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GNOME 3 Wins Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Award

Posted by timothy on from the de-gustibus-non-disputandum-est dept.

msevior writes "Although Linus Torvalds and some Slashdot commentators may disagree, GNOME 3 has many admirers. GNOME 3 was awarded the Linux Journal Readers' Choice award for 2011." Though I'm one of the complainers, I hope to be converted with the help of Gnome Shell extensions.

43 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. There will be no GNOME 4. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    GNOME 3 is basically a dead project at this point. No serious developers use it these days, and when that happens to an open source project, it dies.

    It was taken over by failed web designers. They screwed up the user interface and the user experience in a way that nobody can use it for real, productive work, and thus no serious users actually use it.

    GNOME users have moved on. There are a small group that stick with GNOME 2. The rest now use KDE, XFCE, or a variety of apps under some standalone window manager. The only GNOME 3 users are those who try it out before moving on to a better desktop environment.

    The same thing is happening with Firefox, too. The productive users are fleeing it because the failed web designers have moved on to fucking up its UI, too.

    It's sad to see these once-great projects fall away like this, solely because failed web designers started trying to apply their failed web design techniques to desktop applications. I suppose that it's a self-correcting problem, however. Software projects like GNOME 3 and Firefox 4+ just don't end up surviving because they lost the users who formerly made them great.

    1. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by masternerdguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I call bullshit, sorry, but GNOME 3 is fucked. There's no way that with all its hate and problems it was picked in a fair poll in any competition, except for shittiest GUI. I bet that these people are either trolling or just pushing the GNOME 3 agenda.

      --
      To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
    2. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      GNOME was nothing but NIH combined with FSF fud over Trolltech's licensing of Qt. It would be nice if we could retroactively abort it.

    3. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And they didn't publish the vote tallies, which means that "voter turn-out" was embarrassingly low. Same as their readership numbers, I guess.

    4. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I never understood why someone would use Gnome over KDE anyway. Gnome always felt kind of a toy or candy interface.

      That's odd, because that's how I've always felt about KDE. I try to use it every now and again but rapidly go back to Gnome 2, which generally stays out of the way and doesn't waste my time with stupid animations.

    5. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What about workflow? How do I minimize a window? Can I run my cpu and weather applet on top bar? What about having more than one window open on the desktop? What if I want to see all that running while not leaving my libraoffice out of view or closed? Can I move my cursor over the icons and get a shrunken preview? Windows and gnome 2 had these abilities for years with the exception of the gpu accelerated preview. Windows NT 4 and win95 had these for over 15 years. Even Grandma would be frustrated by the limitations of gnome shell. It is not a resistant to change. It is the worst gui ever made. Even windows 1.0 made it easier to find things. It is so horrible and so unusable that I switched back to Windows and will leave Unix on a VM. If gnome 2 wont be updated it means it will eventually not compile. That makes us angry as we dont want linux to fade away but kde and gnome killed it on the desktop. Thats why there is so much hate

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    6. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by afgam28 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What exactly stops you from using GNOME Shell for "real, productive work"? I use it and I have no problems getting things done.

      And exactly what "failed web design techniques" have been applied? Can you name one web interface, failed or otherwise, that looks and feels like GNOME Shell?

      After using GNOME 3 for a couple of months, I'm finding that I struggle when I have to go back to a GNOME 2 machine and use it. My problem with GNOME 2, KDE and even Mint's new desktop environment, is that they all look and feel like Windows 95 clones. This is fine if you like Windows, but if you do then why not just use the real thing?

      Something that a lot of people seem to complain about is switching tasks in GNOME 3. I'm pretty sure that these people are just complaining about change without trying it first to understand the reasons behind the change.

      Let's compare switching tasks in GNOME 2 and 3. In GNOME 3 I can move my mouse over to the hot corner just as quickly, if not more quickly, than I can move my eyes there. The corner of the screen is a very easy target to hit. This brings up the overview where I get a thumbnail of every window on my virtual desktop. The animation is fast enough that I don't have to sit there waiting, and smooth enough so that I don't lose context of which windows are where. Each window is as big as it can be, while still fitting everything on the screen. Because of their size they're extremely easy targets to click.

      So that's just one click on a very big target. Not really that hard.

