?"

A woman came up to us and told us we shouldn't get any of them because girls don't like such things. We were flabbergasted.

Barbie dolls ? Hah !!!!!!! My daughter, bless her, loves doing two things here on our 5.75 acres: riding the rideon mower and slaughtering long grass........and second, using the mulcher to chop up twigs and branches to make mulch. She says it's an outlet for her destructive tendencies......LOL. And at school, she was a librarian, and is now a proud possessor of a Librarian Technician's diploma........ Barbies didn't really work. I wonder what that woman would say about our lovely daughter.

@rid:

;)

All three of our daughters played with Barbies or assorted other dolls at some point. Which is ok. So long as they build stuff and run around and read, etc.

My ex played with a Barbie for precisely one day.

The day after she got it, it was hanging by a noose from her bedroom ceiling fan.

Quoting:A woman came up to us and told us we shouldn't get any of them because girls don't like such things.

That reminds me of when I walked into CompUSA maybe 12 years ago to pick up a boxed copy of Red Hat. An oh-so-helpful young man came up to me and volunteered his concern that Linux would be too hard for me. He advised me to pick up Windows instead. I politely informed him that I was a Network Engineer with IBM (true at the time, albeit as a contractor) and that I supported UNIX and Linux professionally. He stammered and walked away.

Don't you love it when people project their stereotypes and prejudices onto you? No? Me neither.

@caitlyn, did you inform the store manager of your poor treatment?

@gus3: Yes. The same kid was still there a month later.

@Caitlyn...Good for you, and well done - I don't like being patronised either. Personally, I'd be terrified of picking up a boxed copy of any Windows version .....my experience of knowing a little of Windows' "foibles" went "out the window" with the departure of Win98SE. WinXP I can handle, sorta, but that's it. Don't need Windows and don't want it.

Anyone who's ever had to fight with their sisters over the Lego pieces ain't gonna swallow that stereotype (I had two -- I was older, but they outnumbered me).

@Caitlyn

I had similar experiences at 'big box" stores -- it might say more about Linux stereotypes than about gender stereotypes.