Is that meant to sound like a sales pitch? Cause it does. Nice astroturfing.
Re:Using the right tool for the job
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OpenGL in PHP
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· Score: 1
Maybe VB.NET is good for GUIs. But VB6 was long ago surpassed by Delphi and probably others. It's more than annoying, it's barely functional IMHO. For nearly anything useful you have to use API calls, which is a sign of poor design.
I always find selecting an arbitrary set of files from another set of files (without an obvious pattern) is much easier in a GUI. Your eye sees the files, you click once on each.
And many people often want to select an arbitrary set of files.
Don't forget the sheer tedium of typing. Why type a name when you can click on it. The effort is an order of magnitude less.
I agree that there are some things for which command line is good, but there are also some things for which GUI is much better.
Why would Microsoft care about that?
Sure, they will make some effort, but their prime motivation is to make sure Windows works well with Windows. And from a generic viewpoint, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect Linux to work well with Linux... Of course, the problem is that "Linux" is not one thing.
To summarise: closed-source, commercial companies are prepared to spend a lot more money and effort on making things usable for average users - because it is profitable.
It's totally fair that volunteer Linux developers don't want to do the same (sure some do).
That's hilariously ironic. I follow your link to "KDE usability", and what do I see? An enormous, uncategorised, list of dated mail folders.
KDE usability might be fine, but your link to it was a funny choice;)
I think it's simpler than that. Graphic design is fun (for some people). Very few people find the other aspects of usability fun enough to do them as volunteer work.
That said, the eyecandy epidemic (such as skinning) frustrates me too.
Ah ha ha, yes, reinventing the wheel is always so successful.
How's this for a suggestion: the current GUIs (in combination with command line for power users) we have represent a perfectly reasonable and efficient way to interact with computers?
Sure there are elements that need tweaking still, and applications keep breaking basic rules, and consistency is not all it could be... but those are not basic flaws.
But why would anyone expect the trash can to turn into an Eject icon? Turning it into Eject is good, in terms of pointing out that something different will happen, but it doesn't make it any more intuitive, it just highlights the actual behaviour.
I am willing to pay for *everything* worthwhile on the web. This obviously does NOT include advertising, which is worthwhile mainly to the seller: movie trailers, game demos.
The problem is, 95% of sites don't have any reasonable payment system set up. Either they have no option, useless merchandise I don't want to clutter my life with, or an outrageous price targetted only at professional users (such as IMBDb).
Slashdot, BTW, is by far the most reasonable in this respect; good price, lots of options. Kudos to the organisers!
It always seems pretty feasible to me. Say a 3000MW station. That's 3,000,000,000 / 300 = 10 million square metres, or around 10 square kilometres. Sure, it's a gigantic construction, but not a particular significant piece of land; compared to say, a gigantic lake.
Of course this is a naive calculation, but I'm saying the order of magnitude doesn't seem prohibitive.
On the other hand, at least I can search and see what music they have without having to download a huge application to find out.
Plus I find iTunes pretty inflexible and non-standard on Windows, so I don't really like it.
Go on, stick to your principles mate. Wonder about going until you have fretted enough, then go and suck up the latest Hollywood sump dredgings, and complain about it afterwards. You'll feel better!
Uh... yeah right. They will fiddle with bits and pieces of it... probably the "exciting" web features of the desktop will turn into.NET stuff... you obviously have no conception what rewriting the OS would involve...
Fascinating reading the threads here.
Threads saying:
- lawyers are greedy.
- doctors are greedy.
- people in accidents are greedy.
- insurance companies are greedy.
Most likely, there are lots of greedy and good people from all groups. The US needs to work on all of them, not blame one group. Establish some common sense laws about doctor's culpability. Establish penalties and court-cost rules to discourage frivolous lawsuits while offering small help to genuine cases. etc........
Not really bad, just unnecessary. It should be obvious what things can be clicked for information without mousing over them.
It can look quite nice, and is sometimes useful for showing more information about something you're pointing at...
Especially since most of Notes seems to do it's own rendering/controls. You can hardly find a native element of the UI anywhere. When they dropped OS/2 client support I thought this would be because they would move to lots of "cool" Win32 elements. It would make some sense since their own controls are fairly hideous... but no. They just did a whole lot more custom controls.
Slashdot Mirror
Is that meant to sound like a sales pitch? Cause it does. Nice astroturfing.
Maybe VB.NET is good for GUIs. But VB6 was long ago surpassed by Delphi and probably others. It's more than annoying, it's barely functional IMHO. For nearly anything useful you have to use API calls, which is a sign of poor design.