      In GNOME 2, I have to use a Windows-style taskbar at the bottom of the screen. When I've got enough windows open, each task becomes tiny! The only information I get is an application icon and a truncated window title, which is useless if window titles have common prefixes. This is harder and slower than GNOME 3.

      After having used both methods for a while, I'd much rather use an Expose-like task switcher than a Windows-like taskbar.

      As for Firefox, the the reason it's losing users because everyone is migrating to Chrome. And GNOME Shell is based on one of the same UI design principle as Chrome: "less chrome, more content". Chrome gets out of the way and gives maximum space to the website, and GNOME Shell gives maximum space to your apps.

      I'd encourage you to try GNOME Shell for a few weeks before deciding whether it's good or bad. I had to spend this time to unlearn some old habits, but once I did I found I was actually much more productive, not less.

    7. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... or try using Gnome 3 with multiple large monitors. You quickly get tired of moving the mouse the extra kilometers every day.

      Or use remote X11 or VMs, and you can't even get gnome shell, so users have to deal with two different UIs. That's so clever!

      Gnome 3 was made for single-taskers by single-taskers.
      It was apparently designed by people too young to even know about standard x mouse functionality and the power of having focus separate from z order, nor aware that X is a TCP/IP protocol, nor a myriad of other things completely lost on the cell phone generation.

      Yes, get off my lawn, kids. You haven't earned the right to camp here yet, cause you're BLOODY IGNORANT.

    8. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Interesting

      GTK, as done by people who know how to write it, is still superior to Qt

      Care to give some specifics?

    9. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by dbraden · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wakey wakey! ;)

      You can right-click the titlebar and then click Minimize, which can also be done with Alt-F9.

      Or, you can use the gconf-editor to add the minimize button back to the windows. The lack of minimize/maximize buttons is just the default, you can change it.

    10. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're typing up a document and want to reference other things in a different window.

      You're writing code and want to keep it's documentation/requirements. your code, and your language's/libraries' API all viewable by a glance. It would be too mentally jarring to have the screen switch to a task switcher then having to think for a moment which item you want to view than simply glancing at a different part of the screen to get the info you want.

      I don't understand how other people can't understand this.

    11. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by dslbrian · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IMO, look and feel is hardly the biggest failing of the GNOME system. There are more fundamental problems with their user philosophy. Years ago when a new set of workstations were deployed where I work everyone had the option of running either GNOME 2 or KDE 3. Officially the admins only wanted to support GNOME, but within a short time everyone in our location was on KDE 3.

      Why? Well it turns out the admins never really did a thorough test of our tool flow on GNOME. We use a lot of expensive tools that come from legacy Unix backgrounds (they aren't recent GTK devel), so it turns out we had major problems with things like focus stealing. This would be where the app would pop up a messagebox and GNOME would happily yank you from whatever desktop you were working on to wherever the messagebox was. At the time there were no options in GNOME to handle this kind of thing, whereas KDE had a number of focus stealing controls.

      Then there was the issue of resizing windows. At the time GNOME had one method of resizing windows, and that was to continually redraw the content in it - no wireframe or outline methods, only continuous redraw. That's great and all if your most complex app is a web browser, but when you got an app showing a couple gigs of visual data and every window resize event triggers a redraw, it quickly locks up the machine.

      And then there was the question of the right-click menu. WTF was with this menu. It was loaded with a bunch of useless options for creating folders and crap. It was like someone who had never used a Unix machine before just decided to shoehorn in some crap there so the menu did something. KDE at least allowed the menu to be customized into something useful.

      This is all regarding GNOME 2 at the time, but it gets to the core of what I perceive as GNOMEs problem - and as I understand it, this is both widely understood, and truly a development target of GNOME (and I fully expect GNOME 3 to be no different) - and that is that the GUI is not designed to be flexible or changeable, it is designed to be rigid and idiotproof. They are providing a fixed GUI interface for the lowest common denominator of user, and anyone who wants something different can STFU.

      This is of course further compounded by their method of burying the GUI settings in a hundred different files across a dozen hidden directories, perhaps wrapping it in some obscure XML pseudo-code, so nobody can figure out WTF the options really are or what they do (perhaps it's some kind of subtle method of eliminating those annoying hacker types who might undo their GUI "vision"). KDE is no better in this regard. I remember when at least one GUI I used to use kept its menus in plain text format that was easily understood and modifiable, what the heck ever happened to that concept?

