I completely agree that preferences and settings are extremely valuable, but I just don't understand how that's relevant. You're talking about value, but I'm just talking about classification.
I think we may have diverged in the discussion. That's cool, it happens. I was, at least most recently, talking about the value of customization of a given app, within a commercial entity. Classification might be neat for later study, but money is on the line now.
Just trying to frame how I make choices. I don't do that anymore, aside from for myself. But metadata matters.
So you're saying that the tools are more important to the success of the company than the actual product? Interesting; I've heard others say that (in a different way), so I suppose it's true. I'll have to keep it in mind for later when I've got a 'real job' (I'm actually just a college student); thanks.
No, nearly the opposite. I'm saying that tool use and context matters for producing an interesting product. Then, you have to interest people in it. Plus, well, you know, context. I discounted that when I was in school, too. I used to think that being smart and having a good product was good enough. Heh.
I don't know what to say. Pay Attention, especially to money. You'll figure it out, if you want to.
I'm going to go nonlinear on you, and respond to different points out of turn.
Also, you're right about this being an argument over semantics, but in this case it's important: haven't you ever seen a newbie save their letter in the Word folder because they don't understand the difference between an application and data?
I believe that semantics are the defining features of most organizations. Face it, few companies do things significantly better than others in the same space - all you have is style, attitude and (importantly) connections. These are not strictly semiotically expressible things, but I think they hit the overall mold. Sfotware is an operationally important subset of this, but only a subset. I've been concentrating on part of that (namely, config), but configuration interoperates heavily with the core of companies, at least in my experience.
Here's my perspective: the application is the tool, and the document you're using it on is the data.
I totally understand your point. But tell me this: if we moved your office to blank machines (vendor defaults across the board, client and server), how long would it take you to get back to business as usual? And how much would the transition have cost you? That's what I was getting at as the value of preferences.
The value of a given business' IT is only measurable in customization, and the baseline of that is what we call "preferences". You go from there with neat tools.
The ultimate goal is simply to stay in power. To hell with the collateral damage to the kids and the organisation. At least they're consistent.
"CSUSA has reviewed the Web site and has determined that your and other slashdotizens' and other Web site participants' published accusations, comments and statements are unlawful, defamatory and libelous against CSUSA, Gateway Charter School and Dr. Nauss,"
"Accordingly, CSUSA hereby demands that you immediately cease and desist your continuous published libel and defamatory accusations, comments and statements."
Read up on the times. "Mere kilometers" means a lot, at certain {time, place} points. If you believe they don't, well, the US has lots of people in a place called Texas born "mere kilometers" from Mexico. And don't get me started on Ohio... Damn Canadian subversives...
I reserve the right to mumble incoherently at the mic, at loud (but not peace disturbing) volume, early and often. I have a lot to say about urgent matters that should worry the police, and they ignore me at their peril. We're talking about public noise, yes? So they have no complaint about interference.
Hell, directional speakers might be really neat here, until they ban the use.
"When noise makers are outlawed, only outlaws... &etc."
(Don't mind having a real discussion at all - I'd prefer it,/. willing.)
A lot of this seems to be devolving into semantic questions, as it should. This is semantics. A parallel might be to ask if you'd like the operating system to ask you the same questions every time you build [whatever it is you build]. If there is enough variability, then that might make sense.
I suspect, though, that settings for your app tend to default to certain uses. These changes are not something that simply installing the app on a blank machine (and sticking you in front of it) will provide you. This means that you have "edit[ed] your environment".
Applcations, today, are generally not (just) data, for modern organizations. One's preference options are extremely valuble. For instance, I can put a price on my.whatever files in my home directory. They are useful to me, and have taken me a long time to develop. I back them up, they are under version control, and they're insured.
When I used to work for other people doing layout, a part of my output was templates, in Quark format. That the app was both the nominal input and the eventual output tool was beside the point. Our actual output was printed paper, saddle stitched. I was building templates within our environment, which included output colour (down to custom setting for the plant we printed at), how we handled widows and orphans, hyphenation, custom fonts for headers, etc. Preferences, from the perspective of the application. If it had been a reasonable input, Tex would have been fine input for me. In which case, preference settings I would have been creating, and templates I would have been building, would all be much more easy to read, modify, and backup. It would have killed several important users, though. In any case, it would have cost serious money, had those Quark prefs ever been lost. To me, that is "editing my environment". Your kilomeratige may vary.
Applications may not be data, but they act on data that can make or, more frequently, break a company, if that company fails to notice what they're based on. I used to be a syadmin, too, and "loss of environment" scared me more than anything else -- environment, almost more than custmer data, defines a company. ( 'scared me', aside from "loss of raid", "loss of production environment", "loss of backup", "loss of sanity", "loss of trusted employees", in mostly that order. But you know what I mean.)
