Windows is very, very broken. There is no consistancy between apps. They're designed in large part by people who are, and I have no way to prove this other than the apps, completely insane or sadistic. I'm personally holding to the belief it is a mix of the two.
But, we have to understand and accept that the user will have some learned traits from using it. For example, if we put them in front of Enlightenment, the users will... Well.. Have you ever seen the movie "Scanners?"
But, if Enlightenment is the first thing someone ever uses, hey, it could be really easy to use. We don't know. But, we'll never find out; most people won't have that luxury.
So what I'm saying is, if the only, sole, lone reason you can say "this UI is the best because it is easier if someone has never used anything else ever, they will find it easy to use," and that is the only case in which it is easier to use, then you are ignoring that most people will not be in that situation, and need to reevaluate the design in the light that people will come into it with some preconcieved notions of how it should work. This doesn't mean you have to emulate them, just that you have to be congnisant of them and try and tool it so that in the end it is easier for both to use. Because most users aren't new users. They're intermediate users.
To give a example, let's take Nautilus: Ctrl-Q closes all windows. In Nautilus. In Gedit it closes the current window, while ctrl-w closes the current view. In EOG ctrl-w and ctrl-q do the same thing, close the current view; you can't close all of them with one keyboard command. In Epiphany, ctrl-q does nothing and ctrl-w closes views and the window, depending on if there are any other tabs in the current view. In...
How is that easier for a new user? Or a novice or advanced? Why bother with having common key binds if they aren't consistant across apps?
Spartial Nautilus is the only non-dialog view window in GNOME without a toolbar to my knowledge. How is this easier to use? How is this consistant? How does a user learn to expect the most commonly used items to have large icons on the top, then in only one window type have nothing?
This isn't even me going into the problems of having that little path dropdown on the lower left hand side of the window. It's small, it's in the hardest-to-reach corner of a window, and isn't even consistant with the way the path is shown in the file dialogs. And these are just things I see when I take a quick look at it.
So perhaps the no-toolbar spartial Nautilus view is, in a vacuum, easier to use. But it's ignorant of the entire system around it, and of the users skill set. If it can be argued to be better, than so be it, but if the sole justification for it is "it's easier if someone's never used anything else," then can we really say that this is the best path to take? IMHO, no.
The vast majority of people know of and have used a computer before. They have baggage from a previous use experience.
If the sole justification of a UI construct is "if you never used anything else before, it's easy," then it has failed. It has to be easy to new, intermediate, and advanced users. More so when it's something as central as the "thing that pops up when I click the icons on the desktop."
(full disclaimer, I actually like and think Spartial Nautilus is a good thing, but that it's not taken to the full extent it should be. For example, the spartial model breaks the minute a user opens a app, as the open/save dialogs do not know of or respect the spartial nature of the system, thus breaking any "learning" the spartial nautilus views may have brought about)
But isn't this in general true of all languages? I mean, to write C code to the highest potential, you have to occasionally drop down and inline some cryptic ASM to punch up those few routines that are slow and commonly called.
Or I suppose what I'm asking is, isn't a increase in readablity worth a reasonable hit in performance, expectally if one can then use the less pleasant code when speed is a considerating?
I can't remember where, but I believe during the main push for 10.3, they were touting that much of the userspace had already moved to the (then recent) 5.1 code, so I imagine this release will be no different.
AFAIK, they make most of their coin off the small coffee station, shockingly. Or at least they used to. Which probably makes for a better business plan than being "library with cash register.";)
And why, pray tell, is Microsoft trying to do something useful to help the ailing email system? Where's the profit in that?
In selling OSes. It's rather hard to sell a item that brings little more than annoyance, and when 99% of people do little more than browse or read email, spam can be a major deal breaker.
Why isn't there a link to the GNUstep website in the writeup? You'd think they could link to the GNUstep website in a story that talks about GNUstep. What's with that?
Seriously, next time there's a story that has GNUstep in the writeup, they should probably link the text "GNUstep" to the GNUstep website, which is (of course) www.GNUstep.org.
I'm not a regular Crossfire viewer, but... Is that first commecial break ALWAYS around 3 to 4 minutes? Is this a normal thing, or were they scrambling to try and "soften the blow" from a "rouge" interviewee?
*dons tin foil hat*
Re:With Java, stuck in Windows/Linux/Solaris
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 1
Perhaps, but the point I was trying to make was that there are a number of complete, portable solutions for.Net and C# today, whereas if you want to port Java you're stuck hoping your/a vendor will license and port it, or hoping Sun will.
Hopefully this will end soon when GNU Classpath becomes more complete, and we have a even playing field (more or less) for the languages that are outside the scope of the "owning" company. But as I said this is all IMHO.