      I'm sure if I were to relate to a GNOME dev the problems I had with focus stealing, he would turn around and tell me the problem was with my app, not the GUI. And if I were to relate how I like to launch programs from the right-click menu I would be told I'm doing it wrong and I should learn how to do it the "right" or "better" way. And thus I become yet another alienated user who has moved on to something else. Radically changing an interface and then pushing it as a rigid right-and-only way is going to piss off a lot of people. Lots of people left KDE when they did it, and the same will happen to GNOME.

    12. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by epyT-R · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. what about the conventions that've been around forever for minimize/maximize? they have staying power for a reason. they're simple enough to be intuitive. even if this can be turned back on, it's something that should be there by default.
      2. can I do it without typing a buttload of javascript? ..or using someone else's?
      3. can you answer the question without being a pedantic asshole?
      4. referencing a window while switching to another is a common scenario.
      5-6. windows 95 (along with the others) for all its faults, got the core interface right. being able to see the output of more than one window at a time during a focus switch was considered a good thing. it still is. the single tasking tablet/phone trendhopping idiots behind gnome 3 don't get this I guess. there is such a thing as drawing too many borders around a picture.
      7. ..missing the point entirely.
      8. so your answers were apparently only a thinly veiled troll or astroturf. oh well.

    13. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      in this particular case yes the slashdot opinion is important. because it is us not the general public that use desktop linux bsd or other non-fruity unix. the problem is gnome thinks by making a more "intuitive" tablet / web bastardization that the masses will flock away from there proprietary shackles of mac and windows and fly to their gnuniverse. but lets be honest the average person just wants to be able to stick a cd in the drive or click the .exe and have their program run, most people are afraid of even installing the os, it is only people like us who install *nix and thus only us who use this product they are making, but gnome has shown that they want to chase people who hate and fear the idea of them instead of listening to their user base and making a functional desktop . desktops are not tablet they are not smart phones. the idea that people will want one gui to rule them all is flawed it was tried b4 by pushing the desktop onto the mobile devices that failed apple saw it first and they built new products with a new interface that would not work on a desktop. now everyone thinks that because it works on mobile it will work on the desktop and it will fail to. when it comes to different devices the need different interface because they do a different job

      servers work best with a cli
      desktops work with toolbars icons or the traditional desktop,
      tv's tablets and phones work best with widgets and thumbnails

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    14. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by khipu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It wasn't FSF FUD: Qt really had serious licensing problems. Those have been resolved. But Qt is still a C++ toolkit, with the usual bloat and design compromises that that implies. And it isn't even standard C++, they had to invent their own build system and non-standard language extensions.

      I don't like either Gnome 3 or Unity. So, I gave KDE a serious try again and absolutely hated it: it is full of NIH apps, not-quite-right-graphics, and unnecessary complexity and gimmicks.

      I ended up using XFCE4. It's a little rough around the edges, but on the whole, it's a simple, unobtrusive desktop interface that I can live with. I hope Gnome 4 will go that direction again.

    15. Re:There will be no GNOME 4. by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 4, Funny

      Pass the crack pipe bro.

  2. 2.30.2 under Squeeze works just fine... by mfearby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... and you can pry it from my cold, dead, hands! Wot ain't broke didn't need fixin' and now this GNOME 3 monstrosity is trying to impose its strait jacket upon us just like KDE 4. As soon as you can make GNOME 3 look and behave 99% like normal, usable, GNOME 2.3 then I'll upgrade my distro. GNOME Shell Extensions is perhaps a first step in improving what is a terrible rewrite, but it still looks too irritating for people that care not for the one-app-at-a-time netbook experience.

  3. What other window managers were tested? by Sipper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Okay, so they picked Gnome3, but what were the other window managers they looked at to make that decision? The Fine Article doesn't seem to say.

  4. What about... by Goodyob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I heard somewhere that they're working on a fork of GNOME 2, is that still going?

    1. Re:What about... by kvvbassboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes. The project leader of Linux Mint is also the project manager of MATE desktop. AFAIK, it has a few developers working full time on it to iron out the bugs.

    2. Re:What about... by phaedrus5001 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not any more. It started out on Arch, but recently Mint started using it as an optional DE for those who didn't want to use Gnome 3. The project is still pretty young, but with Mint (hopefully) helping out the development, maybe it will become more usable.

