Good point. Another thing about MaxPC is that they're really into PC building and high powered systems, which is great if that interests you, but I've lost interest in those aspects of computing.
I concur. I used to subscribe, but eventually I found myself being more up-to-date than they were (which isn't at all surprising, as they're a print magazine), and just reading it for another perspective. Plus, as I migrated away from Windows, its Windows-centric nature alienated me a little (not that they haven't had good alternate OS features -- I first heard of many alternate OSes in one of their articles). It's a well-written magazine, but at that point it just wasn't worth it to me. I highly recommend picking up though, if you haven't read it before.
For that matter, which version of English do we base the phonetic spellings on? The Irish version of "hysterical" sounds a lot like the American "historical". The English version of "house" sounds a lot like "ass", as I pronounce it.
No shit. You know very well that he was referring to competent programmers when he said "anyone". Of course people like you with not interest in the exercise couldn't do it. But no one is stopping you from learning and writing it if you've got the itch.
Usually it's more that I forget something Windows-only on the Linux partition and don't have it when I need it. It's not really a space issue for me, since I have a 100GB drive which is ample for my needs, but I'm sensitive to clutter. When it's in my computer anyway.
I like the idea of Windows as a Playstation though. Er, Xbox, I guess. I'd be very interested if Microsoft decided to introduce a version of Windows intended solely for playing games. No interface but a menu listing your games, and maybe a file manager. If I've got to have a seperate OS for games, it might as well be pared down so it only does that (minimal interfaces are somewhat a fetish of mine). I don't suppose there's much of a market though. It would never make it to general purpose computers running Windows, and most of the comparatively tiny *nix and Mac users wouldn't want it anyway.
(1) Probably. But they all die eventually, don't they? Now is the time to raise the next generation right! Really, it's not just computer users who don't want to look things up; it's everyone. Getting them all to wise up is a big job, but you've got to dream. (2) Not to them it's not, but they can be wrong. I'm not one for messing up a clean interface to appease those too lazy to do a little reading. Users will adapt if the only way to get things done is to look up how to do them. User friendly it's not, but I'm not such a friendly guy.
I've noticed that extremely casual users and experts are the ones most likely to try to find out how to do it, whether by reading or asking an expert. Casual users are too scared that they'll mess it up because it's unfamiliar, and experts are too scared that they'll mess it up because they know they will. Eventually you get tired of trying to fix your system and actually go find out how to do it right. It's the ones who know just enough to be dangerous that just want to go at it. Not that some neophytes and experts don't do the same. This is just what I often see.
The crux of it is this: a discoverable interface is great for the first ten minutes, but wears you down when every configuration option on the system (for example) is staring you in the face when all you want to do is start a web browser. They're cluttered with once-in-a-blue-moon things. Worst of all, even if Aubrey de Grey extends your lifespan to a thousand years, these little annoyances will never, ever go away. More efficiently obtuse interfaces are absolute hell until you get the hang of them, but once you do, the effort required to use them drops asymptotically to zero.
You can climb the hill once, or you can climb hundreds of little hills every day. Highly discoverable interfaces aren't in anyone's best interest. I'm not in favor of hiding things just for the hell of it (watch those lusers sqirm!), but if something isn't a daily action, no one should have to stare at it every day. It's too much for my poor little brain to process.
If you mean that Linux isn't in a place where joe user can pick up a disty and feel comfortable and happy with it, then why not say that? Why cap it off with the old "it's just not there yet"? Was the previous statement not strong enough, so you decided to add something more absolute?
Anyway, I don't feel like arguing about this any more. I think we've both made ourselves clear.
It's not holding me back.:) I've done the dual-boot thing on multiple systems, and I still have Windows lingering on this laptop. I occasionally reboot to play a game. That's how I know I don't enjoy it. I don't like having read only partitions (ntfs) sitting on my drive, since they require me to have yet another partition, this time FAT, to use as a staging area. Either that or use a Windows ext3 driver of questionable quality. Even though I can use my FAT partition to move files to Windows, what if I've forgotten something? Now I get to reboot, copy it to the FAT partition, reboot, move it to where I need it, and finally make use of it. This state of affairs is in no way preferable to playing games under Linux, which is what I believe the other choice was.
