unity-design team mailing list archive

[Gregory Merchan <gregory.merchan@xxxxxxxxx>]

I just found this site which might be of interest here:
http://u-tx.net/index.html

Ubuntu, like Mac OS X, is built around a UNIX-like system. I get the
impression that, while Mac OS X is a very good interface, it hasn't
really capitalized on the strengths of the UNIX system underneath it.
I long felt that free software GUIs seemed to be ashamed of their UNIX
underpinnings instead of embracing them.

Look at Chris Granger's "Light Table":
http://www.chris-granger.com/2012/04/12/light-table---a-new-ide-concept/

Not to detract from this great idea in any way, someone should have
come up with this over 10 years ago! UNIX is a great system for
working with text ( http://theody.net/elements.html ), but only for
people with the time and will to slog through man pages.

When I say "text" I mean also numeric data. I recently had to work
through a few months worth of data to trim it down for someone else to
process further. Actually, I had to first gather the data stored
inconsistently on a Windows computer. A few months . . . mixed in with
nine years of data. I have no clue what I would have done with this on
Windows. Forced to use Windows, I would have tried to install Cygwin.
Failing that, I guess I would have been trying to import all those
files into Excel. Fortunately, I have Ubuntu. I was able to grep, sed,
and awk my way through all the files. It was actually fun and I'm
thinking of doing something with the whole 9 years. I must note that
there was nothing I did that I could not have done on a Mac now; I
just haven't given up on a free software desktop OS yet.

Relating this to Unity: well, I'm not really sure. When I started
writing this, I though Unity was the name for Ubuntu's desktop
environment, not just the dash, lenses, menu bar, indicators,
notifications, and touch interface. I hope the links I provided prove
useful and that this hasn't been off-topic.

Oh, there is this: If I had somehow been doing my work through the GUI
and not just in a terminal and text editor, my "Recent Files" would
have been swamped by a bunch of things that would have been wholly
unimportant the next day, and, worse, my recent files which had been
of interest would have been pushed aside. There has to be a better way
to deal with having different sets of work than creating multiple user
accounts for myself.

Cheers,
Greg