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On the Humble Default
Hugh Pickens sends along Kevin Kelly's paean to the default. "One of the greatest unappreciated inventions of modern life is the default. 'Default' is a technical concept first used in computer science in the 1960s to indicate a preset standard. ... Today the notion of a default has spread beyond computer science to the culture at large. It seems such a small thing, but the idea of the default is fundamental... It's hard to remember a time when defaults were not part of life. But defaults only arose as computing spread; they are an attribute of complex technological systems. There were no defaults in the industrial age. ... The hallmark of flexible technological systems is the ease by which they can be rewired, modified, reprogrammed, adapted, and changed to suit new uses and new users. Many (not all) of their assumptions can be altered. The upside to endless flexibility and multiple defaults lies in the genuine choice that an individual now has, if one wants it. ... Choices materialize when summoned. But these abundant choices never appeared in fixed designs. ... In properly designed default system, I always have my full freedoms, yet my choices are presented to me in a way that encourages taking those choices in time — in an incremental and educated manner. Defaults are a tool that tame expanding choice."
response by default
... of de programming language that your code doesn't compile!
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
Do the defaults on slashdot still require posters to manually type HTML codes for line breaks?
I always thought the misleading options on the posting form were a pretty funny newbie filter. Welcome to slashdot, RTFM.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
More and more are taking the choice to default than ever before.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Default was first used in computer science in the 1960s because that is when computer science, as we knew it, began. It was picked up from common usage outside of computer science, and was general use well before then. Unfortunately I am old enough to remember it as a common term in the 1950s. For example the default land area for a house (at least in my part of the world) was a quarter of an acre and it used to be referred to as the default area.
Defaults have been around for a long time. For example. When an electrician installs your light switch, the default is for up to mean ON, and down to mean OFF. To flush most toilets, push Down on the lever. etc
... but them damn defaults are also responsible for a good number of security vulnerabilities. Default passwords and what not.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I don't subscribe to his crazy theory. If defaults are to be defined as a configurable initial state, then they've been around for a lot longer than he's claiming. He's just writing for the sake of reading his own words.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
We might not have called it that, but default solutions and default products have been around since the invention of mass production. From then on, there was a "default" product, a standard product that works as the default if you didn't order something specifically different.
Hell, even the spanish inquisition had a default verdict.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> Choices materialize when summoned. [rest elided]
i thought da fault came from cali... 'neath etsy.
OK.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Non English speakers / translators!
Did you have trouble translating the word "default" into other languages? How difficult/easy was it to find a translation for "default" for user manuals in, say, jp or cn or fr?
Asking because I had trouble figuring out a good word for it in Hindi. Still not sure if we have the right word.
Do note that /. only allows ascii in posts.
Can't see Hindi?
I wonder what would happen if I responded to your comment. /. defaults is linking to xkcd)
(of course, one of the
Does convoluted writing add credibility to your statement?
Does not knowing the slightest thing about cognitive psychology help you get attention?
Not in the rest of the world, but on /. it gets you to the front page.
Ever since Lehman Brothers, the default has definitely been making a comeback. Let's see how much money I lost today.
No real geek/nerd would ever even consider using the default settings. Only real men use the default, real geeks use their own settings. Thats why none of their shit works.
I'm trying to think of something prior to 1950 that had an overridable, configurable default. It's hard. Business telephone systems had some configurable defaults, but setting them up required physical wiring. The same was true of Plan 55-A Teletype message switching. IBM plugboard-wired tabulators didn't really have defaults as we think of them today. Machine tools had adjustable speeds and feeds, but no real defaults. Jacquard looms didn't have defaults. Linotypes didn't have defaults. Chain-programmed embroidery machines - no.
The closest thing I can think of was General Railway Signal's NX signaling system for controlling railroad interlockings. This 1930s system may have been the first "user-friendly interface". An NX system controlled multiple switches and signals in an area (an "interlocking") preventing conflicts. Interlocked signal controls had been around for years, and they handled the safety issue, but before NX, it was the user's responsibility to figure out the desired path from A to B. With an NX system, you selected an "entry" point where a train was going to enter the interlocking, and all the reachable "exit" points would light up. The "reachable" logic took into account other trains that were in the interlocking area. When the operator selected an "exit", the NX system would pick a path between the entry and exit, routing around other trains or even track locked out of service.
