When Longhorn release, Linux got end. 3501

I can agree that it may look pretty cool.

The notion that it will "certainly" reduce the learning curve, erm, don't think so.

I'd buy that having some scheme for visualizing the 'gesture' of jumping from virtual desktop to virtual desktop might have merit, as the notion of the 'VD' is rather abstract.

But I don't see anything "clear" about the notion that a 3D representation will improve much of anything.

To the contrary, it is not uncommon for people to have not-entirely-perfect depth perception such that the addition of the third dimension may confuse rather than clarify.

Attempts to use colour to make things "clearer" have similarly been pretty mixed because the use of colour isn't intuitive; it's learned, and because making systems vitally dependent on colour is dangerous when an appreciable portion of the population is colourblind. They have to leave a lot of extra hints with traffic lights in order to cope with the fact that the most common form of colourblindness involves the inability to see the difference between green and red, those being the grand opposites.

If this is honestly what Microsoft is trying to use as a would-be improvement, then they are in bad trouble because it will backfire on them. Making things dependent on the ragged (sometimes broken) edges of peoples' perceptions is NOT a win. -- "What is the purpose of a person acquiring perfect French pronunciation if they have nothing of value to say in any language?" -- Walter Ong