Earlier discussion

I nuked&paved XP, and I installed Win8x64 and I'm quite happy with it, save one or two things.

I just need to figure out how to get this Allchars.Net program to run on startup, because Windows is ignoring it. Maybe it should be running as admin or something.

Oh, I also used 7+ Taskbar Tweaker to change the behaviour of the horrendous default taskbar.

And apparently desktop computers are forbidden from having the power management icon in the tray. What the fuck. I want quick access to changing power plans because for normal usage, I use the energy-saving plan which downmultiplies your CPU for massive heat and power savings, and jack it back up before playing a game.

And obviously I uninstalled all those bullshit m&m apps in the start screen, so it looks nice now.

Additionally, it seems like the Asus Xonar driver doesn't activate its arbitrary DR limiter above ~50% anymore, like it did in XP, so I don't have to guess what the optimal setting is and just keep it at 100%. This is a boon. There's some discrepancy between the sample rate as set in Asus's terrible config program, and Windows' native audio device settings, but I haven't investigated deeply.

Booting and restarting is fucking fast, but that's probably because of the fresh nuke&pave.

PDF is built-in as a Metro app, so no more Reader.

The cold boot installer form the DVD had a Vista UI which was a little weird.

Alt-tab fades between windows which is goddamn annoying.

They killed Winkey+Tab (Flip3D) which is a mature decision on the part of MS to remove this useless pet project.

The new Start screen, the corners and every feature in there is super un-discoverable and thus poorly designed (try right-clicking in the Start corner. Bet you didn't know that. Windows itself sure as fuck doesn't tell you about it.).

And the new flat visual style is great, though I didn't really mind dropshadows under my windows.

And there you go.

It's fine. Haters can go suck a dick! :D :D

dhromed:

And apparently desktop computers are forbidden from having the power management icon in the tray. What the fuck. I want quick access to changing power plans because for normal usage, I use the energy-saving plan which downmultiplies your CPU for massive heat and power savings, and jack it back up before playing a game.

Erm, CPUs have been automatically doing that since... forever. My i5-2500K runs at a 4.6GHz overclock @ 1.37V when loaded and 1.6GHz @ 0.99V when idle.

dhromed:

It's fine. Haters can go suck a dick! :D :D

 

 

So, if I want to suck a dick, I have to hate windows 8 first ? It seem pretty straightforward yet out of place. All the thing they say to me about building a relationship seem horribly inefficient in comparison.

 

More on topic, windows 8 seem reasonably fine, but your review don't make me want to switch to windows, or even try. Then again, it's not because win8 qualities, more that everything I need from an OS is disponible on every OS ever - save maybe the mac one - and windows seem wasted money for me.

 

TheLazyHase:

your review don't make me want to switch to windows, or even try.

 

I suppose it's more to defuse Windows 8 nonsense, and aimed at existing Windows users.

The_Assimilator:

Erm, CPUs have been automatically doing that since... forever.

 

Well, I had to enable it in my BIOS, and then select a power saving plan. That was in XP. I'm not sure if the BIOS change would still be required in Win8.

Automatic switching between high and low multipliers generally hurts performance for grey-area programs that don't peg the CPU constantly, such as browsers and Minecraft. It seems some people have no problems with this, but I do. Maybe it's a motherboard thing.

High-load AAA games like Deus Ex: Hike Road and AssCreed cap your CPU pretty much constantly so it never gets a micro-moment of rest where the OS decides to scale it down again.

dhromed:

try right-clicking in the Start corner. Bet you didn't know that. Windows itself sure as fuck doesn't tell you about it.

Woah, I hadn't noticed that and I installed it months ago.
It's really annoying how everything they changed is not really mentioned anywhere sensible. Did you know it has inbuilt ISO mounting? I sure didn't until I stumbled over it by accident.

dhromed:

It's fine. Haters can go suck a dick! :D :D

 

So if you mod, delete, or reconfigure the things you don't like, and learn to ignore the things that you can't fix, and manage to figure out the terrible touch-centric interface, then it's fine, is what you're telling us.

THANKS.

 

Zylon:

THANKS.

 

You're welcome!

 

For the record, the taskbar was shit in Windows 7, so it's not a special feature of 8, and I can't imagine what you're thinking if you keep all that default junk in your start screen.

