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Nicholas Petreley Slams Gnome
FreeLinux writes "Mainstream computer rag ComputerWorld, has posted a review of Gnome 2.6 by Nicholas Petreley. This opinion piece review, titled Living Down to a Low Standard, positively lambastes Gnome 2.6 over the new spatial Nautilus and Gnome's design choices. The review is quite the opposite to a previously reported review from PCWorld, last month. While this latest review is bound to be a polarizing and heavily debated issue (read flamebait), it is important in that this review will be seen by so many mainstream readers and corporate types who may have been considering Gnome."
Why doesnt he pick on someone his own size? :(
Those poor gnomes.
Sadly, the article brings up some very good points, albeit in a very inflammatory way.
The most damaging part of the "review" is that it says nothing aboout Gnome as a whole. It's just a rant about this user's opinion about how Nautilus was designed ( changed) to work in 2.6.
This sort of rant, if done constructively could certainly help the developers make better choices, but to put it directly to mass media as a review just sucks.
Well, as a Pointy Haired type myself, I can assure you, these mags hit the coffee table in the lobby - and very few people actually read the articles... However, if this review makes the front page, Gnome is toast.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
### Warning! ###
### CATCHPHRASE ALERT ###
Nicholas Petreley uses the tired term "paradigm shift" in his article!
[not that anyone will actually read the article...]
### CATCHPHRASE ALERT ###
### Warning! ###
No big surprise here as Petreley has always been a KDE rulez, GNOME sux0rs guy. The piece isn't even well written or accurate. Here is a decent rebuttal. Petreley hasn't quite figured out that the GNOME v. KDE flamewars are dead yet.
Apart from flaming the spatial Nautilus, there's nothing short of a rant in generalities here. Nothing is mentioned specifically, and it's just the author whining about GNOME's design principles. Are we sure this wasn't written by Rob Enderle?
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
But man that wasn't much of a review. It was little more then a rant about the way the window manager works. I agree that you should be able to change preferneces like that easily but come on give some more evidence other then that for trashing the system.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
Opinion by Nicholas Petreley
MAY 10, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - I recently spent the better part of a week working with the latest version of the open-source GNOME graphical desktop environment on Linux. I've decided that the only way to explain the regression of GNOME over the years is that Microsoft and/or SCO moles have infiltrated the GNOME leadership in a covert effort to destroy any possibility that Linux could compete with Windows on the desktop.
To paraphrase the humorist Peter Schickele, who was describing what it was like to discover a new music manuscript by the (fictional) inept composer P.D.Q. Bach, "Each time I get a new version of GNOME, there's this feeling of anticipation and exhilaration -- a feeling that this new version of GNOME can't possibly turn out to be as bad as the last one. But so far, each new version lives down to the same low standards set by the previous one."
By the time a software project gets to Version 2.6, a user might reasonably expect that he wouldn't have to adapt to yet another paradigm shift in basic user-interface design, especially when it comes to something as fundamental as how you navigate through desktop folders. Yet this is precisely what users will have to relearn with this latest version of GNOME.
The GNOME file manager, Nautilus, no longer allows users to navigate through folders as one might use a Web browser or Windows Explorer. You no longer browse with all your options accessible in a single window or a split window with a directory tree on the left and icons on the right. Instead, each double-click on a folder icon opens a new window on the screen. If this sounds familiar, it's because this was the default behavior of Windows 95, OS/2 and early versions of Mac OS. The fact that this isn't the default behavior of any mature desktop operating system might have served as a warning sign to GNOME's developers, but never mind that.
Having used OS/2 for years, I found GNOME's retro approach to be a rather pleasantly nostalgic experience. But now that I'm used to navigating folders the way one does on virtually every other desktop, however, I decided to tell the file manager not to open a new window for every folder. But it turns out there is no preference setting that tells Nautilus to use a single window to browse folders.
The only way to change the default behavior of Nautilus is to set an obscure registry key via the command line or the registry editor. Not even that abomination of operating systems, Windows 95, made users retreat to the registry editor to use a single window to navigate folders. I can only assume that the GNOME developers decided to make Nautilus a worse Windows than Windows. I toast their rousing success.
Granted, there are myriad unintuitive keystrokes and shift-key/mouse-click operations you can use to make it easier to navigate folders, all of which will mean squat to the daft simpletons the GNOME developers say they are targeting as their users. But GNOME developers have long since abandoned logic when defending their design choices. For example, one GNOME developer says there's a good reason why users can't change individual colors in desktop themes: Someone might accidentally make both the text and background white, thus rendering the text unreadable.
