I just wish they used modal dialogs less. I get a modal dialog to update some plugins I didn't even install every time I open it, when a file has changed, when a file has been deleted, etc.
Modal dialogs should be the exception. Windows explorer is doing the same, modal dialog if anything went wrong, including things that happen all the time (losing network connectivity on a network drive, happens basically every time the computer goes to sleep or wifi gets disconnected, and then you have to click click click for every open folder).
"If you pop up an error box of any sort, they simply will not read it. This may be disconcerting to you as a programmer, because you imagine yourself as conducting a dialog with the user. Hey, user! You can’t open that file, we don’t support that file format! Still, experience shows that the more words you put on that dialog box, the fewer people will actually read it.”
Reading through that site, I see some things that... aged poorly. Like https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/11/21/choices-headaches/ which tells you to avoid giving users choices, which is hiw you get problems like what's happened to some Linux desktops that keep hiding useful functionality. Or https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/09/06/its-not-just-usabi... which promotes the idea of not giving feedback to abusive users, which is an ancestor of the Kafkaesque policies where Youtube or Facebook or Google Play bans you with no explanation of what you did wrong and no way to appeal.
I don’t agree with your examples. In the first one, he describes a specific problem, and I agree with his description and proposed sketched solution. I see no explicit connection with the later problems of modern programs removing options. In the second article, he describes a method for fighting spam, not abusive users, and it was a reasonable idea in 2004. And I seem to recall that even this very forum currently uses that method, so it must still be very effective, which in turn points to Joel being correct. The negative aspects you describe I feel lies more with the centralized monolithic nature of those actors. Of course, a tool can be used badly, but I’m not sure the article has aged that badly.
Nobody is going to read that text, either. People see a box, they immediately close it. Also, even if they did read it, people don’t know what a “disk” is, nor what “wipe” means.
I think you conflate two things: user initiated and program initiated modals. UI wise they are the same, but UX wise they are entirely different things.
For a lot of things you do actually want modals: file open dialog, yes/no dialog and similar so that is styled uniformly across the UI and comes from OS you trust so that the program has access only to the file[s] you explicitly gave access over OS dialog. These are the good modals.
However, modals are designed to take away the focus, interrupt you mid typing and what not. In absolute majority of the cases (and I cannot think of exceptions from the top of my head) you do not want the program to take the focus without explicit user action.
I don't like the user initiated modals either, but I understand this is a matter of taste. For example, the search function opens a modal that covers part of the text, and when it's out of focus it's semi transparent. I'd much prefer it to open from the bottom, or the side, or somewhere else, but definitely not on top of the middle of the screen where I'm working. I find other editors much nicer in this regard.
I wish I was as articulate as you. This is exactly what I mean when I see the not responding messages in Mozilla Thunderbird on Fedora/Gnome.
I would probably be ok if it happened very rarely but it happens all the time. I don't know what to replace it with though. We need to convey the user some way that their clicks and keypresses won't do anything because the application is unresponsive but as a user I dislike the dialog window that comes up and goes away after a few seconds.
I think a notification banner at the top of the window like many browsers do is fine, it doesn't block the user, is still visible, you just leave the behaviour that is the most harmless in this particular case (don't lose the changes in the case of notepad++).
Modal dialogs should be the exception. Windows explorer is doing the same, modal dialog if anything went wrong, including things that happen all the time (losing network connectivity on a network drive, happens basically every time the computer goes to sleep or wifi gets disconnected, and then you have to click click click for every open folder).