I also can't imagine what MS was thinking putting all that pointless stuff in the start screen.

And you always ignore things that you can't fix. Same with any system; real or computered.

 

The takeaway is that there is no reason to forcefully resist an upgrade, nor is there any reason to downgrade. There is also no reason to upgrade if you're running Vista or 7, but that's beside the point.

I am personally holding off any judgement for or against Windows 8 until I use it for myself, which I have no idea when that will occur.

dhromed:

PDF is built-in as a Metro app, so no more Reader.

 

Now that is a selling point!

 

Windows 8 has given me the strongest sense yet of "where the fuck is my stuff?" of any system change.

Well, except for every time I play a new AssCreed game because those guys fuck about with the UI and controls as if the slick factor is more important than any level of usability. >:(

RichP:

dhromed:

PDF is built-in as a Metro app, so no more Reader.

Now that is a selling point!

Is this a sign that the anti-trust hysteria has finally died down? Or have too few people found it yet for it to be a thing?

RichP:

dhromed:

PDF is built-in as a Metro app, so no more Reader.

 

Now that is a selling point!

 

Until you try to print. Also, I haven't tried the Metro Windows tool, but I know the Chrome PDF plug-in can't do JavaScript, so if you need that, and the Windows version doesn't have it, you still need Adobe.

dhromed:

Windows 8 has given me the strongest sense yet of "where the fuck is my stuff?" of any system change.

Agreed! Far too much stuff is nondiscoverable.

Things my coworkers taught me about Win8:

• That right-click menu in the bottom left can be accessed by Windows+X.
• The Charms menu (swiping in from the left) can be accessed by Windows+C.
• To right-click on something in the Start Menu on a touchscreen you drag it downwards a little bit. Yeah, that's obvious.

Things I found out on my own, some of it by accident some of it by using Google:

• The Settings option in the Charms menu (-ing stupid name for a menu!) is not "Windows 8 Settings" it is "Settings for whatever app you have open right now".
• You can't turn off transparency of the Task Bar without editing theme files in a text editor.
• Moving the mouse into the corner is -ing hard in a windowed virtual machine.

Things I still haven't found out:

• Where's my damn Run command? It's not in the All Apps list.

Having had Windows 8 on my pen-based tablet for a couple of months and now on my touchscreen-based tablet for a week, I see that Microsoft didn't build this OS with keyboard and mouse users as a priority and that they didn't consider pen-based activi digitiser users much at all (to be fair, pen users are a very small minority). Mostly, I don't like Windows 8. There are a few gems but they are overshadowed by crap that has changed simply for the sake of change (like logoff - for a decade or more it has been Ctrl+Alt+Del then L, now it is Ctrl+Alt+Del then O) and crap that is just plain crap. Unfortunately, I've tied my career to Microsoft products so I'm stuck with it.

I personally think the taskbar in 7 was pretty good. And even though I hated Vista's non-cascading start-menu compared to XP, at least 7 has shown some improvement there.
I'm doubtful that those tweaking programs for taskbar and start-menu can faithfully reproduce that stuff, and the hooking/DLL injection shit into the shell required to achieve it is pretty awful too. I bet it doesn't increase the stability of the system.

Not havig used 8 yet: Have they really completely removed aero glass? I heard different things about that.
And why? That doesn't even remotely make sense. The Windows 3 look is awful.

FrostCat:

Also, I haven't tried the Metro Windows tool, but I know the Chrome PDF plug-in can't do JavaScript

I consider that to be a feature.

Like kpdf asking something along the lines of: "This document is 'protected'. To you want to restrict your usage or do whatever the fuck you want?"

dhromed:

PDF is built-in as a Metro app, so no more Reader.

Assuming you only ever want to view one PDF at a time. Having a full-screen app associated with WAV files is especially bizarre. I had a better UI on my 36 MHz Psion PDA from 1999 than Microsoft think you can accomplish on a modern tablet, including the ability to open as many files of the same type as you want (although the system default was one file open per program).

I recommend people skip 8, simply because the UI is so painfully fragmented and messed up (and you're forever batting off the charms bar) but it doesn't bother me all that much. It's annoying that the Start corner doesn't follow the taskbar — I have the taskbar at the top of the screen, and Start remains at the bottom left. But then, the whole idea that the "real" OS is a program inside the "fake" OS is just a mess, leaving you with two different ways to switch program (although alt-tab covers both "Metro" and "desktop" applications collectively, which doesn't make any sense).

