whinge intr.v.Chiefly Britishwhinged,whinging,whinges
To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.
[Dialectal alteration of Middle English whinsen, from Old English hwinsian.] whingern. whinginglyadv.
It's a pretty old article but if there's still Mod's hanging around, mod this guy up.
What you are talking about is a best practice, any professional development team will do this as part of the SDCL. The problem is that usability testing is an expensive, time-consuming procedure.
In F/OSS the developers donate time 'cause they care. To perform good testing, we need to find users that are willing to donate their time to the cause. To do this we need to raise the General Public's awareness of F/OSS and this requires good marketing.
I've spent the last 4 years working as a software developer in the advertising industry, this shit is really expensive. Now I'm sure we can find good art directors, copywriters and producers who are willing to donate some time to a good cause but they need to be educated to it as well.
There's a lot more that goes into a good software product than development -- good documentation is nearly impossible to find for proprietary and F/OSS. To get ahead we need all these people to band together, the problem is that only the Developers really know about it.
I'm thinking that, from the 'finding users to test' point, maybe we should look towards our governments; they are already good customers and some understand our plight. I'm willing to help with design, development and advertising but we need to rally up a large task force to get the whole job done.
People seem to think the above was my original work when in fact it is a re-post of the article -- that was totally not my intention. I thought, wrongly, that it didn't need disclaiming. Sorry John.
It just goes to show that people really don't RTFA;)
Eric S. Raymond -- the renowned Linux/Open Source evangelist/essayist --
couldn't figure out how to connect to a shared printer. So he wrote an
essay describing the problem (the UI for printer configuration
on his Linux system is horrible) and proposing a solution (open source
developers should do a better job with UI design). Raymond wrote:
The configuration problem is simple. I have a desktop machine named
'snark'. It is connected, via the house Ethernet, to my wife Cathy's
machine, which is named 'minx'. Minx has a LaserJet 6MP attached to it
via parallel port. Both machines are running Fedora Core 1, and Cathy
can print locally from minx. I can ssh minx from snark, so the network
is known good.
This should be easy, right? *hollow laughter* Famous last words...
(Side note:parallel port? What year is it in the Raymond
household?)
Raymond's description and criticism of the usability problems he
encountered trying to achieve this are accurate and apt. The gist of it
is that what seemed like the obvious way to go about the task was in
fact completely wrong, and worse, there was no indication from the
system that he wasn't on the right track.
This setup alone is sort of funny -- Linux Advocate Struggles to
Configure Printer -- ha-ha. Even funnier considering past statements
from Raymond regarding Linux-vs.-Windows usability; e.g. the forward for
the book "Everyday Linux", wherein he wrote:
Conventional wisdom has it that Linux is doomed to a niche role on the
desktop because it's too difficult for Aunt Tillie to run. But the days
when Linux was really more complex to administer than a Windows machine
are long past us. In the last three years the open-source community has
made enormous strides in simplifying installation and normal
housekeeping and presenting it through graphical user interfaces -- to
the point where it's really quite a bit easier over time to maintain a
Linux box than a Windows machine, whether you're an expert techie or
not.
I mean, come on, it's funny that the guy who wrote that couldn't connect
to a shared printer.
But it's when Raymond begins proposing "solutions" to the problem --
where "the problem" is the larger issue of open source software
usability in general, not just the specific case of CUPS printer
configuration -- that things get hilarious.
A few days ago I uttered a rant on user-interface problems in the
Common Unix Printing System. I used it to develop the idea that the
most valuable gift you can give your users is the luxury of ignorance
-- software that works so well, and is so discoverable to even novice
users, that they don't have to read documentation or spend time and
mental effort to learn about it.
Sounds good, on the surface. And indeed, most of the follow-up article
is devoted to the congratulatory email Raymond received in response to
part one:
This rant made it onto all the major open-source news channels, so I
was expecting a fair amount of feedback (and maybe pushback). But the
volume of community reaction that thundered into my mailbox far
surpassed what I had been expecting -- and the dominant theme, too, was
a bit of a surprise. Not the hundreds of iterations of "Tell it,
brother!", nor the handful of people who excoriated me as an arrogant
twerp; those are both normal features of the response when I fire a
broadside. No, the really interesting part was how many of the letters
said, in effect, "Gee. And all this time I thought it was just me..."
sometimes I envy people that are just now deciding what to study
Thank you,
That is exactly the encouragement I need at the moment. I'm 26, have been married for 4 years and have a 2 year old child. I work as a web developer but want to go to university to study as I didn't when I was younger. I learn better now than I used too and have direction in my life. I'm sure it will be difficult juggling family and study but I want to give it a go.
