for The Rest Of Us from FOLDOC

for The Rest Of Them ⇝

for The Rest Of Us

(From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products.

2. Describes a program with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not "confuse" a naïve user. This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it.

Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor luser might not be able to handle them. Becomes "the rest of *them*" when used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash.

[Jargon File]

Last updated: 2000-08-08

Nearby terms:

for The Rest Of Them ♦ for The Rest Of Us ♦ Forth Modification Lab

Try this search on Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google, OneLook.