I can't decide whether I find the Vista/7 glass system attractive, or grotesque, and the simplistic style in 8 is good except for the ban on white title bar captions, so no dark themes any more (which were already ruined in Vista).

I don't personally like 7, but it's a remarkably clean, tidy, sane system, and 8 shatters that accomplishment.

As for the alt-tab fading, that goes away if you disable minimise/maximise animation, which I always found particularly irritating.

One other note: when you minimise a window in 7 or earlier, it goes to the back of the alt-tab list. At long last, this no longer happens, so you can return to the Nth program you were using regardless of whether you switched task via alt-tab, minimise, or (in my case) pressing F10, which is bound to minimise. Always-on-top programs still mess up the order, and appear first. And there's still no way to jump to a program signalling for attention.

topspin:

Not havig used 8 yet: Have they really completely removed aero glass? I heard different things about that.
And why? That doesn't even remotely make sense. The Windows 3 look is awful.

Windows in 8 do have shadow still, but it's subtle. The desktop is still fully composited. What's gone is the abhorrent see-through title bars (why do I want to see a smeary mess of the window behind?), and the blur — the taskbar is still transparent, but it doesn't blur what's behind it. Apparently this is in the name of improved battery life — the blur is a lot more CPU intensive than simple alpha blending.

I don't mind the new look all that much — it has the clean simplicity of Windows classic, without looking like you're trapped in the mid 90s. Don't forget that Windows 3 was actually very elegant, once it got a few colours besides grey (in version 3.1) — my issues with 3 were the instability, short AND non-case-preserving filenames (even my old 8-bit machines have case insensitive, case-preserving file systems), and a level of complexity a hundred times greater than its capability. MCI doobreys and SYSTEM.INI and WTFBBQ.386 files and all sorts of other meaningless guff, dumped in a heap into huge folders. Dreadful system. Cute, but utterly dreadful.

Zylon:

dhromed:

It's fine. Haters can go suck a dick! :D :D

 

So if you mod, delete, or reconfigure the things you don't like, and learn to ignore the things that you can't fix, and manage to figure out the terrible touch-centric interface, then it's fine, is what you're telling us.

THANKS.

 

I've installed 8 stock standard with no additional configurations (IE, desktop "Start" button). It works fine. There's a small learning curb, but there's nothing wrong with using the Metro icons as a desktop. They work as fine as the standard desktop ever did, and Live tiles always let me know on the latest news/weather/mail without any effort of my part.

The base Windows 8 is just as usable with the start button as it is without, but the only thing I really had to relearn was the search feature built into the OS, (although some features are stupidly hidden, as mentioned above).

Don't be afraid of change.

 

dhromed:

try right-clicking in the Start corner. Bet you didn't know that. Windows itself sure as fuck doesn't tell you about it.

For those of us who don't happen to have a Win 8 system around, enlighten us: Whatkind of awesome feature is accessed that way?

Regardless, as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to consider Win 8 a kind of "beta" version of the the next-version-which-is-actually-not-much-more-than-a-service-pack-to-fix-all-the-crap-they-fucked-up-in-the-last-one (just like Vista) and avoid it if possible.

I get this:

topspin:

Not havig used 8 yet: Have they really completely removed aero glass?

 

Yes, it's all flat.

topspin:

The Windows 3 look is awful.

It's beautiful. It's not as overdesigned like Vista and 7.

topspin:

I bet it doesn't increase the stability of the system.

Bollocks.

topspin:

I'm doubtful that those tweaking programs for taskbar and start-menu can faithfully reproduce that stuff

Less conjecture, more trying.

 

 

havokk:

Where's my damn Run command? It's not in the All Apps list.

 

Uh, it's in the Win-X menu.

havokk:

Moving the mouse into the corner is -ing hard in a windowed virtual machine.

True, but I hope your VM software has cursor capturing?

 

Anonymouse:

enlighten us: Whatkind of awesome feature is accessed that way?

 

It's a dry menu of all the stuff they couldn't be arsed to sanely integrate into Start/Metro so it's collectively dumped in this secret menu.

Adanine:

learning curb

 

I like this expression. I guess it's not the one you intended to use, but I like it and will use it when opportunity presents itself.