It's not that it's hard to set partitions up, but it's a pain to use them when your OSes can't both read and write to all of them.
Yeah, but doesn't that mean we should by trying to fix the broken users, and not perfectly good systems? Looking stuff up is a savvy person's first angle of attack whether they're trying to make sense of configuration options or they're trying to figure out what their car's tire pressure should be.
You don't understand me, do you? I'm not bothered by your opinions; I'm bothered that you think "there" is some sort of concrete place that we're all trying to reach.
Why would you want to try to figure something out on your own if you could just look it up? Discoverability is nice if you just want to jump in and go at it, but it's probably not in anyone's best interest to do so. Good documentation not only tells you exactly what to do, but also alerts you to potential pitfalls. Everything depends on the documentation actually being good, of course.
"Seriously, if it's necessary... even sometimes... it should be exposed in the UI."
I disagree heartily. My view is that if it's necessary multiple times a day, then it should be exposed in the UI. If it's something you do once a day, it should be easy to reach but not in your face. If you want it once a week, it should be even more out of the way. Everything else should be invisible, including (especially!) configuration options. Either you can read the manual once, get everything set up, then go about your business, or you can have a cluttered, broken interface that makes everything you might ever want to do findable -- with the unfortunate side effect of obscuring everything you really want to do. Discoverability is a crappy substitute for good documentation.
Not really related except that the words tech and Doctorow appear, but I wince every time I hear Doctorow describe something technical in one of his stories. It's a mix of straighforward descriptions and excruciating detail that falls flat. I like his writing otherwise, but he just can't seem to write about technical things in a readable fashion.
Can we all just cut the "it's not there yet" bullshit out? How about you recognize that "there" falls in many different places for different people. You're just (a) perpetuating the fallacy that all OSes are trying to move "there" (where "there" means suiting your personal preferences -- everyone else be damned), and (b) that everyone's needs are the same. You clearly need something akin to MacOS. I, however, don't. Linux fits me like a glove, and by my measure it's "there". Except I'm not so big headed as to assume that what suits me will suit you. Talking about whether Linux (or any OS) is "there" means nothing other than that you wish to make your OS choice seem like the only rational decision. It's *OK* that you don't prefer Linux, but you don't have to insinuate that those of us who do are any less adept at evaluating our options than you are.
Good points, but it would be easy to draw at the largest size you want to support (maybe around 2000 pixels across) then scale it down, or use vector graphics, of course.
I think the animation costs would be a bit less than the average TV show. The adventure games of old didn't have so many unique animations. A few walk cycles for each character would be needed, and the main character would need plenty of special animations, but they could keep the number down. I think that painting backgrounds would be where the real work is. TV shows (especially long-running ones) can re-use many of their backgrounds, but an adventure game would need new art for every single one. Couple that with the extra work of drawing for modern resolutions, and I could see things getting quite expensive.
Why such a low color depth/resolution? This isn't 1995 any more. A low end computer could easily do 1280x1024 at 32bpp. I don't think a game that looks ten years out of date is going to excite people much (my theory is that most people have a broken nostalgia gene).
I'd like to see some modern adventure games too, but I suspect that although many people would buy one in a heartbeat, most gamers wouldn't. The majority is a little obsessed with graphics, squad based FPSes, and MMORPGs, without much interest in beautiful painted scenery. It wouldn't tax their $500 peni^H^H^H^Hgraphics card enough. An adventure game might sell enough to be profitable, but publishers don't seem to be looking for profitable games so much as blockbusters. Indie Developers might give it a try, but that's a hell of a lot more content than the average indie game contains.
Slashdot Mirror
At those pixel sizes, they may not need to.
Good point. Another thing about MaxPC is that they're really into PC building and high powered systems, which is great if that interests you, but I've lost interest in those aspects of computing.
Blah, blah common usage, blah blah blah.