Of course, this flaw has nothing to do with the inflexibility of the primitive graphical tool kit upon which GNOME was based. It was deliberately designed to protect users who are invariably too incompetent to pick their own colors but are smart enough to memorize shift-clicks and keystrokes or edit the registry to get Nautilus to work the way they like.
Of all the criticisms one might lodge against GNOME, it's the hypocrisy of its design philosophy that looms largest. GNOME grew out of the desire to free people from Microsoft's ability to dictate what users can or can't do. Yet GNOME is built on the premise that its developers are so much wiser than users when it comes to navigating folder
I'm glad the author of the slashdot story managed to keep his biases concealed until the third word of the story. If the article had praised Gnome, however, why do I suspect we'd be hearing about "Esteemed technical journal ComputerWorld..."
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Jorge Castro, one of the Ars Technica writers has written a very nice article refutng Petreley's claims at his site.
Because Windowmaker is all I want. But Free Software gives us a bountiful array of choices. I don't get why Nick P. needs to run down someone else's desktop.
He needs to mind his own business and write about something he DOES like rather than running down something that he doesn't like.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
I am all for simplification, but there is no reason to go back to kinder and ABC wooden blocks.
The biggest argument against spatial navigation, as produced by gnome 2.6, is that it requires the user to learn TWO different styles of navigation: one for their browser and one for their files.
That is NOT simplification. And they didn't ask the community, and they are going against the gain of EVERY other OS.
If spatial is going to pay dividends when "database" filesystems arrive.... introduce spacial THEN. And even then, have it as an option. Besides won't a database file-system be based on searches? So won't we need "back" and "forward" buttons???????????
I am not going to swear here, but I am MAJORLY pissed at gnome. I am on 2.4 atm because of it. It is at worst elitist insanity, at best a poorly executed jump of the gun.
Little tunnels where I live.
Pointy hat. Pointy hat.
Pointy hat hides my secrets.
Damn the garden spade!
Damn the garden spade!
(Nods to the applause of a dozen hipsters snapping their fingers)
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
For example, one GNOME developer says there's a good reason why users can't change individual colors in desktop themes: Someone might accidentally make both the text and background white, thus rendering the text unreadable.
A logical choice would have been to remove the first color selected from the second choice and voila.
Choice is a good thing. If you don't want a choice of desktops for your operating system I suggest installing Windows or buying a Mac.
How dare he criticize something as trivial as "how you use the fucking thing".
Most people find that clicking-opens-a-new-window behaviour annoying. It makes browsing around your directory as annoying as closing popup ads - its the same experience, pretty much. Your screen clogs with shit you dont wanna see.
He makes the point that no modern desktop OS does that, and for a reason.
Why is everyone so defensive? It's a perfectly valid criticism. It makes the desktop frustrating to the point of unusable for many folks.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
however the fact that both exist and compete for resources is in my mind one of the main causes behind the failure of Linux on the desktop.
;)). They wouldn't work on the other if they had any choice in the matter, and since this is FOSS, they do have a choice. They aren't competing for resources because if you took away one project most of the programmers wouldn't migrate to the other, they'd just start again.
This might (and I say might) be true if they were competing for resources. But they aren't: the reason there are two projects, and both are actively developed, is that there are some programmers who just fundamentally don't like how KDE/Qt works while there are other programmers who don't like how Gnome/GTK work (and then there's the ones who prefer lesstif/bare X, but they're just weird and can be ignored as a statistical fluke
Enough with the "Kill all but one desktops" please.
I agree with this article. (I even read it.) I want to give it mod points. Can we do that?
I used to configure the crap out of gnome, making it do all kinds of weird stuff I liked. Then, version by version, my toys were taken away. I don't get it. If the toys made it unstable, why not fix them? What ever happened to the idea of "advanced" vs. "novice" settings for a UI? Every version that comes out has LESS functionality than the one before, railroading me into a certain way of interacting with a desktop.
In Soviet Russia, the desktop clicks on YOU!
Make it easy by default, but don't take away our toys and call it progress.
-ave
...or maybe not.
What 'this' are you talking about? I assume from your next sentance that you're talking about my claim that Petreley has a pro-KDE/anti-GNOME bias. If that's the case, then the way I know this is I have read his opinion of GNOME and KDE for years. He always criticizes GNOME and always praises KDE. I don't have the time to google all his past articles on them, but you can do it if you don't believe me.
