[DM-MUG] NYT, 5-26: "Ground Rules for the Windows-Macintosh War"

[Richard Twohy]

Hey guys,            5-26-2005

>From today's New York Times,
an article by David Pogue about US...  and "THEM".

Its "title" (below) intrigues me enuf -- to simply
forward it directly to my DM Mac-Wizards, without
reading it first.  Hope the contents are actually
worth anyone's time-!!

Tx, for a "GRRREAT..." session at DM-MUG mtg Tuesday
nite!
--Richard Twohy
================== 

    Ground Rules for the Windows-Macintosh War

Last week, I wrote about some of the changes Microsoft
has in store 
for the next version of Windows, which is slated for
the end of 2006. Interestingly, very few of you
responded to that column, probably because so much may
change in the next 19 months.

But a few of you fired off diatribes about how I'm
either a Microsoft "shill" or an Apple "apologist" (or
maybe it was the other way around). It's not just me,
either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech
columnists that you can't even USE the word "Apple" or
"Microsoft" without getting hate mail from somebody or
other.

It's kind of amazing that various extremists could
find the same column too pro-Microsoft AND too
pro-Apple. But hey--that's the nature of ideological
soldiers, whether they're in the conservative-liberal
war, the evolutionist-creationist war or the
Hummer-Prius war.

The Mac-Windows war, though, is especially pointless,
protracted, and winnerless. There will always be
people on each side who are every bit as rabid and
un-convincible as those in any other religious war.

Still, I'd like to suggest, as a starting point of
civility, a few pointers 
for participants in the O.S. war. Consider it one
man's version of, 
"Can't we all just get along?"

1. Hate something for its failings, not for its
success.

It's totally fine to criticize something because of
its flaws--to hate Windows because it's bloated and
cryptic, for example, or the iPod because it's too
easily scratched. But condemning something just
because it's the dominant product is just sour grapes.
Arguments along the lines of "I hate Bill Gates
because he's rich" or "I hate the iPod because
everyone has one" add nothing to the dialogue.

2. No condemning something until you've tried it.

If everyone abided by this idea, about 95 percent of
all the Windows-Macintosh diatribes would evaporate
overnight. But here it is: If you haven't tried
something, then you really have no basis to comment.

3. Execution matters.

I'm so tired of reading discussions like this: Person
A: "I love Mac OS X Tiger! That Spotlight thing is so
cool: press a keystroke, type a few letters, and get
an instantaneous listing every file, folder and
program containing that text."

Person B: "You pathetic loser! It's called hard-drive
indexing, and Windows XP has had it from Day One." Of
course, the truth is that Windows Indexing Service is
to Spotlight as Thomas the Tank Engine is to a bullet
train. In Indexing Service, you can't search with a
single keystroke, the speed is nothing like
Spotlight's, you can't search for metadata (115 kinds
of secondary information, like music genre, Photoshop
layer names, camera settings in digital photos, etc.),
the index isn't updated in real time as you create or
delete documents, and so on.

It goes the other way, too. "I love how Windows XP
lets me delete or rename files right in the Open or
Save dialog boxes."

"What's the big deal? On the Mac, we just switch to
the desktop and delete or rename things there."

Sorry, but that's just not as good as being able to do
it within the dialog boxes.

The bottom line: How well something works and how
elegantly it's been built is also relevant to the
"which is better" discussion.

4. Don't make grandiose purchasing plans by guessing
on technology's future.

This pointer is directed exclusively at Mac-bashers,
particularly the ones on the nation's boards of
education.

If you decide to standardize on Windows across all
schools, fine. But make sure you have legitimate
reasons like economics or the need to run some
Windows-only software suite.

"We want the kids to learn what they'll one day use in
the business world," however, is NOT a good reason. If
you think you know what anyone will be using in 2020
(when today's first graders will graduate from
college), you must have a heck of a magical crystal
ball.

Truth is, by 2020, no operating system will look
anything like it does today. By 2020, we may well be
using holography or tablets or glorified cellphones
instead of computers. Claiming to know what company's
operating system today's kids will be using when they
graduate college, or how that software will work, is
nonsense.

5. Consider that they may have a point.

Neither side's members should be allowed to cover
their ears and sing "Blah blah blah!" at the top of
their lungs when they hear an argument that could rock
their worldview. As long as the points are factual,
fair and substantive, you should consider them.

Remember: Apple and Microsoft routinely play O.S.
leapfrog and regularly adopt each other's feature
ideas; eventually, aficionados in both camps will
enjoy similar enhancements to the computing
experience. As we carry on the never-ending debate,
try to generate more light and less heat. Only then
can we discover what aspects of system software are
truly valuable, and thereby usher them into existence
for everyone to enjoy.

========================  




Richard Judson Twohy 
PO Box 2233  Iowa City, Iowa 52244-2233
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