I concur. I used to subscribe, but eventually I found myself being more up-to-date than they were (which isn't at all surprising, as they're a print magazine), and just reading it for another perspective. Plus, as I migrated away from Windows, its Windows-centric nature alienated me a little (not that they haven't had good alternate OS features -- I first heard of many alternate OSes in one of their articles). It's a well-written magazine, but at that point it just wasn't worth it to me. I highly recommend picking up though, if you haven't read it before.
He might also have been referring to the cost of hardware, you know.
Hm. I think I switched some things that I shouldn't have in that post. The point stands though.
http://warsow.net/
For that matter, which version of English do we base the phonetic spellings on? The Irish version of "hysterical" sounds a lot like the American "historical". The English version of "house" sounds a lot like "ass", as I pronounce it.
Because you should never end a sentence with a preposition.
That wasn't what I meant to write. I blame screwy English orthography. Should have been:
But in many cases it is pronounced like base. Bass clef, bass guitar, bass voice, and so on. The spelling rules, they do nothing!
But in many cases it is pronounced like bass. Bass clef, bass, guitar, bass voice, and so on. The spelling rules, they do nothing!
No shit. You know very well that he was referring to competent programmers when he said "anyone". Of course people like you with not interest in the exercise couldn't do it. But no one is stopping you from learning and writing it if you've got the itch.
Usually it's more that I forget something Windows-only on the Linux partition and don't have it when I need it. It's not really a space issue for me, since I have a 100GB drive which is ample for my needs, but I'm sensitive to clutter. When it's in my computer anyway.
I like the idea of Windows as a Playstation though. Er, Xbox, I guess. I'd be very interested if Microsoft decided to introduce a version of Windows intended solely for playing games. No interface but a menu listing your games, and maybe a file manager. If I've got to have a seperate OS for games, it might as well be pared down so it only does that (minimal interfaces are somewhat a fetish of mine). I don't suppose there's much of a market though. It would never make it to general purpose computers running Windows, and most of the comparatively tiny *nix and Mac users wouldn't want it anyway.
(1) Probably. But they all die eventually, don't they? Now is the time to raise the next generation right! Really, it's not just computer users who don't want to look things up; it's everyone. Getting them all to wise up is a big job, but you've got to dream.
(2) Not to them it's not, but they can be wrong. I'm not one for messing up a clean interface to appease those too lazy to do a little reading. Users will adapt if the only way to get things done is to look up how to do them. User friendly it's not, but I'm not such a friendly guy.
I've noticed that extremely casual users and experts are the ones most likely to try to find out how to do it, whether by reading or asking an expert. Casual users are too scared that they'll mess it up because it's unfamiliar, and experts are too scared that they'll mess it up because they know they will. Eventually you get tired of trying to fix your system and actually go find out how to do it right. It's the ones who know just enough to be dangerous that just want to go at it. Not that some neophytes and experts don't do the same. This is just what I often see.
The crux of it is this: a discoverable interface is great for the first ten minutes, but wears you down when every configuration option on the system (for example) is staring you in the face when all you want to do is start a web browser. They're cluttered with once-in-a-blue-moon things. Worst of all, even if Aubrey de Grey extends your lifespan to a thousand years, these little annoyances will never, ever go away. More efficiently obtuse interfaces are absolute hell until you get the hang of them, but once you do, the effort required to use them drops asymptotically to zero.
You can climb the hill once, or you can climb hundreds of little hills every day. Highly discoverable interfaces aren't in anyone's best interest. I'm not in favor of hiding things just for the hell of it (watch those lusers sqirm!), but if something isn't a daily action, no one should have to stare at it every day. It's too much for my poor little brain to process.
If you mean that Linux isn't in a place where joe user can pick up a disty and feel comfortable and happy with it, then why not say that? Why cap it off with the old "it's just not there yet"? Was the previous statement not strong enough, so you decided to add something more absolute?
Anyway, I don't feel like arguing about this any more. I think we've both made ourselves clear.