....
I may have mininterpreted your sense of urgency, and if so, I apologize. As far as the Mac aping goes, I have no inside knowledge, but it appears clear to me that Gnome developers find MacOS (less than 10) to be a model. I can't comment on the wisdom of ignoring OSX; I haven't used it more than briefly (we have a tiger box in the house, but I don't use it. I do kinda want to replace my Debian thinkpad, though...). There may be legal concerns, too. Jobs has been a prick there. In any case, I was only stating fact as I see it. As commentary, I would question the wisdom of the NeXT paned-open-dialogs and the over-reliance on flashy modal dialog effect, when providing a simple ssh tunnelling interface would be vastly more useful, but that may be me worrying what my company would like, more than what most companies would like.
In any case, the Edit->prefs vs. Tools->options, I thnk, is a subtle semantic point. Do you ask your hammer to behave differently, or edit the behaviour? I'm totally not saying one is right; but there is a subtle difference, which Gnome as seemed to have taken a side on. We'll find out if that was a good choice or not. In any case, for end users, I like that things are converging; I don't care if the prefs hang off the "Bite Me" menu, so long as they do so in every app.
I was not talking about OSX, Steve can and will do whatever he wants. (and it usually works out, or something, eh?)
_I_ was talking about Mozilla, and how it is working into Gnome. I know that's different on different plaforms. That's an a assertion. That's good.
I, personally, think the app menu is stupid. It was already handled. One edits one's envinronment, which is an edit, not a tool. But that's a subtle point. A tool does something. One edits one's world, everyday. But, whatever. I won't argue the point. It is too hard to explain to either th Gnome people, or you.
It would be unethical, but funny, to tie any use of end-therapy based on the results from California based stem cell reseach to being a resident of California, as established by a tax return or three. Of course, we couldn't exclude our French pals, that wouldn't be fair. But Texans...
Preferences tabs at the top: I hate having tabs at the top--I'd prefer them on the bottom
Personally I agree with the hate, but not the placement - give them to me on the left or the right, and leave more vertical real estate. But see below.
Live preferences: I hate these things with a passion... They already moved it to the Edit menu a while back (WTF?)
I'd prefer no live prefs, too.
But, the deal here is being consistent. They're trying to make the app work like other apps. So, the theory goes, even if they don't make your personal favorite UI choice, at least you know what it will do.
The Edit->Preferences thing is a long standing Mac standard from the pre-OSX days. Back then, most apps followed it. The strength of the convention was most noticable when you used a Microsoft app, which hung them off of Tools->Options. If you haven't noticed, non-OSX MacOS is where a lot (but obviously not all) of Gnome's UI sensibilities come from.
So, I generally agree with your behavioural preferences, and weirdos like you and me and always dick with the undisplayed options in the config file, fiddle with the chrome, etc.. Meanwhile, everyone else gets consistency. Which is a good thing.
See, that dodge doesn't work so well any more. Not that SX does, hm.
Now try to prove that the SCO folks will pay a ****ing dine.
If not, the corporate landscape is... well, somewhere I'll start playing. I'll start playing. "I need to give my children a good future." "I have to go to the awards ceremony, or my professional life would be harmed".
I'd be very interestied in hering both of those arguments from... others, and see how they went.
You might think I lack empthy, and I do. But I don't begrudge them. I want the Rest Of Us to use the stupid rules.
Nobody is required to offer a service to anyone. If you doubt this, please think, but a little, about how you'd keep slashdot open on your own dime.
That said, of course slashdot would fold if it went subscription only. That would be stupid bordering on the insane (cut your traffic 10X, expect the rest to pay for reduced value, you go from here.)
Slashdot makes money. Not as much as they might like, but... well, I have the same issue. They're here. I'm here. That is not some proof that God Loves Slashdot, but it is a nice reminder that services that serve are, well, useful enough to pay their own way.
The way it works is, go to "start", select "drinking", in the dialog that pops up, select "stop", wait for the pink elephants to finish their dance, and then go to "go home".
If that makes sense, you're too drunk, and should go home.
As someone that studied language, semiotics, and the philosophy of language, I can say you have opened up an entirely gnu whorled for we. Futhermore, sinctification flails to indegnify the snotastic iconiflications your mesmerificate. I/We chan lonley hop seiden froden not only antideifyen, however, siche misunderestimation leaves problemification many wierdefied.
The users were randomly selected from more than 6000 IP addresses collected by investigators.
Neat.
