Ross wrote:...the same people who care about a decent complex file manager like x2 are also people who care about simplicity, not regarding the program itself, but as a lifestyle.
Now we're singing the same song, albeit with different lyrics.
As you are aware (by acknowledging the possibility of "a generation of people less computer-savvy"), this Simplicity is a bit of an illusion. The tasks which need doing (regarding professional file-management) don't actually get any simpler, they are instead buried under several layers of abstraction which only make it
seem like a simpler interface can do the same job as a more befuddled one... but alas, 'tis not so.
For example, in the same way as Regular Expressions lose their power in direct proportion to how much they're dumbed-down, their "accessibility quotient" thusly rises indirectly. Current ergonomic thinking would suggest that were we to find a "happy medium" of simplicity (without sacrificing power) we could have the best of both worlds. And indeed, were we to live in an abstract world that would be not only true, but possibly attainable. But, curiously, we have to ask ourselves (by living in the "real world" with all its attendant compromises and painful learning curves) would we really
want that happy medium if it meant our brains were lobotomised in the process? Even Ecclesiastes knew that "he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow"... but this was not seen as some kind of negative thing, more a necessary process to maturity wherein we learn that nature abhors innocence (your prognosticated "less clicks, less taps" desire).
The trouble with the Tabletification Paradigm is that it doesn't actually aspire to merely masque [sic] any underlying complexity - it wishes to remove it altogether, leaving the user with a false sense of power - and indeed, robbing him of the very perception necessary to glean insight as to what's below the surface (the famous Mandelbrot Sets residing in Chaos, for example).
Essentially, I'm neither arguing
for simplicity, nor
against it - but rather that the knucklehead-stuff (like having to remember abstruse behaviour patterns) necessary to compensate for poor-GUI design be eliminated. Hence the reason I jumped on the bandwagon of this thread's title - but was disappointed to see you only desired an answer to your immediate difficulty, not actually a solution to the bigger picture. As my background is not technocratic in nature, I find simple answers to complex questions rather unsatisfying, regardless of their expediency - thus this current tangent of ours is much more fun.
Unfortunately, we are unlikely to transcend the limits of modern ergonomics by vainfully enticing others into a design compromise which they don't even recognise as being necessary.
I suspect we are instead to just taste that quiet desperation the poets speak of so frequently these days - what we make of our suffering, however, is more worthwhile than all the keypresses and clicks we might save in the long run. Rather, a small bit of grace is perhaps saved in lieu to keep the balance in our favour, and our sanity preserved.
Ross wrote:you and Nikos are the same person?? If not, you seem to like him a lot.
Well, I suppose I
could be some kind of schizophrenic alter-ego he conjured up one day in a fit of existential escapism hearkening back to the Talking Heads lyrics of his youth...
- You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house
You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife
Or, I
could as easily be some kind of deranged obsessive stalker-type who just randomly chose him as something to fixate upon (in which case, it's the doctored photographs I
don't link to which could be incriminating).
Or, most likely, I'm just the
comic relief around here who takes any opportunity he can to go off topic in the hopes of exploring the realm of
hic sunt dracones - that part of the map that so many tech-minded people have forgotten even exists, as they get too caught up in that "age of simplicity" of yours, seeking only immediate technological answers to eternal philosophical questions.
)