Is it a bad thing if you don't need to know anything?
The article's comment about the Ribbon in Office/Windows 8 "assuming [you] don't know how to use a menu, a key command, or a honest-to-goodness toolbar" is silly. Menus and toolbars make things more hidden, more modal, less discoverable, and key commands are still there. What's the problem?
If the point of design is to reduce the total number of clicks required to get to your goal, reduce the total amount of clutter and get as many useful elements in front of the user when they need it (without hunting/searching through menus and help files) than I think Ribbon is fantastic. Of course, it takes adjusting to, if all you're used to is hunting through menus.
If the point of design is to make you feel intellectual and special because you know how to use this set of tools and there's no tutorial, than why are you using a GUI at all?
He constantly expresses his love for Windows 95 and older Mac distributions.
One has to wonder why he didn't just profess his undying love for command line operating systems. No animations, no curved edges, no tutorials, no help.
Just you and the computer.
I'm chalking this up to: "GET OFF MAH LAWN"
(How dare my calendar look like a real calendar! This is a computer, dammit, I expect black screen terminal and green letters!)
The article's comment about the Ribbon in Office/Windows 8 "assuming [you] don't know how to use a menu, a key command, or a honest-to-goodness toolbar" is silly. Menus and toolbars make things more hidden, more modal, less discoverable, and key commands are still there. What's the problem?