Of course apps are needed. From what you and the GGP say, it is clear neither of you has used a semi-modern distro and their packaging systems (of course, I am disregarding the GGP's remark that install mechanisms should be in the kernel, as it only shows that he really has no understanding of what he is talking about). Yum and its analogues have solved the problem an age ago.
simply doesn't beat the fact that Windows is more intuitive than Linux in a lot of ways.
There is nothing intuitive about neither system, if you are talking about system administration. You have to know what you are doing, otherwise you are a disaster waiting to happen.
In the same sense that GNOME 2.0 is not GNOME 1.4. A rather academic, "We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.", not very interesting sense.
Have many projects so popular that are installed by default on most distros and which users use daily have you maintained? I have maintained one such application...
So that conditional tests what condition exactly? In order for the conditional to actual do something, the condition has to depend on something whose value can be changed. How do you propose to change it? You either need UI which toggles some variable, you need to get the value from some configuration file somewhere, or something. And then you need to make the value, if it is changeable from the UI, persistent. And then you need to test that the UI works, and that both branches of the conditional work under all circumstances and that they both interact correctly with everything else. You need to check that the functionality is accessible with the keyboard. Then you have to document your changes, and you have to document the functionality in user-level documentation. And then you have to translate the UI and the user documentation. And you will have to decide if and how to make the change backwards compatible, so that people using two versions do not see breakage. And you will have to ask every single reporter of every single issue minimally related to the change under what of the two modes she was operating. And from there on you will have to make sure every single change you make to the program works well with both modes of operation.
It really is much more than wrapping two branches of code in an if-then-else...
Have you looked into the matter so much that you are certain that this is a matter of a conditional in the code? Or are you just telling us what you imagine the matter is?
I won't tell you which answer I think is correct: you tell me first...
You cannot simply add an option for every single piece of behavior. That is the exact opposite of designing an app.
In the case you mention, a sane solution is to always reserve space for the `typing' notification so that text does not shift up when the notification appears. Having a piece of UI in order to provide alterantive behavior for such a tiny detail that is beyond absurd.
Well, the user that is right and disagrees with the design choices of the developer, can pick another IM app. Why would the developers have to do something they do not want to do?
Maybe they, for example, want to be able to fix problems with the OS even after MS's interest in maintaining whatever variant of CP they may or may not be developing for the XO? (For an example, consider the people who want to stick with XP, even by paying more, while MS is clearly going to let it become unsupported eventually---you, on the other hand, are willing to believe they will support a special variant of XP for the XO with essentially no financial incentive, for as long as it is needed?)
Really, if you cannot come up yourself of at least 5 reasons which answer your own question not from your imagination but from recent history, you have clearly been in a coma for at least two decades.
The fact that you are surprised by its contents changing when you select something new means that you, which are such a proficient user from what you say, do not know what it is: the contents of the `middle button paste' is defined to be precisely (and has been since forever) the contents of the last selection, so it changes every time something new is selected.
One may argue that this is strange behaviour, but its use of by far non-mandatory: every sane app which was updated in the last 10 years at least should handle explicit copy and paste (the one most apps handle through Ctrl-V/C/X).
The middle button thing is a historic artifact, whose existence no one will possibly guess unless she is told about it. And if you are going to tell something to a new user by all means it should be something more relevant and useful than the middle button paste thingie, like where is the GUI to install new software...
The logic of it is: with open source, people write software to fix their own problems. Only in rare cases (the big ones: Firefox, Ubuntu, and with commercial OSS) will any developer spend time fixing someone elses problem.
Having been part of a prominent OSS project which involves hundreds of people working on many, separate subprojects which are mostly independent, I can say that that is a false statement. 90% of the time spent by devs fixing bugs in that project was in solving other people's problems.
If you look into the matter, you'll find that those people willing to risk their lives mostly do not come from countries where health care is socialized but, quite the contrary, following recommendations issued from organizations such as the IMF (that is, essentially from USian think tanks---using the word `thing' in this context is quite an oxymoron, but well, that's what they are called...) their countries have privatized as much as they could without causing too much chaos.
It is rarely scandinavians nowadays who build boats out of a few trees and sail to the US...
At the very most of kindness, your comment can be read as remarking that there are places where health care is worse than in the US. You are of course free to consider than sufficient.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course apps are needed. From what you and the GGP say, it is clear neither of you has used a semi-modern distro and their packaging systems (of course, I am disregarding the GGP's remark that install mechanisms should be in the kernel, as it only shows that he really has no understanding of what he is talking about). Yum and its analogues have solved the problem an age ago.
... because, as we all know, what people want their desktop for is to install all day long hundreds and hundreds of packages.