Adanine:

Don't be afraid of change.

People usually fear the consequences of change, rather than the change itself - they don't like floundering in unfamiliar territory.

Most experiences I've read about Win8 seem to revolve around the author's attitude to exploring new things or learning new ways of doing old things.

 

Adanine:

I've installed 8 stock standard with no additional configurations (IE, desktop "Start" button). It works fine. There's a small learning curb, but there's nothing wrong with using the Metro icons as a desktop. They work as fine as the standard desktop ever did, and Live tiles always let me know on the latest news/weather/mail without any effort of my part.

This, although the stock weather app doesn't like me for some reason. Not that it mattered, the weather service they used in Australia was generally way off anyway.

Adanine:

the only thing I really had to relearn was the search feature built into the OS

Also this, especially for settings, as in 7 I found it quicker to jump straight into a Control Panel by searching for it instead of diving through. Only a couple of extra keystrokes, but still annoying nonetheless.

topspin:

I'm doubtful that those tweaking programs for taskbar and start-menu can faithfully reproduce that stuff

Start8 does a pretty good job - a client (who is really really really bad with technology) was sold a laptop running Windows 8 by his foolish son. For some reason it wouldn't run 7 and definitely wouldn't run XP, so we had to make 8 behave like 7 - we discovered that Stardock's Start8 is a very faithful reproduction of the Windows 7 style start menu and it looks like it belongs there. I was pretty impressed with it.

dhromed:

It's beautiful. It's not as overdesigned like Vista and 7.

I've been using it on my personal PC for a few weeks, and I've gone back to work on my Win7 machine. 7 looks utterly tacky in comparison, with the glass and especially the curved corners. I also like the colour changing colour scheme thing in 8 - I have a slideshow of fruit wallpapers (there's a theme you can download from Microsoft) and the title bars and start menu change colour to match the dominant colour in the wallpaper, whereas at work I have the same theme but with clear glass instead, because that's the least objectionable Aero colour scheme I can find, and it's just... not right. Again with the glass and curved corners and tackyness.

Douglasac:

I also like the colour changing colour scheme thing in 8

 

It's a neat feature, but it's too distracting so I turned that off. I've got a pale blue now.

dhromed:

It's a neat feature, but it's too distracting so I turned that off. I've got a pale blue now.

I don't really notice it. Sometimes I do but I find the effect subtle enough to not be distracting. That being said I generally hang around in Chrome with a skin and Office 2013, so the only thing that I would really notice then is the taskbar.

havokk:

Where's my damn Run command? It's not in the All Apps list.

In the Win+X menu, or on Win+R, where it's been since Windows 95.

dhromed:

True, but I hope your VM software has cursor capturing?

That's probably even more annoying than trying to target corners (I like being able to drag my mouse in and out of the VM; also, remote desktops don't have cursor capturing, and I like to run my remote sessions non-maximized in RoyalTS).

Douglasac:

Start8 does a pretty good job

Try StartIsBack - IMHO, it does a better job than Start8, and it's cheaper.

ender:

Try StartIsBack - IMHO, it does a better job than Start8, and it's cheaper.

It looks exactly like the Windows 7 one, with curved corners and faux glass. Which doesn't match everything else with Windows 8, which is pointy corners and (with the inexplicable exception of the taskbar) solid. Start8 looks as if though it belongs. Ergo not my thing. (I don't mind the Start scree anyways really) That being said, the price isn't too bad, and there's two Win8 machines at work that they may want the old Start menu on, so the $3 license will probably go over pretty well with The Boss and The Accounts Mistress.

dhromed:

Alt-tab fades between windows which is goddamn annoying.

I forgot to mention - you can disable this in Control Panel.

Douglasac:

It looks exactly like the Windows 7 one, with curved corners and faux glass.

Look under Appearance - there's two skins that give it Windows 8 look. You can also turn off the transparency there. And if you want, I've got Windows 8-style orb images here.

havokk:

Things I still haven't found out:

• Where's my damn Run command? It's not in the All Apps list.

someone else also mentioned windows+R; but if you're just trying to get to a program like cmd and not send flags, then just start typing at the start screen

havokk:

I see that Microsoft didn't build this OS with keyboard and mouse users as a priority and that they didn't consider pen-based activi digitiser users much at all (to be fair, pen users are a very small minority).

agreed.

ender:

you can disable this in Control Panel.

