Microsoft Metaphors (fwd)
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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 10:09:09 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Microsoft Metaphors
What are the best metaphors to use when talking about a browser and an operating system? Is the combination like a car and an engine, or a car and a roofrack? A pair of gloves?
It seem to me to be like a car and a road map. It simply lets you address the multiplicity of resources (ie destinations) out there in a convenient model. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage@ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|
At 09:47 AM 1/15/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 10:09:09 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Microsoft Metaphors
What are the best metaphors to use when talking about a browser and an operating system? Is the combination like a car and an engine, or a car and a roofrack? A pair of gloves?
It seem to me to be like a car and a road map. It simply lets you address the multiplicity of resources (ie destinations) out there in a convenient model.
A browser is a piece of software. How it is implemented has no effect on what it is: a tool used by people, running on a computer with an OS. The computer is a building. The OS makes it a supermarket. The browser is the map of the store showing what foods are in what aisles. -dsr-
What are the best metaphors to use when talking about a browser and an operating system? Is the combination like a car and an engine, or a car and a roofrack? A pair of gloves?
It seem to me to be like a car and a road map. It simply lets you address the multiplicity of resources (ie destinations) out there in a convenient model.
Or maybe a rental truck and a portable storage space. One of Microsoft's big problems is that if what you want to do is haul big stuff from place to place, you don't care what brand of truck/car you use to pull your U-Haul Brand trailer, and similarly if what you want to use is a Web browser with a Java engine that runs platform-independent Java apps, you don't care if it's running on Win95, Linux, SunOS, NintendoJava, or MacNeXTsTep. So they want to sell you that Pickup-mounted camper that only fits on a big Microsoft pickup-truck, as well as selling you some GlueOn Fuzzy Dice that can't be uninstalled cleanly from rental cars so you just buy the truck from them. And they want to give you Internet Exploiter free, so you're stuck with Fuzzy-Dice-Compliant Windows, rather than letting you get used to Java-based browsers that run on anything. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (3)
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bill.stewart＠pobox.com -
Dan Ritter -
Jim Choate