You do not read the news much, do you?, if you think that now people are suffering and now feel the need to start making these dumb remarks.
Hmm. Why?
Anyone is free to offer whatever product they want, even as inadequate as Windows. The industry, on the other hand, could have been more selective.
Oh, come on. Whoever let the marketeer loose will now have to catch him again and put him back in the jar!
There is nothing intuitive about neither system, if you are talking about system administration. You have to know what you are doing, otherwise you are a disaster waiting to happen.
In the same sense that GNOME 2.0 is not GNOME 1.4. A rather academic, "We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.", not very interesting sense.
Have many projects so popular that are installed by default on most distros and which users use daily have you maintained? I have maintained one such application...
If you read what you were replying to, you'll notice that the question was: cannot one say that the US also pretends to have a free market?
I simply cannot believe you missed that: it must be a new record for poor reading comprehension skills around here!
So that conditional tests what condition exactly? In order for the conditional to actual do something, the condition has to depend on something whose value can be changed. How do you propose to change it? You either need UI which toggles some variable, you need to get the value from some configuration file somewhere, or something. And then you need to make the value, if it is changeable from the UI, persistent. And then you need to test that the UI works, and that both branches of the conditional work under all circumstances and that they both interact correctly with everything else. You need to check that the functionality is accessible with the keyboard. Then you have to document your changes, and you have to document the functionality in user-level documentation. And then you have to translate the UI and the user documentation. And you will have to decide if and how to make the change backwards compatible, so that people using two versions do not see breakage. And you will have to ask every single reporter of every single issue minimally related to the change under what of the two modes she was operating. And from there on you will have to make sure every single change you make to the program works well with both modes of operation.
It really is much more than wrapping two branches of code in an if-then-else...
Pidgin is not a fork of Gaim: it is Gaim...
Have you looked into the matter so much that you are certain that this is a matter of a conditional in the code? Or are you just telling us what you imagine the matter is?
I won't tell you which answer I think is correct: you tell me first...
Have people stopped using GNOME?
You cannot simply add an option for every single piece of behavior. That is the exact opposite of designing an app.
In the case you mention, a sane solution is to always reserve space for the `typing' notification so that text does not shift up when the notification appears. Having a piece of UI in order to provide alterantive behavior for such a tiny detail that is beyond absurd.
Well, the user that is right and disagrees with the design choices of the developer, can pick another IM app. Why would the developers have to do something they do not want to do?
`It will not hurt' is a really bad reason to add something to a UI...
That's so absurd I cannot really believe you are serious.
You have probably never been in actual need.
You were wrong.
Maybe they, for example, want to be able to fix problems with the OS even after MS's interest in maintaining whatever variant of CP they may or may not be developing for the XO? (For an example, consider the people who want to stick with XP, even by paying more, while MS is clearly going to let it become unsupported eventually---you, on the other hand, are willing to believe they will support a special variant of XP for the XO with essentially no financial incentive, for as long as it is needed?)
Really, if you cannot come up yourself of at least 5 reasons which answer your own question not from your imagination but from recent history, you have clearly been in a coma for at least two decades.
Pushing an agenda is not necessarily bad. In fact, it can be very, very good.
The fact that you are surprised by its contents changing when you select something new means that you, which are such a proficient user from what you say, do not know what it is: the contents of the `middle button paste' is defined to be precisely (and has been since forever) the contents of the last selection, so it changes every time something new is selected.
One may argue that this is strange behaviour, but its use of by far non-mandatory: every sane app which was updated in the last 10 years at least should handle explicit copy and paste (the one most apps handle through Ctrl-V/C/X).
The middle button thing is a historic artifact, whose existence no one will possibly guess unless she is told about it. And if you are going to tell something to a new user by all means it should be something more relevant and useful than the middle button paste thingie, like where is the GUI to install new software...
Well, the menu item 'Add or Remove software' is not on Ubuntu's Application menu?
Having been part of a prominent OSS project which involves hundreds of people working on many, separate subprojects which are mostly independent, I can say that that is a false statement. 90% of the time spent by devs fixing bugs in that project was in solving other people's problems.
If you look into the matter, you'll find that those people willing to risk their lives mostly do not come from countries where health care is socialized but, quite the contrary, following recommendations issued from organizations such as the IMF (that is, essentially from USian think tanks---using the word `thing' in this context is quite an oxymoron, but well, that's what they are called...) their countries have privatized as much as they could without causing too much chaos.
It is rarely scandinavians nowadays who build boats out of a few trees and sail to the US... At the very most of kindness, your comment can be read as remarking that there are places where health care is worse than in the US. You are of course free to consider than sufficient.