We're still fundamentally using the PARC Alto model.
We've got windows. We've got keyboards. We've got mice. In some cases we've now got multi-touch keypads and touch-sensitive screens. Some screens are very large. Some are very small. Some are in-between.
There have been some improvements: processors are vastly faster, pixel densities are increasing, and rendering has improved. We've got some hacks for displaying fonts more clearly. But those are pretty minor. Compiz effects if you want to get flashy, but those are hardly necessary.
I've seen master developers completely satisfied, and massively proficient, in hacked-up twm environments.
Really: the desktop is a solved problem. Move on.
I've looked at many of the "modern" desktops. And I'm still using the same one I was using 15 years ago: WindowMaker, based on NeXTstep. It's simple, it's fast, it's light, it's stable. It's not visually distracting. It gets out of the way. It supports keyboard shortcuts and navigation. It presents me with persistent pinnable window lists (something no other window manager / desktop environment provides me) and pinnable submenus.
What the desktop developers for GNOME, Unity, Microsoft, et al are forgetting is Anoine de Saint Exupery's dictum: perfection comes not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away. There's an implied "and what is left is sufficient to the task at hand".
We've got windows. We've got keyboards. We've got mice. In some cases we've now got multi-touch keypads and touch-sensitive screens. Some screens are very large. Some are very small. Some are in-between.
There have been some improvements: processors are vastly faster, pixel densities are increasing, and rendering has improved. We've got some hacks for displaying fonts more clearly. But those are pretty minor. Compiz effects if you want to get flashy, but those are hardly necessary.
I've seen master developers completely satisfied, and massively proficient, in hacked-up twm environments.
Really: the desktop is a solved problem. Move on.
I've looked at many of the "modern" desktops. And I'm still using the same one I was using 15 years ago: WindowMaker, based on NeXTstep. It's simple, it's fast, it's light, it's stable. It's not visually distracting. It gets out of the way. It supports keyboard shortcuts and navigation. It presents me with persistent pinnable window lists (something no other window manager / desktop environment provides me) and pinnable submenus.
What the desktop developers for GNOME, Unity, Microsoft, et al are forgetting is Anoine de Saint Exupery's dictum: perfection comes not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away. There's an implied "and what is left is sufficient to the task at hand".