A default "best" routing was hard-wired into the system, but the operator could override the default routing manually, by picking some intermediate point along the path as the "exit", then selecting that as an "entry" and picking the final "exit".
That's the oldest system I know of with a real "default" mechanism.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Asking because I had trouble figuring out a good word for it in Hindi. Still not sure if we have the right word. Forgot to add: the closest translation I could come to was "pre-decided" and that doesn't seem to mean the same thing as "default" - it should actually be a word or phrase that means "pre-decided but modifiable to something else".
Can't see Hindi?
Each house is almost 11,000 square feet?
Land area means the land the house sits on, not only the house. A quarter acre is not really that large.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The limited production in ages past meant that EVERYTHING was default. Want a car? Here's a Model T. It comes in black. Want bread? It comes in white. Sliced. (Wooo!) Defaults aren't new, they are a return to an older, simpler time, when many of your choices were assumed based on limitations.
Yay me!
Well... It would have worked if you'd spelt it right.
tiannanmen
Quite easy in Chinese. Since /. is too US-centric to tolerate Unicode, I'll just post the Unicode codepoints for these two characters: U+9ED8 and U+8BA4. Look them up in a Unicode table ;)
This Chinese word for "default", in a more literal translation, means "tacitly accepted/recognized". It has nothing to do with the financial meaning of the word "default", which translates to a completely different word in Chinese.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Sorry for replying to myself, but on a second thought, I found that the phrase might be translated more accurately as "accepted without an explicit choice/decision". Anyway, I hope you get the idea ;)
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
But if you are looking for another computer word that has made it into common usage, how about "reboot"? It's now used to describe starting anything over from scratch, especially in things like movies. For instance, the new Star Trek movie has been called a reboot by several movie critics.
I can imagine a time far in the future where "reboot" is listed in the dictionary with the etymology saying "origin unclear, borrowed from computer terminology". 95% of people will not know that it comes from the REpeating the action of BOOTstrapping a computer. Bootstrapping or booting a computer comes from the term "to lift oneself up by the bootstraps", which is impossible and refers to the apparent chicken and egg problem of a computer loading itself up with software.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
David Gay
Try Tiananmen perhaps?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
In French, it's usually par defaut, which is unsurprising considering the number of words we share.
The etymology of the word is more apparent in French: it can be understood as de faute, literally "by lack [of something better/else]". You could translate the whole thing as "because of lacking-of-something-betterness".
I have seen it translated as equivalent of pre-set or initial-settings or factory-settings.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
Do note that /. only allows ascii in posts.
Yeah, about that.....I asked for UTF8 and as a result we got strange bars and colored dots. Careful what you ask for on slashdot. They just might do something. I still remember the horror of the pink ponies....
Qxe4
The Spanish Inquisition had a constant verdict - even simpler than a default one.
That's the beauty of a default: it'll just freaking work. Not ideally, but good enough to get you going and let you change it later on, at your own pace.
Wrong. That's hardware detection. And it's gotten so good I don't even have an xorg.conf anymore.
I recall watching this TED talk a while ago that touches on the subject of how defaults heavily influence our decisions. Cool stuff:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
Just toggle the switch if you don't like the current setting for the light. Works on multiway switches too.
I recommend Nudge by Thaler&Sunstien The book discusses how people structure defaults for the choices you make, from the positioning of goods in a supermarket to healthcare to choosing a school and (sort of) attempts to describe a philosophy for working out what default is a 'good' default to present. I largely agree with them. Default choices have been set since time immemorial. Default religion (in the UK) :- Church or England, a few hundred years ago if you chose a non-default religion you may well have experienced adverse consequences.
If you read The Economist, you may have noticed a recent review of the book "Nudge".
I have more than a sneaking suspicion the original poster (and TFA) have been reading this as well.
Suffice it to say that the shallow commentary here pales in comparison to the jaunt through behavioural economics that the book provides. If you can get past it's focus on public policy and just absorb all the core information, the book provides good advice than you'd ever think existed on the art of defaults.
I often see it translated as "standaard" (adj.), mostly as "standaardwaarde" ("standard value") in Dutch. A more accurate translation would be "verstekwaarde" (literally "default value"), but I doubt many users would understand that word nowadays.
Not at my school... I was under that impression as well, but most of the courses here ended up being algorithms and math related...
Default is what happens when you don't show up to meet your obligations, legal or otherwise. You are making the "none of the above" choice.