It's not holding me back. :) I've done the dual-boot thing on multiple systems, and I still have Windows lingering on this laptop. I occasionally reboot to play a game. That's how I know I don't enjoy it. I don't like having read only partitions (ntfs) sitting on my drive, since they require me to have yet another partition, this time FAT, to use as a staging area. Either that or use a Windows ext3 driver of questionable quality. Even though I can use my FAT partition to move files to Windows, what if I've forgotten something? Now I get to reboot, copy it to the FAT partition, reboot, move it to where I need it, and finally make use of it. This state of affairs is in no way preferable to playing games under Linux, which is what I believe the other choice was.
It's not that it's hard to set partitions up, but it's a pain to use them when your OSes can't both read and write to all of them.
Yeah, but doesn't that mean we should by trying to fix the broken users, and not perfectly good systems? Looking stuff up is a savvy person's first angle of attack whether they're trying to make sense of configuration options or they're trying to figure out what their car's tire pressure should be.
You don't understand me, do you? I'm not bothered by your opinions; I'm bothered that you think "there" is some sort of concrete place that we're all trying to reach.
^H is backspace. Get it?
Why would you want to try to figure something out on your own if you could just look it up? Discoverability is nice if you just want to jump in and go at it, but it's probably not in anyone's best interest to do so. Good documentation not only tells you exactly what to do, but also alerts you to potential pitfalls. Everything depends on the documentation actually being good, of course.
"Seriously, if it's necessary... even sometimes... it should be exposed in the UI."
I disagree heartily. My view is that if it's necessary multiple times a day, then it should be exposed in the UI. If it's something you do once a day, it should be easy to reach but not in your face. If you want it once a week, it should be even more out of the way. Everything else should be invisible, including (especially!) configuration options. Either you can read the manual once, get everything set up, then go about your business, or you can have a cluttered, broken interface that makes everything you might ever want to do findable -- with the unfortunate side effect of obscuring everything you really want to do. Discoverability is a crappy substitute for good documentation.
Not really related except that the words tech and Doctorow appear, but I wince every time I hear Doctorow describe something technical in one of his stories. It's a mix of straighforward descriptions and excruciating detail that falls flat. I like his writing otherwise, but he just can't seem to write about technical things in a readable fashion.
Can we all just cut the "it's not there yet" bullshit out? How about you recognize that "there" falls in many different places for different people. You're just (a) perpetuating the fallacy that all OSes are trying to move "there" (where "there" means suiting your personal preferences -- everyone else be damned), and (b) that everyone's needs are the same. You clearly need something akin to MacOS. I, however, don't. Linux fits me like a glove, and by my measure it's "there". Except I'm not so big headed as to assume that what suits me will suit you. Talking about whether Linux (or any OS) is "there" means nothing other than that you wish to make your OS choice seem like the only rational decision. It's *OK* that you don't prefer Linux, but you don't have to insinuate that those of us who do are any less adept at evaluating our options than you are.
Good points, but it would be easy to draw at the largest size you want to support (maybe around 2000 pixels across) then scale it down, or use vector graphics, of course.
I think the animation costs would be a bit less than the average TV show. The adventure games of old didn't have so many unique animations. A few walk cycles for each character would be needed, and the main character would need plenty of special animations, but they could keep the number down. I think that painting backgrounds would be where the real work is. TV shows (especially long-running ones) can re-use many of their backgrounds, but an adventure game would need new art for every single one. Couple that with the extra work of drawing for modern resolutions, and I could see things getting quite expensive.
Why such a low color depth/resolution? This isn't 1995 any more. A low end computer could easily do 1280x1024 at 32bpp. I don't think a game that looks ten years out of date is going to excite people much (my theory is that most people have a broken nostalgia gene).
I'd like to see some modern adventure games too, but I suspect that although many people would buy one in a heartbeat, most gamers wouldn't. The majority is a little obsessed with graphics, squad based FPSes, and MMORPGs, without much interest in beautiful painted scenery. It wouldn't tax their $500 peni^H^H^H^Hgraphics card enough. An adventure game might sell enough to be profitable, but publishers don't seem to be looking for profitable games so much as blockbusters. Indie Developers might give it a try, but that's a hell of a lot more content than the average indie game contains.