 

ender:

Look under Appearance - there's two skins that give it Windows 8 look.

Would you like some pie?

 

havokk:

To right-click on something in the Start Menu on a touchscreen you drag it downwards a little bit. Yeah, that's obvious.

To be fair, it's not as if you can tap with a different finger.

Two common ways to access the context menu/options for an item on touchscreen or mobile devices:

1: Tap with two fingers;

2: Tap and hold for a second, until you get tactile/visual feedback.

Apparently MS chose neither.

dhromed:

Windows 8 has given me the strongest sense yet of "where the fuck is my stuff?" of any system change.

I consider that a far more serious flaw than you do, apparently.  There need to be some pretty big benefits to justify that kind of cost, and I'm just not seeing them.

Also, since everyone's suggesting their favourites, I like Classic Shell for fixing the desktop usability. 

The new Start screen is just stupid.  Overloaded with irrelevant information.  ("Like a carnival full of barkers all jumping up and down to try and get your attention", as I read one description of it, although I'm paraphrasing since I can't be bothered to look it up).  And if you're on a mobile data connection, that's costing you real money, and what's worst of all is that there's no way to switch off all the live tiles at once: you have to do it not only individually for every single tile, but also again for each individual user account.  That really sucks.

 

 

DaveK:

And if you're on a mobile data connection, that's costing you real money, and what's worst of all is that there's no way to switch off all the live tiles at once: you have to do it not only individually for every single tile, but also again for each individual user account.  That really sucks.

 

If you're on a mobile connection, then you should tell Windows that, and make it a metered connection.  That might stop it.  (I wouldn't imagine live tiles take up THAT much data, but I don't know.)

FrostCat:

DaveK:

And if you're on a mobile data connection, that's costing you real money, and what's worst of all is that there's no way to switch off all the live tiles at once: you have to do it not only individually for every single tile, but also again for each individual user account.  That really sucks.

 

If you're on a mobile connection, then you should tell Windows that, and make it a metered connection.  That might stop it. 

Might being the active word there: it's even what MS says, in the only official description I could find of what a metered internet connection setting actually does:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/metered-internet-connections-frequently-asked-questions:

• Start screen tiles might stop updating.

I did indeed set the connection as metered, but I'm not really satisified with such a vague guarantee.  Saying that they 'might' stop updating implies that they also might not.  No clue as to which or when or how or what exactly setting the connection to metered actually does.

FrostCat:

(I wouldn't imagine live tiles take up THAT much data, but I don't know.)

Depends on the app, I expect.

DaveK:

Might being the active word there: it's even what MS says, in the only official description I could find of what a metered internet connection setting actually does:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/metered-internet-connections-frequently-asked-questions:

• Start screen tiles might stop updating.

I did a bit more googling, and found these two pages, which basically suggest that it's entirely up to the app how it behaves on a metered connection; any restraint is entirely voluntary, and knowing how software development tends to go, I'd bet that actually implementing that feature often falls by the wayside.  ("The app works without it, let's ship it now and add that in v2.")

What a coincidence, I just installed Windows 8 too, one day before this thread was posted.

I did a clean install because my previous Windows 7 OEM installation (ASUS laptop) was way too buggy (I even considered writing a long rant to post here on the side bar, but I'm too lazy and had other things to do). Now it's only slightly buggy. Explorer sometimes crashes on startup (but restarts in a second), the keys for adjusting brightness don't work (I can fix that by uninstalling Asus' ATK package, but then it's the volume keys that don't work), and I just spent the whole day tracking down some bug in "Microsoft iSCSI initiator service" that caused "NtShutdownSystem" (a phase of shutdown) to take over al minute. Other than that it mostly works fine.

The OS itself is not too bad, but it does have some actual issues. For example, Windows 7's start menu automatically showed you the most used elements, which seemed to work pretty well, whereas the Windows 8 start screen just dumps new things on the right and makes you arrange it manually. Many "modern" apps seem to lack some basic functionality, for example IE 10 doesn't have favorites, and you can't turn off spell check in the "Mail" app. Having "two interfaces glued together" can also cause some confusion, for example I tried to add a new event by clicking on the calendar in the desktop before realizing it's completely separate from the "Calendar" app.