This is a concept that goes back a REALLY long ways.
Default settings seem to be something that few people get right...
They should more or less be failsafe, and there should always be a 'reset defaults' option (for when you **** if up)
if stuff doesn't 'just work', it needs better defaults (or a better autoconfig)
a 'default password' should be criminal. Nothing should work till its changed... though that does tend to remove 'password' from your list of passwords.
The Bible: Historically verifiable fact from an observers point of view
But defaults aren't automatically good. Good defaults are good. Bad defaults aren't ;).
;).
;).
So what are good defaults for configuration? I think of it as a form of compression.
The most common+safe+useful settings should be the default. The trouble is figuring out the right balance of safety and usability for your product or system.
It's not easy to get right, and that's why a lot of stuff is crappy or just mediocre[1]
For many things it doesn't have to be just "default vs ADVANCED mode with zillions of settings".
It could be: Small, Regular, Large, Extra Large, Custom/Advanced. With Regular being the default selected option.
See the compression of the decision tree? You don't want most of your users to have to make too many unnecessary decisions. Even if they can make the decisions - it's more work for them and makes things more error prone.
McD doesn't have their staff ask users the details of what they want upfront- they don't ask whether you want ketchup, pickle etc. The sets are listed and there's Regular and Large (and supersize?). Any further customization if possible is on demand.
And they go "Will you have fries with that" even if you already said "No" or "yes" to fries... Hmmm maybe McD isn't such a good example
[1] The dev gives up thinking really hard about what the default should be, picks the first somewhat usable one and replies with "WORKSFORME" if users complain.
I have an SLI system and ( I believe my motherboard is damaged ) most of the time the second card isn't "present" so sometimes when I boot, there are 2 cards, sometimes one. Now, when this second card magically appears, xorg can't figure out which one is the primary device ( I'm fairly sure the first one would be a good default ) and I get "no screens found" in the logs and X won't start. Took me a little while to figure that out and fixed it with a Busid line in xorg.conf.
Probably would have fixed it faster if I'd actually looked at the logs straight away and I'm fortunate to have multiple computers ( quick google search led me to the answer ). I'm guessing the problem arose from the second card not being present during the installation.. so the hardware detection still has some ( minor but significant ) gaps.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
In Icelandic
It is "SjÃlfgefiÃ" or "Sjalfgefid"(since the special characters get fubar) which translated literally to English, would mean "Given by itself".
I think it's a very old word, since it also can mean "taking something for granted".
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
A good UI is not one that limits options of the user, but one that has sensible defaults, and options tiered by theme and frequency of use.
A bad UI is either too stuffed with options to navigate, or simply has no good defaults.
A lame UI is one that purposely limits options "because the user could be confused". (an unchecked checkbox "[ ] advanced options" won't confuse an inexperienced user, but lack of it will irk advanced user to no end. Yes, Gnome, I'm looking at you!)
If you know your UI is bad, but have no clue how to make it good, simply make it so customizable that the blame of "not making it good" can be passed on the user.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Assuming we're talking about the noun "default", it translates very differently to different languages. For example, Finnish uses constructions based on "oletus-" ("assumed"), such as "oletusarvo" (default value) or "oletusselain" (default browser). In Swedish, "förvald" ("preselected") is used for default somethings (e.g. "förvalt värde" for default value) and a default in general is a "förval" ("preselection").
Spend enough time using a translated computer system or studying or practising CS in a language and you'll pick up the terminology. The problems start when translators have decided to translate things differently. For example, both Windows and Mac OS have "File" menus, but Finnish Windows calls them "Tiedosto" ("File") and Finnish Mac OS (IIRC) calls them "Arkisto" ("Archive").
How difficult/easy was it to find a translation for "default" for user manuals in, say, [...] fr?
'Default' actually COMES from french. The translation is défaut. Surely you could've found that out pretty easily.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I've got a feeling I'm one of the few (maybe the only) here who has ever programmed an analog computer. They had default settings, be they operational amplifier (electronic) or shaft/cam/lever (mechanical) designs.
You could certainly get a default kernel as far back as 1995 - if there hadn't been a default kernel you couldn't have installed a working system anyway. But back then there were no kernel modules - everything was built in - so if you wanted a smaller kernel (to not take up so much of your 256kB RAM, say) you had to build the kernel to match your requirements.