With Java, stuck in Windows/Linux/Solaris
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 2, Informative
"I want C# on my *N*X/Window box"
http://www.go-mono.com/
"I want Windows.Forms support on my Mac/*N*X/Windows box"
http://www.dotgnu.org
If it's a choice of language based solely on the portablity of code, C# wins out IMHO. With Java, you're dependant on Sun to support your system, which is a royal pain. (as anyone with a *BSD box will tell you)
But that raises a intersting question: Namely, why is it that KISS didn't make their name until the first Alive record was released.
live records are a odd beast. A straight-up live show record can be great if the band is amazing live, but worthless if they're a better studio band. Live records can capture somethign studio albums will miss, a energy and ugency that 20 take, pitch-perfect version of a song can't, and I'd agrue that the power of that is what draws certain people, not the hardcoreness.
Though, granted, there are a lot of people who just buy them to be hardcore. ( says the ex Misfits fan;) )
The truly sad thing is that the shops are "next to each other" but separated by huge expanses of parking lot. What makes it truly sad is that there is an LRT line that runs through the shopping district, with a stop at 2km intervals. Too far for anything but waiting for the busses (which run on a 45 minute schedule on the weekend).
Have you considered biking?
Seriously. Around here I see many people biking with their children in small craddles that attach to the bike's rear wheel and have a nice protective barrier for keeping anything that might kick up out.:) Parking's a problem, granted, but I usually just chain mine up on the sidewalk to a "no parking" sign or something equally ironic.;) A carrier may make it more of a theft-target, but I'd imagine it'd be simple-esqe to get something to deter most theieves.
If there were 10 browsers (heh
there probably is, good thing Firebird seems to be the de-facto default) for Linux all specialized at doing their own thing well, would that be good or bad?
From the top post. Direct quote with emphasis added. If me and the poster agree, rocking, it's just another post I've made that people can ignore. IMHO, we've one sticking point in that they want one browser and only one browser AFAI understand what they wrote, and for that to be the "standard." Which seems to be a common stance in regards to how to make apps "interoperate" today; "hey, it's the only app, so everything has to work with it." That's all I said, and that's all I'm saying.
Slashdot Mirror
NO! Far from it.
Windows is very, very broken. There is no consistancy between apps. They're designed in large part by people who are, and I have no way to prove this other than the apps, completely insane or sadistic. I'm personally holding to the belief it is a mix of the two.
But, we have to understand and accept that the user will have some learned traits from using it. For example, if we put them in front of Enlightenment, the users will... Well.. Have you ever seen the movie "Scanners?"
But, if Enlightenment is the first thing someone ever uses, hey, it could be really easy to use. We don't know. But, we'll never find out; most people won't have that luxury.
So what I'm saying is, if the only, sole, lone reason you can say "this UI is the best because it is easier if someone has never used anything else ever, they will find it easy to use," and that is the only case in which it is easier to use, then you are ignoring that most people will not be in that situation, and need to reevaluate the design in the light that people will come into it with some preconcieved notions of how it should work. This doesn't mean you have to emulate them, just that you have to be congnisant of them and try and tool it so that in the end it is easier for both to use. Because most users aren't new users. They're intermediate users.
To give a example, let's take Nautilus: Ctrl-Q closes all windows. In Nautilus. In Gedit it closes the current window, while ctrl-w closes the current view. In EOG ctrl-w and ctrl-q do the same thing, close the current view; you can't close all of them with one keyboard command. In Epiphany, ctrl-q does nothing and ctrl-w closes views and the window, depending on if there are any other tabs in the current view. In...
How is that easier for a new user? Or a novice or advanced? Why bother with having common key binds if they aren't consistant across apps?
Spartial Nautilus is the only non-dialog view window in GNOME without a toolbar to my knowledge. How is this easier to use? How is this consistant? How does a user learn to expect the most commonly used items to have large icons on the top, then in only one window type have nothing?
This isn't even me going into the problems of having that little path dropdown on the lower left hand side of the window. It's small, it's in the hardest-to-reach corner of a window, and isn't even consistant with the way the path is shown in the file dialogs. And these are just things I see when I take a quick look at it.
So perhaps the no-toolbar spartial Nautilus view is, in a vacuum, easier to use. But it's ignorant of the entire system around it, and of the users skill set. If it can be argued to be better, than so be it, but if the sole justification for it is "it's easier if someone's never used anything else," then can we really say that this is the best path to take? IMHO, no.
Not to be crass, but they don't matter.
The vast majority of people know of and have used a computer before. They have baggage from a previous use experience.
If the sole justification of a UI construct is "if you never used anything else before, it's easy," then it has failed. It has to be easy to new, intermediate, and advanced users. More so when it's something as central as the "thing that pops up when I click the icons on the desktop."
