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Comment by maximilianburke | Hacker News Reader

I would think it's false, even with the surging popularity of Apple computers recently there are still far more people using Windows and far more developers writing Windows applications. With more applications being developed comes a much greater number of unreliable, slow applications with poor user interfaces.

Though I wonder if the use of Objective-C, and lack of any safety scissors-esque programming environments like Visual Basic, is helping keep out cruft like Bulk Rename Utility (http://bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Screenshots.php).

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>"poor user interfaces"

http://www.militaryfactory.com/cockpits/imgs/f16.jpg

Interfaces designed for experts tend not to hide important information and high performance features.

This Mac based product (http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename/) apparently doesn't allow search and replace operations at the same time as sequential numbering even though it almost certainly allows both.

> Interfaces designed for experts tend not to hide important information and high performance features.

That you want "not to hide important information and high performance features" does not imply the interface has to be poorly designed. A well designed interface can accomplish both.

Most interfaces "designed for experts" are poorly designed crap --and make the work of the "experts" needlessly hard. That some swear by them is mostly "Stockholm Syndrome" (or it gives them a false sense of accomplishment to use something so badly designed, er, I mean "designed for experts".

When you're flying an F16, you don't want "drop flares" and "launch sidewinders" on two different menus and the radar on a third, so the interface isn't designed with grandma in mind. That's the difference between the interface for the Windows utility and the one for the Mac...the Windows utility allows you to drop flares and launch sidewinders at the same time.

The Mac interface uses modes for crying out loud.

> The Mac interface uses modes for crying out loud.

You'll find out that a well designed F16 interface also uses modes. You don't want to "launch missiles" and "adjust height" in the same menu.

Oh, and the "expert interface" par excellence, Vim, also uses modes..

Maybe this is a sign that I'm a Windows dev, but that app seems pretty cool. The screen is cluttered, but I must admit that I spent about five seconds looking at it, and I felt like I could jump right in and start using it.

I just downloaded the command line and GUI version. Thanks! :-)

> but that app seems pretty cool.

Well, a typical Mac developer wouldn't touch that with a 100-mile pole...

As I understand it the surge of popularity has been in crippled iOS appliances. Their real computers have never reached even 10% market share.

The UI is a little messy but that's a great little app. :)

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