But default kernels pale into insignificance against the vast amount of configuration you had to do when you installed a new linux system. You had to configure pretty much everything. I remember it taking me a couple of days to get a server installed and set up (in about 97) - nowadays it would take an hour or two. Admittedly that's partly because i know a lot more about it now, but mostly it's due to usable defaults.
Is true.
I started my quake engine from a different engine. There are like 3 different designs for a quake engine: faifhfull to the original, eyecandy and e-sport. Faifhfull engines are as similar to the carmack one as posible, ...as similar as what is delivered, since the intention of carmack is unknom. Eyecandy engines are as pretty as posible, with better textures, particles, colors and effects. And e-sport engines make the game as fast as posible, easy to sport enemyes,... most screenshots of a e-sport engine look somewhat like Tron from the disney Tron movie.
Since I am in the eyecandy camp, my first release whas the original engine (tomazquake) with different "defaults". Most stuff that can be modified, was setting to "eyecandy". Like shadows-on, use better particles, etc.. That was already a different engine. A project start with a different taste, and everything grows around it. And a "Default" is this taste in the world.
----
Bonus comment:
Some applications grows soo big (soo bloated), that the "defaults" is what define the application, since most people will play with the default, but changing these can be something else. In some ways (not really true)a "distro" is a different "defaults" for Linux.
-Woof woof woof!
I know this is going to start a brushfire:
ORIGINAL SIN.
Real geeks submit comments using their own home-grown browsegmentation fault
Why "default" rather than "standard"? Why are people constantly giving words multiple meanings? bastards.
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
A million is very very few?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And because some people don't know a word, we just give up.
You know, sometimes I get so damn tired of this country.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
'Default' actually COMES from french. The translation is défaut. Surely you could've found that out pretty easily.
Yes, but etymology doesn't tell me what word is commonly used in software user manuals for the $LANG, or how close the word used is to the English meaning.
Can't see Hindi?
In Russian, this has been split into two meanings:
- "po-umolchaniu" - this is about computer or equipment default settings
- "defolt" - about financial situations.
...is for there always to be a "restore itemised factory defaults" function as well as the usual "restore the whole fucking lot and sacrifice all the customisations you've spent months getting right" function.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
"Default" - the state of Windows configurations that need to be changed.
Of course, if you're going to use defaults, it's a good idea to choose them wisely...
Ydco co
Another invention of computer science is spreading rapidly to the world at large. Genetic algorithms have been adopted by organic objects having the peculiar ability to temporarily operate on a self-organizing principle based on reverse entropy. They have been observed following this process in order to alter their nature, and one would assume to improve it, over time. This improvement to "life" is called "evolution", and in all but the simplest of these objects is carried out through the act of information recombination called "sex". Obviously computer science is responsible for the creation of these concepts, and "life" owes its nature to this field.
Another creation of computer science is to be investigated for its role in the creation of creation. The effect on hardware when confronted with an overpowering surge of energy is called a "bang". Computer science is to investigate how big of a bang would be required to result in reality.
In the beginning was the void. Computer Science looked across the face of the void and said "Let there be Bits." And there was Bits. And thus did Computer Science create all that is, and ever shall be, for ever and ever, End Of Line. Let us bow our heads and program.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
In Hindi, default will roughly translate to "poorva-nirdharit",which is identical to pre assigned.
In German, the default is to simply use "default", at least in the context of computers. An alternative would be "Werkseinstellung" literally "factory setting2
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
The concept of default arrived when choices started to appear. The 'default' paintjob on the T-Ford was black. No sense in calling it default then. When choices appear you also have people saying 'duh, i don't care'. Hence the default (cheapest) option provided by the producer. Did someone really need a whole article for this?
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
I never said I had a dual-head setup, I said I had ( intermittent :P ) SLI.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
I often deal with Romanian and Russian translations - both these languages have an equivalent for 'default'.
See the suggestion of another poster, find an equivalent expression, such as "factory settings".
The saddest poem
I have noticed that the games he plays in the playground with other kids have also acquired a pause function.
Time-out was in professional sports long before the early 1980s, when it spread to home video games. And it's not even called "pause" or "time-out" on every playground.
Asking because I had trouble figuring out a good word for it in Hindi.
Don't most Indians speak English too?
Last time I checked, Computer Science has been around since way before the 1960's.
Yes, but prior to that the concept of a default was likely unnecessary. At least until the 1950s, most software developed was pretty-much single purpose, and configuration options weren't really necessary. Data entry was typically performed using punched cards/tape, so a user-interface default is something that didn't apply, either.
