someone who knows less than I do
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| BernardSwiss Jan 25, 2012 11:37 PM EDT |
"Average user" in practice means someone who has some familiarity with (and generally, only with) Windows. Usually it also means someone who knows less about "computers" (or at least, is perceived as knowing less) than the speaker. If the speaker considers Linux "less intuitive (code for "less familiar") than Windows, and hence presents some irritation due to not functioning precisely identically to Windows, then obviously an "average user" also must be unable to use Linux as easily as Windows. TLDR? An "average user" is a "dumb Windows user". So of course Linux is, by definition, unsuitable for an "average user". |
| JaseP Jan 26, 2012 9:46 AM EDT |
Newer versions of Windows are unsuitable for the "average" "dumb Windows user." Heck, they're unsuited to the above average Windows user... MS Office and the ribbon?!?! Ugh. |
| number6x Jan 26, 2012 11:00 AM EDT |
The truth is that Windows 3.1 was completely acceptable to the 'average' user. The acceptance of billions of users around the globe shows that it was 'good enough' for them. There were superior products on the market that were mature before the Windows 3.1 environment shipped. Some included Mac OS, Amiga, NeXT, Apple's gs/OS and others. But users around the globe utilized Windows 3.1 as a more than acceptable environment for everyday computing. It is an environment that could easily have handled the needs of users even today. After all, Windows 3.1 was really a glorified program launcher and switcher. It was the programs launched that provided the usefulness of the system as a whole. The 16-bit code would be a drawback, but that could be ported. My point is that the bar of acceptance by the average user is extremely low as opposed to what most critics say when they claim that Linux is not ready for the average user. Windows 3.1 was acceptable to the average user. I cannot think of many general desktop Linux distros that would not be as acceptable as Windows 3.1. This is true in many fields. Sony Betamax was superior to VHS. Better quality, more features, etc. VHS dominated the market because it was good enough and acceptable (and cheaper licensing helped). McDonald's plain hamburgers are not the best or most 'feature rich' hamburgers on the market, yet they are obviously more than acceptable to the ‘average’ hamburger eater. The average user is often willing to put up with a few missing features (no organic heirloom tomato slices on their burger), a few quirks (they have to edit a .bat file to get this software to load on Windows 3.1), and a few missing bells and whistles (lower quality video and sound on their recorded movies) Only products that do not perform reliably and predictably are not ready for the average user. Those products are buggy and are only suitable for owners of MGB sports cars and early 80's Dodge/Chrysler vehicles. |
| Khamul Jan 26, 2012 2:45 PM EDT |
This isn't quite true I think. VHS dominated because you could put a 2-hour movie on it, which was impossible with Betamax at the time. That made Betamax inferior for the average movie watcher who didn't want to shuffle two tapes. Regardless, while VHS was indeed "good enough" in 1985, if we tried to bring it back now, no one would want it, now that they've used DVDs. DVDs were so clearly superior to VHS that the movie industry made a ton of money in the late 90s with everyone rebuying their collections in DVD format. Win3.1 was indeed a better environment for all the people using DOS. It was also superior to MacOS, Amiga, NeXT, and gs/OS because it could run DOS programs, which were the standard in industry. How "superior" NeXT was as an OS was irrelevant when it couldn't run peoples' software. Win95 came along later, repeating the same phenomenon. People were lining up overnight to buy Win95 when it came out. Go back in time to 1999 and ask people (all using Win95 or Win98) whether they'd like to switch back to a Win3.1 interface, and they'd probably say no. Then try it again in 2005 with everyone using WinXP, or today with 7. Just because something is clearly better than what came before doesn't mean anyone wants to go back to that now that even better things exist. The Model T is definitely superior in many ways to riding a horse long distances, and sold like hotcakes when it came on the market, but that doesn't mean I want to trade in my 2000+ model year car for one. |
| JaseP Jan 26, 2012 4:26 PM EDT |
But sometimes, for the sake of putting out a new product, they overtake the "plumbing" so much that they stop up the drain. |
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