Microsoft also seems to be pushing people too hard into their "ecosystem". There's no reason at all to require a Microsoft account to use a calendar or mail client.

On the plus side the Microsoft Minesweeper, Solitaire Collection and Pinball FX 2 are much better than their Windows XP counterparts.

spamcourt:

some bug in "Microsoft iSCSI initiator service"

Nevermind, that was just a coincidence. It's apparently some chaotic "mandelbug" that may or may not have anything to do with which services are enabled.

Wheee.

First Windows 8 bluescreen. DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE — something to do with switching off my camera too soon after dismounting it, I guess.

However, not my first Windows 8 problem. That was when, after only having owned the PC for a week, it decided to damage the BCD (Boot Configuration Data file) and it stopped booting. Technically also a bluescreen, just not one that occurred while Windows was running. Getting the BCD fixed was a nightmare!!

 

Cassidy:

Adanine:

learning curb

 

I like this expression. I guess it's not the one you intended to use, but I like it and will use it when opportunity presents itself.

Rofl. I need to be more awake when typing. But I'm going to try to use it in future aswell!

 

Adanine:

 

Cassidy:

Adanine:

learning curb CLUB

 

I like this expression. I guess it's not the one you intended to use, but I like it and will use it when opportunity presents itself.

Rofl. I need to be more awake when typing. But I'm going to try to use it in future aswell!

 

 Typo fixed.

spamcourt:

ASUS

 

Oh, I have an Asus mobo but no hardware problems of that type.

Just my Canon scanner randomly stopped being a recognized USB device, even though the day before I'd successfuly scanned some items.

spamcourt:

On the plus side the Microsoft Minesweeper, Solitaire Collection and Pinball FX 2 are much better than their Windows XP counterparts.

greeeat.

 

I can't be bothered too much with Metro as I'll just hack that away with Ex7ForW8... it's the removal of Aero Glass which is a dealbreaker for me. I can't stand the boring, dull look of the 'new Microsoft'.

Knowing Microsoft, they'll come up with a new "style" in 2 to 3 years, so by the time Windows 9 or Windows 10 hits the market we'll see 4 different visual styles in one product.

Alex Media:

Knowing Microsoft, they'll come up with a new "style" in 2 to 3 years, so by the time Windows 9 or Windows 10 hits the market we'll see 4 different visual styles in one product.

 

I don't see this as a bad thing. Personally- from what I've experienced and heard- the best thing about the major shifts MS makes in it's software isn't necessarily the actual changes that are made, but the fact that it get's people at least thinking about how  their software works. That is, it prevents things from stagnating. The Ribbon is a good example of this. I mean, sure, it might have some issues- for me, it's mostly about initial discoverability- but that wasn't exactly stellar with the older CommandBars. That's what the Ribbon really did- it got people thinking about whether their software was truly as usable as it could be. In some respects the same thing happened with office 2000's "smart menus" or whatever  they were called. I mean, sure, they were a dismal failure and extremely confusing, but you have to give them credit for actually doing something to try to improve usability.

 I installed Windows 8 on my 5 year old laptop, and I can't really complain- at least not about Win8 itself. I won't say that I had absolutely zero requirements to adjust, but I figure it's equal- I've had to adapt a few things, and the OS has surprised me with neat features, or changes that have been made to the system itself. 

I was initially unsure about the loss of Aero Glass, but then I realized that it's just a whiz-bang feature that doesn't truly add to the usability of the product. Also, I noticed my laptop battery lasts a lot longer- almost 2 and a half hours, which is pretty good considering the thing is 5 years old.

 My only real issue has beein trying to make a "Windows Store"  App in VS2012, but I figure that's just a matter of sitting down and actually learning how to do it, rather than opening a template, fumbling around for 30 minutes, and giving up.

 

 

BC_Programmer:

the best thing about the major shifts MS makes in it's software isn't necessarily the actual changes that are made, but the fact that it get's people at least thinking about how  their software works. That is, it prevents things from stagnating.

 

Yeah, but too much change and you'll end up with programs that are not tools but expressions of philosophy and then nobody can get anything useful done with the software.

There's a sweet spot, is what I'm saying.

dhromed:

Yeah, but too much change and you'll end up with programs that are not tools but expressions of philosophy and then nobody can get anything useful done with the software.

You mean like emacs?