I think that was the point, dude
I always find selecting an arbitrary set of files from another set of files (without an obvious pattern) is much easier in a GUI. Your eye sees the files, you click once on each. And many people often want to select an arbitrary set of files. Don't forget the sheer tedium of typing. Why type a name when you can click on it. The effort is an order of magnitude less. I agree that there are some things for which command line is good, but there are also some things for which GUI is much better.
Why would Microsoft care about that? Sure, they will make some effort, but their prime motivation is to make sure Windows works well with Windows. And from a generic viewpoint, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect Linux to work well with Linux... Of course, the problem is that "Linux" is not one thing.
To summarise: closed-source, commercial companies are prepared to spend a lot more money and effort on making things usable for average users - because it is profitable. It's totally fair that volunteer Linux developers don't want to do the same (sure some do).
That's hilariously ironic. I follow your link to "KDE usability", and what do I see? An enormous, uncategorised, list of dated mail folders. KDE usability might be fine, but your link to it was a funny choice ;)
Well, for now... until the fashion moves away from brushed aluminimum. Then everyone will think how old fashioned that silver look is.
I think it's simpler than that. Graphic design is fun (for some people). Very few people find the other aspects of usability fun enough to do them as volunteer work. That said, the eyecandy epidemic (such as skinning) frustrates me too.
Ah ha ha, yes, reinventing the wheel is always so successful. How's this for a suggestion: the current GUIs (in combination with command line for power users) we have represent a perfectly reasonable and efficient way to interact with computers? Sure there are elements that need tweaking still, and applications keep breaking basic rules, and consistency is not all it could be... but those are not basic flaws.
But why would anyone expect the trash can to turn into an Eject icon? Turning it into Eject is good, in terms of pointing out that something different will happen, but it doesn't make it any more intuitive, it just highlights the actual behaviour.
I am willing to pay for *everything* worthwhile on the web. This obviously does NOT include advertising, which is worthwhile mainly to the seller: movie trailers, game demos. The problem is, 95% of sites don't have any reasonable payment system set up. Either they have no option, useless merchandise I don't want to clutter my life with, or an outrageous price targetted only at professional users (such as IMBDb). Slashdot, BTW, is by far the most reasonable in this respect; good price, lots of options. Kudos to the organisers!
SUre. Still, I guess there is a lot of difficulty in designing things that work well under hard radiation....
It always seems pretty feasible to me. Say a 3000MW station. That's 3,000,000,000 / 300 = 10 million square metres, or around 10 square kilometres. Sure, it's a gigantic construction, but not a particular significant piece of land; compared to say, a gigantic lake. Of course this is a naive calculation, but I'm saying the order of magnitude doesn't seem prohibitive.
On the other hand, at least I can search and see what music they have without having to download a huge application to find out. Plus I find iTunes pretty inflexible and non-standard on Windows, so I don't really like it.
Go on, stick to your principles mate. Wonder about going until you have fretted enough, then go and suck up the latest Hollywood sump dredgings, and complain about it afterwards. You'll feel better!
Colour screens (generally) have less contrast. That's a bad thing.
Uh... yeah right. They will fiddle with bits and pieces of it... probably the "exciting" web features of the desktop will turn into .NET stuff... you obviously have no conception what rewriting the OS would involve...
Fascinating reading the threads here. Threads saying: - lawyers are greedy. - doctors are greedy. - people in accidents are greedy. - insurance companies are greedy. Most likely, there are lots of greedy and good people from all groups. The US needs to work on all of them, not blame one group. Establish some common sense laws about doctor's culpability. Establish penalties and court-cost rules to discourage frivolous lawsuits while offering small help to genuine cases. etc........
Do you need a *JOKE ALERT* sign?
Not really bad, just unnecessary. It should be obvious what things can be clicked for information without mousing over them. It can look quite nice, and is sometimes useful for showing more information about something you're pointing at...
Huh? LOTR should have been a hilarious gorefest? Is that you Jerry Bruckheimer?
Surely backwards compatibility is already out the door if they are using a G5 processor and different video?
Smartcards will be mandatory in a few years time. See EMV.
Especially since most of Notes seems to do it's own rendering/controls. You can hardly find a native element of the UI anywhere. When they dropped OS/2 client support I thought this would be because they would move to lots of "cool" Win32 elements. It would make some sense since their own controls are fairly hideous... but no. They just did a whole lot more custom controls.