Published at LXer:

For years, the classical desktop has been the main interface for interacting with computers. Consisting of a menu, a panel, and an area to display widgets and open windows, its main virtue was originally its easy access to applications and files. It remains popular today, featured in at least five of the seven major Linux desktop environments. Increasingly, though, it is becoming inefficient -- a trend that is not helped helped by experimental designs that decrease access to resources rather than increasing it.

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Solution is simple: use the command line.

From the article:
This is perhaps the dumbest thing i have read in one of these "news" links. Sure i want a computer that will read my mind, could somebody start working on that?

Part of the problem, if there really is a problem, is that the modern DE's have become so heavy with gee-whiz bells and whistles, that add nothing to usability, that they in themselves present a barrier to ease of use.

The old WM plus a few independent widgets and maybe a panel, plus a terminal is far and away more easy to use than recent versions of Gnome and KDE. Ease of use may come at the price of dropping the gee whiz factor and the hundreds of options and tweaks in which DE's seem bound to bury themselves.

I agree with fogpipe about the bells and whistles. Fluxbox and Enlightenment are desktop-y enough for me.

This "everything has to look like a phone/tablet" notion just leaves me cold; on a computer screen, it's neither functional nor efficient. Plus I like my overlapping windows. Also, get off my lawn.

As for the article, the kindest thing I can say is that someone must have had a deadline to meet.

I was going to throw a whatever and and then a screenshot of my IBM P3 T23 Icewm install
when I read this. But then thought I was the only one that felt this way.

Good to see I am not the only one.

So, whatever.

I use fluxbox, Rox filer, and lilyterm and everything is very efficient, so yes the article is BS.

Classical desktop is one way of abstraction to do things easily, simple, elegant, working, useful. It is not going to get outdated. If the author likes something else let him go/change to other interfaces.

Agreed. The classic desktop is still completely functional if you keep it "CLASSIC" and not "filled with so much garbage you can't even find your programs".

I use KDE with none of the geewhizzery that is available (traditional kmenu, no desktop widgets, basic panel) and it simply works, and works well, even on my 6 year old laptop (which is the one I'm on currently).

DWM ftw!