The Lounge - CodeProject

Mark_Wallace23-Oct-16 21:54

23-Oct-16 21:54

Once upon a time, everything was like vi and edlin: you had to remember keyboard shortcuts (which you could list on the screen -- if you could remember the keyboard shortcut to list keyboard shortcuts).

No-one was particularly happy with this, but it worked, so we used it.

To open programs, we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes, which could be a pain, because after a while you have lots of programs and batch files, and you have to remember where they are and what they're called -- so programs like FIND soon became the most-used programs.

No-one was particularly happy with that, either, but it worked.

Then, someone brilliant thought of putting permanent bars at the top of program screens, with brackets around or underlines under the letters you had to press in combination with other keys -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs.

And everyone cheered!

Soon, an absolute genius thought: "Hey, we can turn that into a menu, so that instead of holding Alt and pressing letters, you just press Alt, then press the bracketed or underlined letter, and that drops down another list, where all you have to do is again press the bracketed or underlined letter!" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs.

And everyone cheered!

Then a bunch of bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing, came up with the Graphical user interface, or GUI, and the words at the top of the program screens became buttons, which you could click with a mouse, as well as typing the bracketed or underlined letters -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and made windows.

And everyone cheered!

The bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing also came up with the idea of using graphical shortcuts, little 64x64px borderless buttons, which you could double-click to open programs -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows.

And everyone cheered Loudly!

Then someone thought: "Hey, why do we have to use words, which take up a lot of space, at the top of program screens, when we can use little 32x32px buttons with pictures on them for each tool, rather than have to click through menus to get to them?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows.

And everyone cheered Really Loudly!

Then someone (who was not microsoft) thought: "Hey, menus are really easy to use, so why don't we add a menu for programs and stuff, rather than make people open lots of boxes to get to the graphical shortcuts?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows.

And everyone was ecstatic. They could access their tools the way they needed to, and they could access program functions the way they needed to.

Then microsoft got the idea that it should have ideas of its own on how GUIs should be, and mighty wars were fought within the company, promoting this stupid idea and that stupid idea, and, as it is written that it should be, the biggest mouths with the loudest voices won the day.

microsoft introduced the "(ef)fluent interface", commonly known as "the ribbon" and "that useless piece of cr@p", for accessing a reduced selection of program features and functions, whilst taking up four times the screen space, and forced it upon everyone, so everyone had to do without menus altogether, and put all the tools they use regularly in a single toolbar, which does not even have dividers.

And everyone said "WTF is this cr@p? Give us back the interface that wasn't broken!"

And microsoft introduced baby-blocks for accessing programs, which everyone gave up on, and went back to typing program names in boxes (white ones, this time) to open their programs

And everyone said "WTF is this cr@p? Give us back the interface that wasn't broken!"

But microsoft was very proud of itself, because had finally added things to the user interface that were theirs, and they could "patent". And, because they had ticked boxes and names had been made within the company, it didn't matter to microsoft that no-one in their right mind would ever want to lease such useless interface elements.

So microsoft lived happily ever after.

Only computer users suffered.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Welcome to the Lounge