<story><title>Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept</title><url>https://onezero.medium.com/the-document-metaphor-desktop-gui-doesnt-work-anymore-d276271bfa40</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rakoo</author><text>Because in practice if you don&amp;#x27;t push people to update, they just don&amp;#x27;t update. And then complain about bugs, security issues, bad performance, missing features, etc... all available in the updates they have been postponing for years.</text></item><item><author>amelius</author><text>&amp;gt; If they hide everything away so as to respect your time, then another user will be frustrated by the constant magic going on in the background.&lt;p&gt;How did we update software in the 80s? Simple, by taking an action: inserting the floppy with the new software, starting the update program, etc.&lt;p&gt;Why can&amp;#x27;t it be like that? (Except the floppies replaced by opening a menu and clicking &amp;quot;update&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;Why do updates have to be performed at a pace controlled by the vendor of the software and why do I need to be reminded about updates?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll just install them when I think I need them, thank you.</text></item><item><author>blowski</author><text>It’s a balance though isn’t it. If they hide everything away so as to respect your time, then another user will be frustrated by the constant magic going on in the background. Even you might want more prompts in some situations.&lt;p&gt;Maybe some applications could have an alert mode, similar to logging levels. But then it will probably get more buggy.&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I rarely get annoyed by the number of popups in most of my software. I’ll happily take a few extra dialog boxes for extra control.</text></item><item><author>KeepFlying</author><text>That dialog also invokes so many issues with computers today.&lt;p&gt;When I open a program, I want to use that program. I don&amp;#x27;t want to update it, I don&amp;#x27;t want to see all the new features, I want to USE it. I opened it because I had a task to complete and all this junk is getting in my way.&lt;p&gt;And same when I close a program, as the author hits on very well.&lt;p&gt;Basically, the computer&amp;#x2F;program&amp;#x2F;etc always wants me to do something for it, but it never asks for those things at an opportune time.&lt;p&gt;No, I don&amp;#x27;t want to update my computer right now, and no, updating overnight tonight isn&amp;#x27;t good either because I need to keep this program running until tomorrow. I understand that your new UX is better for me, and I&amp;#x27;m sure I&amp;#x27;ll love it, but forcing that on me right now is preventing me from doing what I need to do. I see your error dialog describing some odd issue, but I don&amp;#x27;t have time to triage that right now and decide to take the time to fix it.&lt;p&gt;I wish software would respect the human element more. My time and attention is valuable, please don&amp;#x27;t interrupt it carelessly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>KeepFlying</author><text>I 100% feel this pain. And for security updates and major fixes, I see the need for frequent updates.&lt;p&gt;Though setting aside practicality for a bit I wish we would design software to be more backwards compatible so old versions of things could continue to work for longer. I shouldn&amp;#x27;t have to buy a new phone every three years, for example.&lt;p&gt;Also for a tool like Audacity, I rarely need to update it. It doesn&amp;#x27;t depend on a service, so I don&amp;#x27;t need to worry about an API falling out of support and he security risks are much lower. I wish we could design more of our software to work this way.&lt;p&gt;Obviously for internet connected things like browsers this isn&amp;#x27;t possible as the security impacts are significantly higher, but why should I need to update Word every month if I don&amp;#x27;t plan to use the online components, for example.</text></comment>
<story><title>Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept</title><url>https://onezero.medium.com/the-document-metaphor-desktop-gui-doesnt-work-anymore-d276271bfa40</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rakoo</author><text>Because in practice if you don&amp;#x27;t push people to update, they just don&amp;#x27;t update. And then complain about bugs, security issues, bad performance, missing features, etc... all available in the updates they have been postponing for years.</text></item><item><author>amelius</author><text>&amp;gt; If they hide everything away so as to respect your time, then another user will be frustrated by the constant magic going on in the background.&lt;p&gt;How did we update software in the 80s? Simple, by taking an action: inserting the floppy with the new software, starting the update program, etc.&lt;p&gt;Why can&amp;#x27;t it be like that? (Except the floppies replaced by opening a menu and clicking &amp;quot;update&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;Why do updates have to be performed at a pace controlled by the vendor of the software and why do I need to be reminded about updates?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll just install them when I think I need them, thank you.</text></item><item><author>blowski</author><text>It’s a balance though isn’t it. If they hide everything away so as to respect your time, then another user will be frustrated by the constant magic going on in the background. Even you might want more prompts in some situations.&lt;p&gt;Maybe some applications could have an alert mode, similar to logging levels. But then it will probably get more buggy.&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I rarely get annoyed by the number of popups in most of my software. I’ll happily take a few extra dialog boxes for extra control.</text></item><item><author>KeepFlying</author><text>That dialog also invokes so many issues with computers today.&lt;p&gt;When I open a program, I want to use that program. I don&amp;#x27;t want to update it, I don&amp;#x27;t want to see all the new features, I want to USE it. I opened it because I had a task to complete and all this junk is getting in my way.&lt;p&gt;And same when I close a program, as the author hits on very well.&lt;p&gt;Basically, the computer&amp;#x2F;program&amp;#x2F;etc always wants me to do something for it, but it never asks for those things at an opportune time.&lt;p&gt;No, I don&amp;#x27;t want to update my computer right now, and no, updating overnight tonight isn&amp;#x27;t good either because I need to keep this program running until tomorrow. I understand that your new UX is better for me, and I&amp;#x27;m sure I&amp;#x27;ll love it, but forcing that on me right now is preventing me from doing what I need to do. I see your error dialog describing some odd issue, but I don&amp;#x27;t have time to triage that right now and decide to take the time to fix it.&lt;p&gt;I wish software would respect the human element more. My time and attention is valuable, please don&amp;#x27;t interrupt it carelessly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>catlifeonmars</author><text>Worse, they use that out of date software to run web servers, databases, etc. The next thing you know, millions of peoples PII is leaked.&lt;p&gt;I also wonder if there is a liability component to this that makes force updating a common pattern.</text></comment>