By the way, this is not to say that some of his past GNOME criticism hasn't been justified. But this particular article was pretty bad. Criticising a whole release for a single feature? Come on.
Again, I wish you were more specific. I assume by 'paper bloggers' you are talking about the author of the article I linked to. I probably should have mentioned that he is a well-respected ArsTechnica contributor. I have a lot more respect for ArsTechnica than I do for ComputerWorld. ArsTechnica is very comprehensive and accurate. Your opinion may vary, however.
The fact that linuxquestions.org or a web search is needed to answer such a question should be your first clue that something is seriously amiss.
However, my favorite file manager for Linux is still the command line, closely followed by Midnight Commander (yeah, command line). I've never gotten used to Konqueror (KDE), I've never gotten used to Nautilus. That's to say... I think the both suck.
However, my choice of Desktop (I run KDE at work, and Gnome at home) is pretty undecided. They both have features that I like ... at the functionaltiy level. My main problem with the article is that it didn't touch on the things that make it a desktop. Icons, Menus, Task-bars, Desktop switching, key bindings, etc.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
"It was deliberately designed to protect users who are invariably too incompetent to pick their own colors but are smart enough to memorize shift-clicks and keystrokes or edit the registry to get Nautilus to work the way they like."
We have achieved GUI parity with the MAC!!
I would rather be ashes than dust!
[PETRELEY:] Not even that abomination of operating systems, Windows 95, made users retreat to the registry editor to use a single window to navigate folders.
GConf is nothing like the Windows Registry, except for the similar appearance of their respective editors. If Mr. Petreley cares to compare and contrast GConf and the Windows Registry he would know this. In fact Nicholas, I will paypal you $100 US if you can name three architectural similarities between GConf and the Registry.
Ho-ly crap.
Here you have the GNOME fan arguing with a straight face that the user might care about architectural similarities or lack thereof between the Windows Registry and the GNOME equivalent. Earth to Castro: nobody gives a shit. The users just want to be able to configure the OS.
Years of experience with Windows tell us that the Registry is a terrible place to put important config choices. Why not learn from that lesson instead of flaming users because they don't understand the architecture?
sulli
RTFJ.
I've had Fedora Core Test 3 installed for about a week now, and I gotta say, I love Gnome 2.6. It's very clean, polished, and the gnome bundled apps are consistent with each other.
That being said, I still haven't decided if I like the spatial file navigation of nautilus, although I'm trying to give it more time. I'm a command line guy, so I tend to think in "browser" mode, and I think most of the people here on /. are probably command line/browser mode entrained people.
For people who started their computer experience on Mac's, they'll probably love the new nautilus, but I started on DOS 2.0, so I might be to old of a dog to teach.
For a better rebuttal of Petreley's article (and how to access "browser" mode in Gnome 2.6), check out: Crack Pipes for Everyone!
The article spends most of its time on Nautilus, and I'm not going to rehash the debates here. But he makes a valid point, one that I've wrestled with since Day One of Linux:
/.
Engineers design programs that work for them, not for end users.
I've seen this time and again during my work as a software product manager. Everything from base functionality to key UI choices are made by the development team based on what they find useful, or what they think will be useful. It is a very, very rare team that actually conducts any workflow analysis or UI usability studies during the design phase. And, once it's coded, it will cling like a limpet to a rock, difficult if not impossible to change.
I know enough about my own predispositions and biases to know that my judgment about what's best for me isn't always what's best for everyone. While both Microsoft and Apple make poor function / UI choices, with Linux the problem is magnified because each piece is built by a different design team using a different methodology.
Server-side and admin people aren't bothered by this, but your average end user is easily frustrated by applications that don't behave in an expected way, or don't have settings that can be easily changed to adapt to the user. If you give your software to a reasonably knowledgable end user, watch the interaction with your product. Don't argue, or explain why the actions aren't correct. Take notes, and figure out a way to accommodate the user. Don't use the mantra of "Read the man pages, foo!" That only leads to reviews like Petreley's, and the ensuing does not / does too debates on
"There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution."
--Mike
There's still a lot of UI wisdom from the pre-OSX days, and to simply dismiss it is foolish.
Spatial webbrowsing is impractical because of the nature of HTML and the infinite space and chaotic organization of the network. In addition, you don't manipulate the web, you view it and interact with it. Spatial concepts become very useful when interacting with files (i.e. drag it to the trash to delete it) but isn't so necessary when all you're doing is looking at data. File browsing has a very different set of requirements and constraints.
