OSNews

The article is an interesting and well done report of a newbie's experience with OS/2-eCS and a refreshing departure from the typical tech media industry's treatment of non-Microsoft products (I'm guessing that neither Eugenia nor OSNews.com are receiving a significant portion of Microsof's $?00,000,000 "advertising" budget for Win XP!).

Anyway, the article is excellent overall so please don't take my criticism of a few minor points as condemnation of the whole.Eugenia mentions "the GUI, which is ugly as hell (not too mention that it lacks modern features, like double-buffering and free-form windows). The Gui looks like Windows 3.1 on steroids or at best, like a bad Windows95."


This claim seems to me to be terribly unfair and quite surprising. I had always considered OS/2s UI to be the most elegant and aesthetically appealing interface of any OS on the market and eCS just improved upon it. Granted, the article is largly subjective impressions and as such the author can write whatever comes to mind without feeling a pressing need to defend it but "ugly as hell"? . . ."like a bad Windows95"? Them's fightin` words!

I will admit. . .MacOS X Aqua interface is a thing of beauty. . .it is also slower than creaping death on even the best desktop hardware ever created for any architecture. As an engineer, I know that the design process is often a balancing act between conflicting priorities. . .In this case, eye candy frequently has a price that is paid in performance and or usability. It is my opinion that eCS has about the right mix as shipped for use on the typical user's current hardware.
Stated is that the UI "lacks modern features, like double-buffering and free-form windows". Firstly, I assume by "free-form windows" we are refering to shaped windows. While the UI doesn't "support" shaped windows, it doesn't prevent applications from having them. There are in fact some nice applications for eCS that use shaped windows. I see nothing wrong with allowing the application developers the latitude to implement the window shaping of their choice rather than imposing the shaping on them from the OS level.

Additionally, double buffering everything to hit the screen seems unnecessary and wasteful of resources. Double buffering is certainly a supported presentation space management technique for applications but it isn't required. That seems to me to be as it should be. . .make the interface smooth and fluid by keeping the GUI light and quick rather than trying to compensate for bloat by double buffering the whole darn thing. . .`course opinions vary. . .

Sure, the Presentation Manager looks a bit industrial, particularly when compared with the comical LooneyToons interface on Windows XP. I count that as a point in eCSs favour though. It is pretty and pleasant without looking cheezey and toy-like. Equating it with win3.1 or even Win95 however is just plain bizarre. . .nonsensical even. I've spent a little bit giving a hard look at widgets, frame details, dialog boxes and other basic desktop features since reading that line and I still cannot figure out how one could perceive Windows to be more attractive than eCS. . .no accounting for taste I suppose. . .

Anyway, the rather bewildering attitude towards eComStations UI aside, the article was very good!