I asked the guy who did the electrics in our loft to please make sure all the switches started in the ON position. Take that, determinism!
Getting married without a prenup is like dying without a will -- works great so long as the default law fits your situation. Otherwise, someone takes advantage of the default law.
Try Tiananmen perhaps?
For Pete's sake, folks, the word is transliterated. There's no single correct spelling in English. If you can't live with that, you can conform to the manual of style of your choice. But don't flame over it.
DE FAULT!
Don't most Indians speak English too?
About 10% of them do, which is enough to make them numerically the country with the second-most English speakers. Of those, about a third speak it as a third language. My experience tells me that about half (with a very wide margin of error) of Indian English speakers can read it well but not have a functional conversation with a native English speaker. About a third of the population is entirely illiterate.
I suspect English language skills correlate fairly well with computer literacy, since both are the product of the higher education not available to many of the population. Since it's certainly not a one-to-one correlation, I'd stick with Hindi.
Pah, humbug. The french don't even have a word for entrepreneur.
But the author is claiming that they weren't called defaults before computers.The author's claim is consistent with what I know, but I am young enough to be unwilling to say that he is definitively correct.
However, none of the arguments made so far on here that he is wrong succeed.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=default
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c.1225, "failure, failure to act," from O.Fr. defaute, from M.L. defalta "a deficiency or failure," from L. dis- "away" + fallere "to be wanting." The financial sense is first recorded 1858; the computing sense is from 1966.
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How I see it, all the word 'default' means is the state an object is in if you don't mess with it. e.g. the default position of a football is on the centre of the playing field, until one of the players kicks it. They didn't need computer science for that.
Please keep your rants to your blog.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
What about the laws of thermodynamics? They seem to establish a default state of the universe which may only be altered with an input of energy.
Apparently default isn't as commonly used as I thought. I asked what toppings came on a burger by default at a restaurant once and got a blank stare. Coworkers who were there later told me that default was too technical a term (which surprised me)
tienanmen
tienanmen tienanmen tienanmen tienanmen
here, they may look at it no more, talk freely
Oh, everybody in China knows what Tiananmen Square is. It's a beautiful plaza in Beijing, not secret or forbidden at all. Nice tourist spot. Mao's mausoleum is right next door. You should go there sometime.
And in Tiananmen Square, in 1989, nothing at all happened. Why do you Westerners use that name as if it's some sort of forbidden thing?
Default: What you should do on student loans when you can't make payments on both them AND the rent.
(not me, some story I saw on one of those newsmag shows).
When they want to refer to the massacre, they usually call it "May 35, 1989" since the actual date is usually filtered.
In Spanish its "Por Defecto"(By default), like "Opcion por defecto"(default option) and so on...
Slashdot ya no es que lo era!
Tiamat's scarier.
I drank what? -- Socrates
In (mexican) spanish we use to translate default to "por defecto" (very roughly translated as "by defect") or "por omision" ("by omission") I don't think we have a single word with the exact meaning as default (however, that don't stop many bad translators to use "estandar" ("standard") instead).
DON'T PANIC.
The reason they do that is because they're always bound to get stupid people who order a Big Mac and come back to complain they wanted a large, not a medium (the default). Asking if you wanted it supersized was more of a marketing thing, but there's always the people who are just so stupid they complain when they order item A and item B and get item B and item A.
They need an ordering system that forgoes the cashier entirely and presents all the options plainly, so it's obviously your fault when you screw up.
"Default" was a poorly chosen word in this context, even in English. It has too many negative connotations; it suggests that a user who hasn't changed the factory settings has failed in some way. "Preset" is a synonym in this context, and a better word, since it is neutral.
Does Hindi have a term equivalent to "preset"?
Will
Wow, that's creative.
* A Plea for Attention from Bill, Shooter Of Bul
[ ] I am committing suicide
[ ] I am getting a tattoo
[x] I am running away
[x] And this time I mean it
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
In 1974 I was talking to Pentti Kanerva about a text editor he had written for a TENEX system at Stanford. I asked about the possibility of adding a new command and he said 'sure, but not until you tell me the default behavior.' It turned out he had lots of requests for new features, but when put to the test the requesters couldn't articulate what the default should be in any one of a number of different situations.
