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...and make it more difficult to efficiently use multitasking.

Yeah, great idea during a time when processors fly and computers have tons of memory available for just about anything its user might want to do, and then sone. Problem is, GNOME is about 15-25 years too late. This kind of thing would have been *great* ages ago...

Hardware takes us several steps forward and continues to improve... while GNOME tries to take us decades back in functionality.

Sounds like something Microsoft or Apple would do... but they have a reason: Microsoft can sell a more functional, more expensive license to those who want more features and power (ie. Starter -> Home Premium or Professional), while Apple is trying to sell shiny white overpriced hardware to computer-illiterate users and going for the lowest common denominator is the way to do it.

GNOME... I'm not sure what they're trying to prove, given that they're throwing away just about everything when it comes to modern UI design. They sure can't be trying to steal Mac OS X users through ease of use and familiarity as they were often accused of in the past, since GNOME 3 doesn't act anything like Mac OS X (let alone anything else).

That said, I am interested to try Gnome Shell again (tried it before very briefly, wasn't too impressed then) and see it evolve. Hopefully it pulls a KDE4 and steadily improves while diminishing all of its shortcomings... but if Gnome 2 was any indication, it's more likely to diminish more functionality.

Yeah, I'm prepared to be modded straight down to hell for this. Fire away.

Edited 2011-04-06 22:57 UTC

Unfortunately, the reality is that humans aren't good at multitasking. Actually, we're terrible at it. Thus it's prudent to design interfaces and workflows with a single-tasking bent as opposed to multitasking one. This is something GNOME Shell actually got right from a cognitive design perspective!

There are many studies that show that we are terrible at multitasking. Google is your friend. Here's a link to one of them.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794

Edited 2011-04-06 23:00 UTC

Wow, such blinding ignorance is mind boggling, and I've been on this website for just over 9 years (prior to the existing registration system that exists today). If you don't mind sunshine, us Mac users aren't all 'computer-illiterate users' who are simply attracted to 'shiny white overpriced hardware' (as your post implied) - some of us have IT backgrounds with many other users knowing how to use a computer and have indepth knowledge but no longer wish to play 'nurse' to their computer. Some of us are actually happy not to worry about our computers because some of us have other stuff in our lives to focus on rather than to be constantly nursing something that should take care of itself.

Btw, I have earned by Linux/*BSD/Solaris stripes and if you want to use those operating systems then all power to you but don't come on this forum all high and mighty thinking that pushes you up to the totem pole of prestige any more than other people who have been posting on this website since it first opened.

Edited 2011-04-07 04:47 UTC

My 6 virtual desktops with a viewport of 2560x1024 allows me to minimize clutter, avoid distraction, and jump to any running application with no more than two clicks on the taskbar.

And then for comic relief, I can move the mouse to one corner, and show all my active windows on my current screen.

I want a desktop that works for me... not a desktop that I have to learn to work for.