      --
      "It's a trick. Get an axe."
  5. How to boil a frog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Like a lot of people, I hated GNOME 3 (and GNOME Shell) when 3.0 released. I skipped around a little, tried KDE4 (again), tried Unity, tried XFCE (again), but eventually came back around to GNOME 3 with the GNOME 3.2 release. The advent of extensions, as well as spending some time actually learning to use the new environment and making some small changes to the way I do things, has actually brought me to the point of liking GNOME 3 and the new Shell. I now enjoy using it, and I prefer it over the other available options.

    Extensions are a big deal, and if they had been there Day One, I think a lot of the hate for GNOME 3 would not have arisen. I added lots of extensions to re-create the GNOME 2 type of environment. What I found is that in some cases the extensions duplicated functionality already in GNOME 3, but that functionality was achieved in a different way with the new environment. As I began learning the GNOME Shell and building new habits, I found myself disabling extensions one by one. At this point, I'm running with minimal extensions.

    Desktop developers should take note of that. There is nothing wrong with innovative change, but you don't want to shock your users. If you are going to radically change paradigms, make it possible for your users to continue to use the old paradigms and adapt at their own pace by migrating from the old to the new. Don't try to force them down this new path. Extensions to GNOME 3 were the training wheels I needed for my brain to learn the new environment and adapt. Once I got my balance, the training wheels came off.

    1. Re:How to boil a frog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Another important thing for desktop developers to take note of is this. When they force a paradigm shift upon their users, make sure the new paradigm is better than the old one.

    2. Re:How to boil a frog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      XFCE was unimpressive, and I found it really didn't have much of a smaller footprint than gnome. What I really liked was LXDE, especially in the form of Lubuntu.

      I like overlapping resizeable draggable windows that I switch between with alt-tab, and I really don't care how much they want to deprecate it, I simply won't tolerate a DE that takes this very basic workflow away from me.

  6. This sounds familiar... by OliWarner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh that's right, there's somebody like you calling deathwatch on every new thing ever released. You talk about people moving to KDE - a few years ago when KDE 4 was released, you, or one of your many clones was saying exactly the same thing about KDE.

    Gnome Shell will prevail. It might not look like it does in a few years but it's flexible enough and most importantly, hackable in a simple language that doesn't need compiling. Power users will latch onto that and we'll start seeing some really awesome things and then Gnome becomes desirable. And that's already starting to happen.

    Anyway, thank you for yet another very incorrect prediction. You're bound to get it right one day.

    1. Re:This sounds familiar... by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No he's not. I remember how Gnome 2 was the end of Gnome way back. I have to admit that if you really love to fiddle with your Desktop it's hard to beat KDE.

    2. Re:This sounds familiar... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 3, Funny

      Don't taunt him. According to his login, he's a member of Anonymous!

    3. Re:This sounds familiar... by synthespian · · Score: 3

      I've seen this before - a system so fucked up its users need to go on line, on "communities", on "forums" to switch on or off some badly designed asinine shitty smelling wart they call feature. That was Windows. Congrats, Gnomers, way to go!

      When you design your interface in such an annoying manner that it creates emotional pain, it becomes ingrained in the victims memory and the experience never goes away - and then you win! You win, Gnome! Win!

      --
      Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
  7. Gnome 3 is people with large egos. by goruka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The term you are looking for is "usability designers", something that is becoming more and more trendy nowadays. The problem is, there is no solid ground on that kind of theory.. only a few "gurus" here and there and a lot of decisions that seemed to have worked by pure luck. There are a lot of them making a big buck working as consultants for websites and it was only a matter of time until open source desktops were struck by this trend.
    It's simple, someone comes and determines that the way you have been doing things, that worked perfect for you and everyone you know up to this point is not optimal and must be done differently. Then, they throw away something that works for everyone and replace it by something that maybe works better for most, only for a few or for no one.
    It's hit or miss, really, pulled by people with a gigantic ego. Gnome 3 doesn't have access to the large amount of user test groups that Apple, Google or Microsoft do, and even the later companies don't do changes as radical as in Gnome Shell.
    So, yeah, Gnome 3 is just people with large egos forcing their unproven beliefs upon us, the community.