His point was that adding new features was relatively easy, but getting the defaults correct was considerably harder because it had to do with discerning the user's intent. 35 years later I still think this was one of the more insightful things I've heard.
Nevermind "hardware detection".
There just aren't that many possibilities out there. You can present the end user with
a list of the most likely candidates and have them just select one. If they hardware is
good you don't even have to worry about them destroying it with bogus values.
Nevermind "hardware detection", how about presenting a menu?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
In the US, having a light-switch up for on is not the default. It is the legally required setting. You cannot install the switch the other way without breakng a law called The National Electical Code. Likewise, you can't drive on the left side of the road in the US without break the vehicle code. Of course, one is more likely to be prosecuted than the other. But believe me, if you do your own wiring, the inspector will not sign off your bulding permit until you comply.
I agree, that a good set of defaults is the best thing a software can have. But most deveolpers are not thinking this to the end.
Defaults are the solution, for the perfect merger, of freedom, and simplicity (which is closely related to efficiency, but not the same, and often confused). That's why they are so important.
Two examples are Gnome and KDE, the old arch rival friends.
Gnome decided, that the most important part, is simplicity. But their developers thought, you could not reach this, without removing freedom. So they hard-coded options, which also saved them the time to implement the other options. But in the end it was a pointless loss of efficiency and freedom, because of laziness and that false dichotomy.
KDE decided, that freedom is the most important part. But their developers thought, you could not reach this, without removing simplicity. So they added every option and feature they could think of, which unfortunately killed it for users who just want to use it, and not do a thousand decisions every time they use something with an obvious default. In the end, this was pointless too, because of the loss of efficiency and simplicity, because of that same false dichotomy.
If you now think, that I show no respect for their hard efforts, to make a good desktop environment, you are wrong. I love their hard work, that they are doing entirely *for free*. So I can't make any demands anyway, and so can't you. But you can inspire them with your ideas for improvements!
And my idea here, is that you can have both. Without any losses. Freedom and simplicity.
Trough actually allowing choices, and implementing options. (I think you can do much better there, Gnome developers!)
And then choosing the absolute best defaults. These are the defaults that are determined by the usage patters of your user base. And nothing else. (I think you both can do better there, KDE and Gnome developers!)
And then there is a second level of defaults. Those of the specific user.
The idea is that you only change the things, where your preferences differ from the usual. Of the user base. And of your own usual usage.
Apart from that, those choices and options have to be completely out of the view and not disturb you in any way (I think you can do much better there, KDE developers!), but be available in the blink of an eye.
And finally, to perfect it, and actually make a step beyond the basics that are know for decades, offer a hierarchic set of presets.
On the fist level, offer people to download and activate one of many presets for the whole of KDE or Gnome, on installation. And let them make their own.
On the second level, offer a choice and the creation of presets for specific applications and application groups. Just by having a preset on-line browser on the first start, and giving you an export and publish function for your configuration state.
Those global presets could be created out of those specific presets, by bundling them.
That way, a designer could choose the (in)official "Designer" master preset, but the "Kenny's DVD authoring presets" group, for the burning and video applications. And then only have to set one single option, to reach his state of perfection, in terms of efficiency without playing with that thing all day long, just to be able to use it like he wants.
As a final thought, I hope at least someone will be inspired by this.
Remember that I wrote this, to improve the state. Not to to slam anyone. So I also hope that I'm not misunderstood.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
...Or should I say, luser name?
I love the concept of "default." It means I don't have to think about %99 the things I do on a daily basis, simply because the defaults are good enough. Without this concept driving design and development, we would have never gotten this far with technology, as each extra layer would have added way to much complexity for the user.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
å©å®é--ååoe (å©å®é-å£å) :) Just to make sure they get it.
Here you go in unicode
& # x 5 9 2 9 ; & # x 5 B 8 9 ; & # x 9 5 E 8 ; & # x 5 E 7 F ; & # x 5 7 3 A ; ( & # x 5 9 2 9 ; & # x 5 B 8 9 ; & # x 9 5 8 0 ; & # x 5 E E 3 ; & # x 5 8 3 4 ; )
When previewing it didn't look right, so I added the html symbols if someone else knows how to post it correctly.
I'll have you know that TinyMCE makes very clean and minimal code (XHTML strict compliant). Of course it still outputs a horrid nightmare when you paste a Word document into it, but to say it's not good because it can't handle that is like saying a car's unsafe because it doesn't protect its occupants in a top-speed head-on collision with a runaway freight train.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How did you manage to type 2 instead of a quote? Are you posting from a Commodore 64!?
