[dwyer]

Finally! Somebody who understands me!

Now I certainly don't think retro design is "crippling" the basic OS experience. I personally find the whole desktop metaphor to be silly and outdated and not so useful for a generation that has grown up with computers and don't need a clock to look like a wall clock in order to understand that it's telling us the time. OSX widgets may be immature and tasteless, but they're not a hindrance.

If retro design is crippling anything, IMO, it digital audio workstations (DAW). Whenever I launch Cubase I have to deal with virtual mixer boards and virtual synthesizers that mimic the interfaces of 40 year old hardware to the point that you have to turn virtual knobs with my mouse. It's ridiculous and more often than not it's frustrating. Now I understand how this choice of design eases the learning curve, but I'd much rather jump over a few hurdles than run straightaway into a wall.

This is why programs like vim and emacs are still relevant decades after their invention. They don't insult the users intelligence, they don't pretend to be something they're not, and they take full advantage of the platform they're designed for.

If somebody could create a DAW that adhere's to this kind of philosophy, I don't care if it uses ncurses as an interface, I'd adopt it in a heartbeat.