Daring Fireball: Broken Windows:
Windows is like a bad neighborhood, strewn with litter, mysterious odors, panhandlers, and untold dozens of petty annoyances.
One of Mr Gruber’s better efforts, tying in nicely with Jane Jacobs[1] as well as the other reference he cites.
I brought up a similar point earlier today, on the invisibility of Windows processes. [Mac-users-discussion] video conversion:
What’s ironic about this for me is recalling the late 80s and early 90s when Windows was even less useful than it is now (DOS was still what people used) and the knock on Mac OS was that there was no terminal to run commands in. There was some implied moral superiority in using a CLI versus a graphic interface. Now, of course, the command line in Windows is an application rather than a complete interface to all the subsystems. I feel superior, but then I did in the old days, too.
fn1. Her 1961 book Death and Life of Great American Cities details how successful communities work to keep people safe and connected. 2004’s Dark Age Ahead follows this up but as a warning rather than a discussion of observed successes.