    1. Re:Gnome 3 is people with large egos. by Arker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually there has been some good work done in the area of usability. Tog (ask Tog) really did lay out some basic principles that make sense and work well when applied - and he is largely responsible for the fact that the old Mac interface was so easy to learn and, for some purposes, to use. (Of course for some purposes it was awful, but for the target audience it was a pretty good tradeoff - making things they were likely to do easy, and things they werent likely to even think about hard.)

      But you are largely right. With OSX Apple seemed to largely forget his work, and the whole usability scene such as it is seems to be mostly off in lalaland and engaged in make-work for designers, constantly fixing things that arent broken, and often regressing in the name of progress. The Gnome project seems to have jumped on that bandwagon with both feet.

      Change for the sake of change is fundamentally incompatible with any sane usability doctrine. Even experts and 'power users' get angry and frustrated when an 'upgrade' changes their workflow and/or forces them to learn new ways to do things they have been doing just fine for years. Programs that get a reputation for capricious, arbitrary breakage like that (and GNOME I am looking right at you) are only cutting their own throats.

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
  8. Obligatory by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Funny

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-moXUALZtw

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  9. Linux Journal Readers Choice?? that settles that by smoothnorman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can there be a more experienced and deeply wise plebiscite? of course not! The matter is therefore once and for all time resolved - erledigt. Gnome tre has won the Linux Journal Readers' Choice award! which awards exactly what you ask? hah! if you must ask that then you know nothing *nothing*. Gnome III thereby takes it over all comers in all categories for all time, better than OS/X Lion, better than Meryl Streep, better than sliced bread -- selah. now we can get on with our sad little lives concerning ourselves over lesser matters.

  10. Don't compare firefox with gnome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Firefox is still the developers browser.
    Chrome lacks the range of developer extensions, and while Opera is very standards compliant, it's actually full of nasty bugs that only developers would encounter.

    Firefox doesn't come close to the arrogance of GNOME, since all the funky mods can be switched off.
    After my knee jerk reaction against browser.urlbar.trimURLs, I actually switched this one back on.

    Posted anon since I'm not pulling the /. party-line of hating on FF and evangelizing chrome.

  11. Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers by masternerdguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least those UI designers can't touch the linux kernel!

    --
    To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
  12. "Reader's Choice" is not "Best Choice" by Mozai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am disappointed in this year's "Reader's Choice." It mentions "Gmail" as the best Linux app for instant messaging, "Google Docs" as the best Linux(?) app for collaboration, and the "reader's choice" for Linux games have been the same for the past eight years, despite eight years of new developments (Battle for Wesnoth? From 2003? When there's Warzone 2100, OpenTTD, 0 A.D., Heroes of Newerth, Minecraft, Braid, Darwinia, DEFCON, MegaGlest, Amnesia Dark Descent, Aquaria, Tiny & Big, OpenClonk, SpaceChem ... jeez.

    I think the "Reader's" part of the "Reader's Choice" may be out-of-touch.

  13. Re:Flame wars by masternerdguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    My favourite part about these posts is how people get modded to +3 troll and +2 flamebait because of all the mixed opinions on GNOME 3. It really shows how those mod points are really being used.

    --
    To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
  14. I have been using it for a few weeks now and by Osgeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gee for a DE that is suposta get out of your way and help you work more efficiently it sure does get in the fucking way a lot

    (based on my default install)

    why the hell does the top bar only show one thing at a time, its fucking annoying on my 86 mac and its still fucking annoying on my 2011 linux machine. how is me clicking on the taskbar to select a window in "old fashioned" windows style management LESS efficient than clicking on the magic corner and having to squint at reduced windows, and clicking again?

    mounting filesystems, If I am in the file explorer and click on my windows partition a stupid ass popup comes up and asks me if I want to open it in the file explorer!?! and of course it does not go away unless I click in its general area.

    virtual desktops? as far as I can tell by default they only appear if something is maximized, or you right click on a window and tell it to move, what if I just wanted to click on desktop 2 and open more shit up?

    adding launchers to the desktop, why for the fucking love of god are modern DE designers opposed to me putting a shortcut to frequently used applications??? again how is it less efficient to double click on a icon vs clicking on the magic G spot bringing up a menu, THEN clicking on it from favorites if its even on your favorites list (which is tiny, and if its not on your favorites list add 2 more clicks and menus)? Hell before I sat down and read how to do this the only way I could get a fucking shortcut on the desktop was to log out of gnome 3 back into gnome 2, put my shit there, log back out then log back in again ... fucking fail.