(full disclaimer, I actually like and think Spartial Nautilus is a good thing, but that it's not taken to the full extent it should be. For example, the spartial model breaks the minute a user opens a app, as the open/save dialogs do not know of or respect the spartial nature of the system, thus breaking any "learning" the spartial nautilus views may have brought about)
So, then, Mozilla and RedHat aren't Free software?
They have similar rights reserved over their name/art/trademarks.
You've obviously never played PoP 3d. Anyone who had would never consider it canon. ;)
Yes it
is.
Oh sure, not Sun's, but...
But isn't this in general true of all languages? I mean, to write C code to the highest potential, you have to occasionally drop down and inline some cryptic ASM to punch up those few routines that are slow and commonly called.
Or I suppose what I'm asking is, isn't a increase in readablity worth a reasonable hit in performance, expectally if one can then use the less pleasant code when speed is a considerating?
Of course it was running Linux. See, they were running it just to prove how insecure it is.
Pawns! You're all playing right into their hands!
I can't remember where, but I believe during the main push for 10.3, they were touting that much of the userspace had already moved to the (then recent) 5.1 code, so I imagine this release will be no different.
Doesn't matter. How many archs does it need? Err... x86 and SPARC. Maybe PowerPC, but that'd be debateable if you're not working for IBM. ;)
If the question was merely "where does it run" everyone'd be using NetBSD.
So I guess they'd have to become GRUE (GRUE is Really UNIX, Evidently).
s/books/lattes/g
;)
AFAIK, they make most of their coin off the small coffee station, shockingly. Or at least they used to. Which probably makes for a better business plan than being "library with cash register."
In selling OSes. It's rather hard to sell a item that brings little more than annoyance, and when 99% of people do little more than browse or read email, spam can be a major deal breaker.
</advocate class="devil">
If it's not free, I hope they at least lower the price. I mean, that's what they usually do when someone brings back opened hardware.
Why isn't there a link to the GNUstep website in the writeup? You'd think they could link to the GNUstep website in a story that talks about GNUstep. What's with that?
Seriously, next time there's a story that has GNUstep in the writeup, they should probably link the text "GNUstep" to the GNUstep website, which is (of course) www.GNUstep.org.
I'm not a regular Crossfire viewer, but... Is that first commecial break ALWAYS around 3 to 4 minutes? Is this a normal thing, or were they scrambling to try and "soften the blow" from a "rouge" interviewee?
*dons tin foil hat*
Perhaps, but the point I was trying to make was that there are a number of complete, portable solutions for .Net and C# today, whereas if you want to port Java you're stuck hoping your/a vendor will license and port it, or hoping Sun will.
Hopefully this will end soon when GNU Classpath becomes more complete, and we have a even playing field (more or less) for the languages that are outside the scope of the "owning" company. But as I said this is all IMHO.
"I want C# on my *N*X/Window box"
http://www.go-mono.com/
"I want Windows.Forms support on my Mac/*N*X/Windows box"
http://www.dotgnu.org
If it's a choice of language based solely on the portablity of code, C# wins out IMHO. With Java, you're dependant on Sun to support your system, which is a royal pain. (as anyone with a *BSD box will tell you)
I though that is what Goneme is about.
http://goneme.org/
The mailing lists seem to be active enough for a just-starting project,
Zeus? Is that you?
But that raises a intersting question: Namely, why is it that KISS didn't make their name until the first Alive record was released.
;) )
live records are a odd beast. A straight-up live show record can be great if the band is amazing live, but worthless if they're a better studio band. Live records can capture somethign studio albums will miss, a energy and ugency that 20 take, pitch-perfect version of a song can't, and I'd agrue that the power of that is what draws certain people, not the hardcoreness.
Though, granted, there are a lot of people who just buy them to be hardcore. ( says the ex Misfits fan
Have you considered biking?
Seriously. Around here I see many people biking with their children in small craddles that attach to the bike's rear wheel and have a nice protective barrier for keeping anything that might kick up out.
Sorry, but a pyramid scheme is a scam... Or possibly scamola...
The sky was discovered to be a blueish hue.
From the top post. Direct quote with emphasis added. If me and the poster agree, rocking, it's just another post I've made that people can ignore. IMHO, we've one sticking point in that they want one browser and only one browser AFAI understand what they wrote, and for that to be the "standard." Which seems to be a common stance in regards to how to make apps "interoperate" today; "hey, it's the only app, so everything has to work with it." That's all I said, and that's all I'm saying.
Top poster said there should only be one browser. (Firefox) I said there should be only few backends. Two entirely different comments.
Unless Galeon, Firefox, Mozilla, Epiphany, Stepstone, Konqueror, Safari, gnuWebCore, et al suddenly merged.