Ultimately, what's interesting about the above is that a spatial metaphor encourages the user to interact with their data, where the portal viewing method that Windows and OSX uses is meant more for viewing, like on the web. Perhaps the reason why Apple switched to the portal viewer metaphor for OSX is that there's so much in UNIX that you're not supposed to manipulate, where in the old MacOS you could manipulate anything really.
And one thing that's very much in favor of spatial organization is that it's actually much faster to move files around than the porthole metaphor, at least if you know what you're doing. With the porthole method, you open up windows explorer (which by default is a totally separate icon/interface than starting from My Computer or whatever) and navigate to your file. Then you have to navigate to where you want to move it to on the sidebar. That's the most efficient way to do it, and you still have to bring up the sidebar, which may not expand far enough over to easily see as deep in the file tree as you need.
In contrast, with the one-window per file method, you open up each folder, holding down the shift key on each open so that the previous one is closed, and where the file tree branches off from the current file location and where it's going, you leave that window open, and keep drilling down the file tree. Then, once you get to your file, you go back to that branch point you left open and drill down the other half of the tree. This is much quicker because you rarely have to navigate two full trees, and you don't have to deal with a sidebar that's too small due to the fact that you have all this extra data hanging around. Who needs to see the whole damn file tree at a time on the sidebar? Once again, this sort of thing has no bearing when all you're doing is browsing the file tree and seeing what's there, but when actually manipulating it, it's of huge benefit.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Is that anything like dwarf tossing?
(Oh, I see, the subject should read GNOME in capitals. very misleading.)
I'm sorry, but I just don't like that kind of argumentation. Mainly because it's a flawed one.
I'm not going into the debate of KDE versus Gnome, since I only tried them out sporadically, but the 'if you don't like it, bugger off' reasoning has always been a very weak one, IMHO.
It's the same sort of thing you get from, say, chauvinistic USA zealots that answer to every sort of criticism of the government or state/country of fellow americans with: "well, if you don't like it, why don't you move to another country?"
Why should criticism be unvalid because of the possibility to go away, not use it, fork, etc? If the critique is valid, it remains valid, even if there are a zillion other things one can do.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
No, it doesn't.
("Raising the question" != "Begging the question")
(Bored? ME? ;)
Here's the truth: QT on X11 has been licensed under the GPL for almost 4 years. This means that KDE is 100% GPL and 100% Free, and has been for a very long time. No matter what Trolltech decides to do to stay in business, my KDE desktop will ALWAYS be Free.
Spread your FUD somewhere else.
The thing with "spatial navigation" is that it is only effective with a small group of commonly used folders. Back 20 years ago when you were lucky to fit 800k on your Mac floppy, you could justify the spatial finder as making it much easier to navigate your few folders.
The problem is that this thing doesn't scale! As a pathological example, say I have a 800GB volume with 400,000 files (mostly photos I've taken as a professional photgrapher) spread out over 3,000 directories. I'm not going to memorize the screen location of each of those 1000s of photo shoots. Dragging my mouse back and forth across my 24" monitor half-a-dozen times to get to the photo shoot I'm looking for is almost the worst scheme I can imagine. The Windows Explorer 2-paned tree model (as opposed to the MacOS tree where there's only 1 pane) is about the most efficient I can imagine for this scenario.
Now that disks are 1,000,000 times bigger than they were 20 years ago, why is somebody trying to introduce the metaphor that was only appropriate for use back then? Granted, it works fine if a novice user has maybe a dozen commonly used folders, but beyond that it is unwieldy.
I think the best solution is perhaps to use the "spatial" metaphor only for folders created on the user's "desktop". That way your ad hoc folders work the way your real desktop does (spatially), while proper hierarchies are still navigable the way they were intended -- as a tree.
aQazaQa
I think its got a long way to go til it becomes usable. Too much effort is spent on making Gnome a next generation desktop when its not yet up to the standard of a current generation desktop.
/dev/console themselves all the time, you know, just in case...)
Emblems, spatial Nautilus, contextual sidebars etc are great. So are Evo, Gimp 2, XChat Gnome, etc.
But the current Gnome desktop:
* No menu editor
* No way to modify what a launcher points to
* A file manager that acts like it can display web pages, then can't
* A bloody complex file associations menu that doesn't know about either the programs in my Gnome menu, or $PATH.
* No display of emergency messages when your hard disks decide to melt (apparently users have to be proactive and read
* No decent looking, comprehensive theme. Minor in comparision to the rest, but still...
Thanks for fixing the File Open dialog though.