Slashdot Mirror
How's the .sigsperiment going? It's pretty funny.
Am I missing something or does the linked comment (@ time of posting) not mention reporting anything to Nintendo?
What'd be nice is an extension showing a little flag representing the country in which a server is located.
ta
Has anyone else noticed the similarities between this and this? Hell, it even has the 'did you mean' and calculator features!
Firefox has RTE just like IE but they're both proprietary. htmlArea does it well in both.
Isn't that what /.s for?
But how do you select text, Wink and roll?
why dont people just link to Google news?
http://news.google.com/news?q=MOUNT+ST.+HELENS
http://www.crucial.com/
What I want to know is where the space cows went.
People have even been mod'ing original posts redundant lately.
Why was that mod'ed Redundant?
Kudos to both you guys for your rhymes, but shit, I can't read anymore comments properly 'cause I'm trying to find the non-existent rhythm/rhyme.
http://www.mavetju.org/programming/songbook.php
It's a pretty old article but if there's still Mod's hanging around, mod this guy up.
What you are talking about is a best practice, any professional development team will do this as part of the SDCL. The problem is that usability testing is an expensive, time-consuming procedure.
In F/OSS the developers donate time 'cause they care. To perform good testing, we need to find users that are willing to donate their time to the cause. To do this we need to raise the General Public's awareness of F/OSS and this requires good marketing.
I've spent the last 4 years working as a software developer in the advertising industry, this shit is really expensive. Now I'm sure we can find good art directors, copywriters and producers who are willing to donate some time to a good cause but they need to be educated to it as well.
There's a lot more that goes into a good software product than development -- good documentation is nearly impossible to find for proprietary and F/OSS. To get ahead we need all these people to band together, the problem is that only the Developers really know about it.
I'm thinking that, from the 'finding users to test' point, maybe we should look towards our governments; they are already good customers and some understand our plight. I'm willing to help with design, development and advertising but we need to rally up a large task force to get the whole job done.
Regards,
Mike
;)
Supremely crutches what?
People seem to think the above was my original work when in fact it is a re-post of the article -- that was totally not my intention. I thought, wrongly, that it didn't need disclaiming. Sorry John. It just goes to show that people really don't RTFA ;)
This one is funny.
Eric S. Raymond -- the renowned Linux/Open Source evangelist/essayist -- couldn't figure out how to connect to a shared printer. So he wrote an essay describing the problem (the UI for printer configuration on his Linux system is horrible) and proposing a solution (open source developers should do a better job with UI design). Raymond wrote:
(Side note: parallel port? What year is it in the Raymond household?)
Raymond's description and criticism of the usability problems he encountered trying to achieve this are accurate and apt. The gist of it is that what seemed like the obvious way to go about the task was in fact completely wrong, and worse, there was no indication from the system that he wasn't on the right track.
This setup alone is sort of funny -- Linux Advocate Struggles to Configure Printer -- ha-ha. Even funnier considering past statements from Raymond regarding Linux-vs.-Windows usability; e.g. the forward for the book "Everyday Linux", wherein he wrote:
I mean, come on, it's funny that the guy who wrote that couldn't connect to a shared printer.
But it's when Raymond begins proposing "solutions" to the problem -- where "the problem" is the larger issue of open source software usability in general, not just the specific case of CUPS printer configuration -- that things get hilarious.
In his follow-up article, Raymond summarizes his proposal thusly:
Sounds good, on the surface. And indeed, most of the follow-up article is devoted to the congratulatory email Raymond received in response to part one:
I agree that this is an interesti
It's two letters and a space, Man.
Still can here.
Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
My key has this challenge-response mechanism as well but my car has no alarm. Don't have the right ID chip -- can't start the engine.
sometimes I envy people that are just now deciding what to study
;)
Thank you,
That is exactly the encouragement I need at the moment. I'm 26, have been married for 4 years and have a 2 year old child. I work as a web developer but want to go to university to study as I didn't when I was younger. I learn better now than I used too and have direction in my life. I'm sure it will be difficult juggling family and study but I want to give it a go.
Regards,
Mike