    Now I know every single bit of this can be customized, which brings me to my final point, why the fuck do I have to install a tweaker tool and mod endless text files to get simple functionality that used to be a GOD DAMED RIGHT CLICK OPTION!

    While Gnome3 is not as stupid / broken as KDE4 (which I really hate) its still stupid and broken. A computer interface should be something you really dont have to think about while using it, and ever since installing gnome 3 I have spent more time getting rid of dumb shit poping up out of everywhere impeding what I was doing.

    Shit I accidentally bumped that fucking magic spot on the task bar 2 damned times writing this post, shrinking everything down, making me stop everything and select what window I was using. Even the show desktop spot on the windows taskbar goes the fuck away once you move the mouse away.

    Oh well guess I will just keep using XFCE
     

    1. Re:I have been using it for a few weeks now and by skids · · Score: 3, Interesting

      again how is it less efficient to move stuff around until I can see an icon on the desktop and then double click on a icon vs clicking on the magic G spot bringing up a menu

      FTFY

      So far I'm finding Gnome3 to be an interesting change. I even managed to tolerate having to left-click the terminal icon to get a new window. After I spend a few months to get used to it, I'll go back to a conventional desktop and see how much I hate that. Then decide.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
  15. Re:OH NO, I CAN'T DEAL WITH CHANGE by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Basically, I don't understand the vehement opposition here.

    Hint: most normal users want a UI that just works and stays out of their way _WITHOUT_ having to write a load of javascript to make it not be shit.

  16. Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is exactly why Apple went bankrupt back in 2007: "designers" fucking everything up. And thank God for that, because otherwise we'd have lost the smooth functionality and labor-saving keystroke memorization that Lotus 123 and WordPerfect have blessed us with... not to mention the almighty command-line, which in the general opinion of all good men far surpasses any "designer's" laborious move-hands-from-keyboard-to-mouse-and-move-mouse-and-click slavery. Free market forces and common sense have converged to refute the heresies of the designers and their shiny UI's and gradients and drop shadows, and our world is a better and more moral place because of it.

    There are only two kinds of programs in the world: eye candy without functionality, and the raw power of DB-engineer-designed matrices of text input boxen! For those who don't understand, let me elucidate by analogy: there are only two kinds of women in the world: the pretty, vacuous ones, and the ugly lesbian geniuses. The world is a binary place, full of ones and zeroes, and there's no room for compromise: the shiny is always useless. Suck lied to us.

    Let us all take a lesson from Firefox, which lost its entire userbase to Chrome not because of lingering perceptions of memory bloat that a better marketing team could have dispelled; nor because Google had so much name brand recognition, practically being synonymous with the internet in the minds of many thanks to the ubiquity of its search and mail, that everyone accepted its new browser as Really Hot Stuff From a Quality Company—no, Firefox lost its entire userbase to Chrome and was abandoned as a software project because a "designer" moved the tabs and consolidated the search and address bars.

    I'm glad that I'm not alone in daring to hope that the GNOME team takes a good, hard look at its socialist ways and decides to return to just plain, American xterm windows with a Motif-like window manager. It's time we programmers took back our computers from the commie "designers" who want to push useless eye candy on us.

  17. Could someone tell me.... by Brad1138 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is wrong with gnome 2? I loved Ubuntu until Unity was crammed down my throat, I switched to Mint. I tried 12 (w/Gnome3) but quickly went back to 11. Can someone please explain why we are "fixing" something that doesn't seem to be broken at all?

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  18. Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers by synthespian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem with Gnome is that it was predicated on the human interface guidelines copied from Mac OS 8.
    The updates they've done, IIRC, are not substantial, and very ad hoc. Nothing in Gnome seems to indicate they're knowledgeable in the area of human-computer interfaces. Meanwhile, KDE embraces a state of the art artificial intelligence project in usability (the KDE implementation of NEPOMUK - Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge)...
    KDE has cooler graphics too...I (and a lot of people) would argue.
    Furthermore, Gnome hasn't conducted any serious usability studies (only ones with sample sizes so small they don't count). For a company that had a millionaire astronaut supporting it (indirectly through Ubuntu) and used to have Red Hat's support, it's too little, too late.

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  19. Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or proof that /. moderation is a slow process and you commented way too early.
    It's modded "+4 Funny" right now.

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