Joel Spolsky goes deep on what seems like a simple subject: shutting down a Windows box. It turns out that there are way too many ways to do that:

Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I'm guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I'm not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to.

On many laptops, there are also four FN+Key combinations to power off, hibernate, sleep, etc. That brings us up to 13 choices, and, oh, yeah, there's an on-off button, 14, and you can close the lid, 15. A total of fifteen different ways to shut down a laptop that you're expected to choose from.

This is exactly the kind of problem I'm trying to address in Cincom Smalltalk - the plethora of choices that leads to paralysis by neophytes who just want to get something done (Listen to my last podcast for more). You may not agree with how Joel would cut down on the choices, but he's definitely on the right track.

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