oms101@freeuk.com writes:
So why do I think we stand a chance of fixing the situation? Simple - KDE and GNOME. KDE and Gnome both solve the basic problem of making writing GUIs for applications on Unix a lot easier, making the applications look good and providing all the mod-cons that users expect (internationalisation, drag-drop, object linking etc).
Uh, did we need KDE or Gnome to provide them? Yes, they make some of them rather easier, but the core problems (translators, choice) aren't addressed by those hooge wedges of code in the current top desktop environments. Others (drag-drop) are perfectly possible just from the toolkit level.
- bigots are bad
Agreed.
* pragmatists and enthusiasts are good.
Wrong! Pragmatists are the most terrible thing that we have ever been cursed with. Realists are good, but most pragmatists would sell all the progress we've made with Free software down the river in order to overtake the market leader. Thank $DEITY for fundamentalists to keep the balance.
- The Unix/X desktop has been a mess for the last 10 years+ * Finally there is some movement but there is a long way to go.
Has the movement been in the correct direction, or just following the Jones's though? One of the most innovative interfaces I use is the "wily" text editor, which breaks nearly every "rule" in the accepted traditions of user interface design, but still works because it is very efficient to use.
- For many applications Linux or Unix is a very good choice.
Even some applications on the desktop can be very well fulfilled with Linux. It is difficult to convince people - to the bigots I say don't just argue with people - show them what it can do! And if it can't do what people need retire gracefully and make sure the writers of the applications know about the shortcoming or help add features yourself!
Again, very very true. Remember to scratch your itches, people!
-----Original Message----- From: social-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:social-admin@lists.alug.org.uk]On Behalf Of MJ Ray Sent: 13 October 2001 18:47 To: permanent@altavista.net Cc: Social@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [alug social] FW: (forw) Of Linux bigots
oms101@freeuk.com writes:
So why do I think we stand a chance of fixing the situation?
Simple - KDE and
GNOME. KDE and Gnome both solve the basic problem of making
writing GUIs
for applications on Unix a lot easier, making the applications
look good and
providing all the mod-cons that users expect (internationalisation, drag-drop, object linking etc).
Uh, did we need KDE or Gnome to provide them? Yes, they make some of them rather easier, but the core problems (translators, choice) aren't addressed by those hooge wedges of code in the current top desktop environments. Others (drag-drop) are perfectly possible just from the toolkit level.
- bigots are bad
Agreed.
Muslim fundamentalist or American red-neck with a rifle, Mac zealot or Microsoft hater - bigots are always stupid in my book.
* pragmatists and enthusiasts are good.
Wrong! Pragmatists are the most terrible thing that we have ever been cursed with.
Why? AFAIA a pragmatist is a person who takes a practical approach to problems. What is the matter with that? I can understand that sort of reaction for anti-Microsoft zealots. Those partisans really don't do any favours for the open source/free software movement but as you say "Realists are good" surely in this context realists and pragmatists are one in the same, or at least a pragmatist is a type of realist.
Realists are good, but most pragmatists would sell all the progress we've made with Free software down the river in order to overtake the market leader. Thank $DEITY for fundamentalists to keep the balance.
Just my tuppence worth feel free to disagree. :-)
Cheers, BJ
On 13-Oct-01 MJ Ray wrote:
oms101@freeuk.com writes:
So why do I think we stand a chance of fixing the situation? Simple - KDE and GNOME. KDE and Gnome both solve the basic problem of making writing GUIs for applications on Unix a lot easier, making the applications look good and providing all the mod-cons that users expect (internationalisation, drag-drop, object linking etc).
Uh, did we need KDE or Gnome to provide them? Yes, they make some of them rather easier, but the core problems (translators, choice) aren't addressed by those hooge wedges of code in the current top desktop environments. Others (drag-drop) are perfectly possible just from the toolkit level.
Motifs Drag and Drop is reputed to be very very buggy and I have found motif bad enough without going into areas that are said to be buggyu, It is posuible with standard menus to put a motif app into some sort of infinate loop.
This does not meen I think that drag and drop is imposible on light weight applications my favourate graphical file manager XFtree/Xtree is an ideal example, it supports drag and drop and uses near 4M with 2M for each instance and 2M shared.
What David Gilbert was saying I think was that users expect MS Windows like user interface with drag and drop and associated features, not least eye candy which david goes on to mention. Most people I know dont think about computer speed or using less resource hungry applications as they only use one computer and they wait for it to complete the task due. You need to compare computers to get rearly cross at the speed of your own computer.
having played with Motif now I shall finish my current project and if I ever right a linux GUI based application again I am using Qt because I think David is right Motif and maybe other "traditional" widget sets are poor.
Writing graphical applications for Unix under X Windows under the traditional tools is a pain; they look crap, they are about as user friendly as a brick
that said I am considering learning python and with it maybe tinker the tk bingings for python.
<snip>
- The Unix/X desktop has been a mess for the last 10 years+ * Finally there is some movement but there is a long way to go.
Has the movement been in the correct direction, or just following the Jones's though? One of the most innovative interfaces I use is the "wily" text editor, which breaks nearly every "rule" in the accepted traditions of user interface design, but still works because it is very efficient to use.
vi does not folloew conventional User Interface theory but still is imprssive as one gets to use it, maybe the theory is wrong.
- For many applications Linux or Unix is a very good choice.
Even some applications on the desktop can be very well fulfilled with Linux. It is difficult to convince people - to the bigots I say don't just argue with people - show them what it can do! And if it can't do what people need retire gracefully and make sure the writers of the applications know about the shortcoming or help add features yourself!
Again, very very true. Remember to scratch your itches, people!
Good night all
Owen Synge
Date: 13-Oct-01 Time: 19:06:10