Instead of lotteries being a tax on the numerically challenged funnelled through the state to gambling operations, they're now becoming a direct tax for the benefit of copyright holders.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we may have diverged in the discussion. That's cool, it happens. I was, at least most recently, talking about the value of customization of a given app, within a commercial entity. Classification might be neat for later study, but money is on the line now.
Just trying to frame how I make choices. I don't do that anymore, aside from for myself. But metadata matters.
So you're saying that the tools are more important to the success of the company than the actual product? Interesting; I've heard others say that (in a different way), so I suppose it's true. I'll have to keep it in mind for later when I've got a 'real job' (I'm actually just a college student); thanks.
No, nearly the opposite. I'm saying that tool use and context matters for producing an interesting product. Then, you have to interest people in it. Plus, well, you know, context. I discounted that when I was in school, too. I used to think that being smart and having a good product was good enough. Heh.
I don't know what to say. Pay Attention, especially to money. You'll figure it out, if you want to.
Also, you're right about this being an argument over semantics, but in this case it's important: haven't you ever seen a newbie save their letter in the Word folder because they don't understand the difference between an application and data?
I believe that semantics are the defining features of most organizations. Face it, few companies do things significantly better than others in the same space - all you have is style, attitude and (importantly) connections. These are not strictly semiotically expressible things, but I think they hit the overall mold. Sfotware is an operationally important subset of this, but only a subset. I've been concentrating on part of that (namely, config), but configuration interoperates heavily with the core of companies, at least in my experience.
Here's my perspective: the application is the tool, and the document you're using it on is the data.
I totally understand your point. But tell me this: if we moved your office to blank machines (vendor defaults across the board, client and server), how long would it take you to get back to business as usual? And how much would the transition have cost you? That's what I was getting at as the value of preferences.
The value of a given business' IT is only measurable in customization, and the baseline of that is what we call "preferences". You go from there with neat tools.
"CSUSA has reviewed the Web site and has determined that your and other slashdotizens' and other Web site participants' published accusations, comments and statements are unlawful, defamatory and libelous against CSUSA, Gateway Charter School and Dr. Nauss,"
"Accordingly, CSUSA hereby demands that you immediately cease and desist your continuous published libel and defamatory accusations, comments and statements."
Read up on the times. "Mere kilometers" means a lot, at certain {time, place} points. If you believe they don't, well, the US has lots of people in a place called Texas born "mere kilometers" from Mexico. And don't get me started on Ohio... Damn Canadian subversives...
Hell, directional speakers might be really neat here, until they ban the use.
"When noise makers are outlawed, only outlaws... &etc."
A lot of this seems to be devolving into semantic questions, as it should. This is semantics. A parallel might be to ask if you'd like the operating system to ask you the same questions every time you build [whatever it is you build]. If there is enough variability, then that might make sense.
I suspect, though, that settings for your app tend to default to certain uses. These changes are not something that simply installing the app on a blank machine (and sticking you in front of it) will provide you. This means that you have "edit[ed] your environment".
Applcations, today, are generally not (just) data, for modern organizations. One's preference options are extremely valuble. For instance, I can put a price on my .whatever files in my home directory. They are useful to me, and have taken me a long time to develop. I back them up, they are under version control, and they're insured.
When I used to work for other people doing layout, a part of my output was templates, in Quark format. That the app was both the nominal input and the eventual output tool was beside the point. Our actual output was printed paper, saddle stitched. I was building templates within our environment, which included output colour (down to custom setting for the plant we printed at), how we handled widows and orphans, hyphenation, custom fonts for headers, etc. Preferences, from the perspective of the application. If it had been a reasonable input, Tex would have been fine input for me. In which case, preference settings I would have been creating, and templates I would have been building, would all be much more easy to read, modify, and backup. It would have killed several important users, though. In any case, it would have cost serious money, had those Quark prefs ever been lost. To me, that is "editing my environment". Your kilomeratige may vary.
Applications may not be data, but they act on data that can make or, more frequently, break a company, if that company fails to notice what they're based on. I used to be a syadmin, too, and "loss of environment" scared me more than anything else -- environment, almost more than custmer data, defines a company. ( 'scared me', aside from "loss of raid", "loss of production environment", "loss of backup", "loss of sanity", "loss of trusted employees", in mostly that order. But you know what I mean.)
I may have mininterpreted your sense of urgency, and if so, I apologize. As far as the Mac aping goes, I have no inside knowledge, but it appears clear to me that Gnome developers find MacOS (less than 10) to be a model. I can't comment on the wisdom of ignoring OSX; I haven't used it more than briefly (we have a tiger box in the house, but I don't use it. I do kinda want to replace my Debian thinkpad, though...). There may be legal concerns, too. Jobs has been a prick there. In any case, I was only stating fact as I see it. As commentary, I would question the wisdom of the NeXT paned-open-dialogs and the over-reliance on flashy modal dialog effect, when providing a simple ssh tunnelling interface would be vastly more useful, but that may be me worrying what my company would like, more than what most companies would like.
