alt Hacker NewsThat last sentence of the article about waiting for the rest of the world to catch up really describes how I felt for way too long after 1994. In addition to the things mentioned in the article and the comments here, by that time I was used to having a standard OS-supplied scripting language that every self-respecting software program integrated with (ARexx), a standardized localization mechanism for software (locale files), and a generic OS-wide mechanism for handling file formats (datatypes). Finally switching over to Windows and Linux really felt like a big step backwards in some ways, and it took quite some time for the rest of the world to catch up (subjectively at least).
I'm still waiting...
I know there's a lot of rose tint involved, but things like ARexx, datatypes, screens, and assigns still feel hopelessly missing.
Every time I get a file open dialog without a list of assigns I can also use in the shell, for example? What is that bullshit.
I've started building small things to paper over the worst of it for my own use, but it also makes me wonder how many other great innovations I'm unaware of that we've largely forgotten about.