Comment of the year
I was at a meeting at Microsoft recently. A program manager on Visual Studio said that in their metrics, only 10% of the people ever open the Options dialog in a program, much less change anything. For that reason, the default configurations have to be right, and it takes a very strong argument to add the feature to make changing the default configurations even possible.
You know, mechanical knobs which have a default position which you can feel, a detent. (What I am describing is not a switch, but a variable resistor or capacitor). The most common place we will have seen these today is in a L-R fader or a F-B fader in a car stereo. Analog equalizers also frequently have a detent.
Adjustable pushbutton radio tuners are another example.
These are two contenders for non-digital forerunners of "defaults".
What I'd like to see is a rotary optomechanical knob with software-controllable detents. Preferably also with a springloaded push switch, a springloaded pull switch, and a joystick mode.
For all that digital makes possible, the mechanical interface to so many of our digital devices is simply horrible.
"Default" as a concept is the result of INDUSTRIALIZATION and mass production.
To suggest that somehow this is a result of computerization is amazingly naive.
-Styopa
Because "standard" implies something more?
"Standard" implies there was a deliberative process involved, which isn't always the case with "defaults".
"Default" could have just been what made sense to the programmer on one particular day, and he or she just left it at that.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Forgive a non-hindi speaker, Is there a concept of prefixes to words? If so can you use pre-suggested?
It would be awkward in English, but it wouldn't be incomprehensible there. Is it the same in hindi?
Gravity Sucks
Also pretty easy in Russian. Literally translated, means something like "in the event of silence" or "when unspecified."
Sig? What sig?
For Pete's sake, folks, the word is transliterated. There's no single correct spelling in English. If you can't live with that, you can conform to the manual of style of your choice. But don't flame over it.
Pinyin is well-established as the system for representing Chinese in our alphabet. It is not a matter of choice or opinion. The place is called "Tiananmen". The only debate is on whether there should be an apostrophe after the first n to represent the syllable boundary.
poorva-nirdharit Oh yes! poorva nirdharit or poorva-niyojit should do fine.
Can't see Hindi?
This is good Foucauldian history. The author has an excellent point about a nearly invisible way that choice is structured in our age. The fact that the word 'default' has a long etymology, like all words do is natural enough - and even that the technology had a predecessor in the way that NY subway trains were routed in the 1930s only serves to reinforce the author's point. Nothing is ever born out of nothing: it evolves - repetition with a difference. What the author has identified is a really important aspect of the management of knowledge in our age (all the more clearly so because it appears so 'basic' to us), and I think it's really insightful.
Pinyin is well-established as the system for representing Chinese in our alphabet. It is not a matter of choice or opinion.
First off, Hanyu Pinyin does not romanize into the English alphabet: It comes close, but used strictly it returns words which the untrained - but literate - American cannot pronounce.
As far as "no choice" goes, there's Hanyu Pinyin, EFEO, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Latinxua Sin Wenz, Chinese Postal Map Romanization, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale, Legge romanization, and Simplified Wade. And that's just for Standard Mandarin romanization. A transliteration from Cantonese or Chinese Mandarin, for example, will likely return a different result.
While Hanyu Pinyin is the system officially adopted by the ISO and China for Mandarin romanization, its use in the United States is spotty at best. The press generally uses an Anglicized bastardization of it, but actual Chinese people who studied it before immigrating often find it useless and burdensome. (Which is why we had that uproar in Texas some months ago.) The inability of Pinyin to render speakable English words makes it, essentially, China's government masturbating in a hot tub next to the UN, with the press taking photos which it edits heavily before release.
First off, Hanyu Pinyin does not romanize into the English alphabet:
That's fine. I didn't mention this English alphabet.
It comes close, but used strictly it returns words which the untrained - but literate - American cannot pronounce.
You've started to talk about an irrelevant nationality.
As far as "no choice" goes, there's Hanyu Pinyin, EFEO, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Latinxua Sin Wenz, Chinese Postal Map Romanization, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale, Legge romanization, and Simplified Wade.
And Hanyu Pinyin is the standard one. It's like Unicode versus legacy encodings, or metric units versus legacy units.
And that's just for Standard Mandarin romanization.
Which is what we're talking about.