In any case, the Edit->prefs vs. Tools->options, I thnk, is a subtle semantic point. Do you ask your hammer to behave differently, or edit the behaviour? I'm totally not saying one is right; but there is a subtle difference, which Gnome as seemed to have taken a side on. We'll find out if that was a good choice or not. In any case, for end users, I like that things are converging; I don't care if the prefs hang off the "Bite Me" menu, so long as they do so in every app.
Anyway, I'm just rambling. Fair thee well...
I, personally, think the app menu is stupid. It was already handled. One edits one's envinronment, which is an edit, not a tool. But that's a subtle point. A tool does something. One edits one's world, everyday. But, whatever. I won't argue the point. It is too hard to explain to either th Gnome people, or you.
It would be unethical, but funny, to tie any use of end-therapy based on the results from California based stem cell reseach to being a resident of California, as established by a tax return or three. Of course, we couldn't exclude our French pals, that wouldn't be fair. But Texans...
Why won't /. cover this? What's going on here?!?!
God, he's so right.
Stewart, do you know what the aliens are doing to the soil?!?
I like you. You're not like the other kids. Here at the trailer park.
Um, Sorry, you were saying, about the stem cells, and San Francisco?
Personally I agree with the hate, but not the placement - give them to me on the left or the right, and leave more vertical real estate. But see below.
Live preferences: I hate these things with a passion... They already moved it to the Edit menu a while back (WTF?)
I'd prefer no live prefs, too.
But, the deal here is being consistent. They're trying to make the app work like other apps. So, the theory goes, even if they don't make your personal favorite UI choice, at least you know what it will do.
The Edit->Preferences thing is a long standing Mac standard from the pre-OSX days. Back then, most apps followed it. The strength of the convention was most noticable when you used a Microsoft app, which hung them off of Tools->Options. If you haven't noticed, non-OSX MacOS is where a lot (but obviously not all) of Gnome's UI sensibilities come from.
So, I generally agree with your behavioural preferences, and weirdos like you and me and always dick with the undisplayed options in the config file, fiddle with the chrome, etc.. Meanwhile, everyone else gets consistency. Which is a good thing.
That is not correct. Certain activities require certain forms of id, but simply existing does not.
I guess it is a better (more descriptive?) moniker than "lotter".
Now try to prove that the SCO folks will pay a ****ing dine.
If not, the corporate landscape is... well, somewhere I'll start playing. I'll start playing. "I need to give my children a good future." "I have to go to the awards ceremony, or my professional life would be harmed".
I'd be very interestied in hering both of those arguments from ... others, and see how they went.
You might think I lack empthy, and I do. But I don't begrudge them. I want the Rest Of Us to use the stupid rules.
That said, of course slashdot would fold if it went subscription only. That would be stupid bordering on the insane (cut your traffic 10X, expect the rest to pay for reduced value, you go from here.)
Slashdot makes money. Not as much as they might like, but... well, I have the same issue. They're here. I'm here. That is not some proof that God Loves Slashdot, but it is a nice reminder that services that serve are, well, useful enough to pay their own way.
If that makes sense, you're too drunk, and should go home.
Eh? you mean me?
Sorry screwed up. I should have said, "siche misuderestimataton."
I return you to your regularly scheduduled manglish classicalish studification.
As someone that studied language, semiotics, and the philosophy of language, I can say you have opened up an entirely gnu whorled for we. Futhermore, sinctification flails to indegnify the snotastic iconiflications your mesmerificate. I/We chan lonley hop seiden froden not only antideifyen, however, siche misunderestimation leaves problemification many wierdefied.
Naw, they're just misoverestimavating the submittzors.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
(1) please point out which, exactly, of "those same people" are doing both.
(2) Even if that is the case, the point on the BSD stack thing is ususally that MSFT fails to fully implrement it. At least from my perspective.
(3) "Staggering hypocrisy" is more than just a little, um, "staggeringly overstated", don't you think?
Realistically, probably not. However, I would like to point out that "public safety officer" used to have a different meaning then now.
Damn, all my bar-room conversations end up that way.
Neat.
Instead of lotteries being a tax on the numerically challenged funnelled through the state to gambling operations, they're now becoming a direct tax for the benefit of copyright holders.
You, too can become a winner!
Replace "AIM" with "BK" in the above text, and see if you still believe what you're asserting.
Didn't you mean David and Brin?