Slashdot Mirror


User: Provoostenator

Provoostenator's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
5
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 5

  1. Import other designs (and how to make that easier) on How To Fix the Poor Usability of Free Software · · Score: 1

    I recently created a really simple website. I am fully aware of the fact that I do not have design skills, but I do consider design important. So what did I do? I simply copied the entire design of another website and replaced the content and code with my own.

    This shows how important it is to be clear about software and design license issues, but that is not my point here.

    At the moment, it is often not easy enough to copy good design. Design should be as easy to copy as it is to import any other 'library'.

    I think the problem is that people don't look at design as a reusable component. People are happy to use libraries when it comes to login systems, connecting to API's, database access, etc. Design should be treated the same way.

    Good examples out there:
    * Wordpress templates
    * Skins in general (but many developers fail to pick a good default for their product)
    * The default good looks of Ruby on Rails projects

    But we need more. It should be much easier to copy good design elements from other software, without having to do much hacking.

    In fact, it should be so easy to change the look of a program that designers can do it without learning too much coding.

  2. Re:Cycling is great for geeks and introverts on How Do Geeks Exercise? · · Score: 1

    And you can bring a GPS logger and upload the data to OpenStreetMap if that makes you feel more comfortable in a geek way. That also applies to walking, but you can cover more ground on a bike.

  3. Re:in your commute! on How Do Geeks Exercise? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In which case you should probably consider moving to another city; the savings on not needing a car and "savings" in health will probably pay for your move.

  4. Re:Leave the car at home on How Do Geeks Exercise? · · Score: 1

    And if the weather is nice and you are ahead of schedule, just get out of the bus a couple of stops earlier. Even train stations in some places aren't as far in between as they feel like (but some are...).

  5. Can genes be pattented? on The Death of Nearly All Software Patents? · · Score: 1

    My guess is that depends on what "machine" is considered to be running that software. Let's say you genetically manipulate a human. Does the code run on the machine "human"? Or does it run on "ribosone" machines? And for both of these machines, can they be consider "particular"? But the more important part might be the physical change: the protein synthesis. One might argue that changing code only indirectly lead to physical changes, as ribosones just read everything they run into. If not, than Google could just argue people physically go to the bars that they found thanks to PageRank. I am definitely not a legal expert, but I do think somebody better write a well informed paper on this subject (if it has not already been done).