The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience

I must (belatedly) say that, while the original line in the article amused me too, this is *exactly* what I observe every single time I see a non-technical user (co-worker or family, for instance) using GNOME or Windows. They don't understand, or want to understand, the difference between activating an already-existing application (window switcher) or launching a new application (panel launcher/quick launch icon or Applications/Start menu). The result is that their desktops *are* littered with dozens of old/empty/unused web browser windows, calculators, file manager windows, etc.

The Mac got this bit of UI exactly right back in 1988 when System 6 implemented multitasking. Activating an application (whether from the Finder [file manager], Apple menu, the Launcher [System 7-era application launcher], At Ease [dumbed down application launcher for very young or novice users], or the Dock etc.) brings the application to the front--irrespective of whether the application is already running.

When you are used to this way of working, going back to GNOME 2, KDE, Windows etc., where the sequence of user inputs necessary to bring an application to the foreground changes based on this arbitrary, technically mystifying and frankly uninteresting implementation detail of the underlying operating system feels so incredibly frustrating and backwards that I am amazed that it has taken 24 years for someone to get around to implementing task launching/switching the same way that Apple did.