Re: [Fwd: Re: File Selector talk notes -- one other suggestion]

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 03:33:22PM +0200, textshell neutronstar dyndns org
wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 03:53:14AM -0500, Gregory Merchan wrote:
<snip>
> > Regarding MDI/whatever:
> >   It sucks. It makes other things suck. Get over it. Have a nice day.
> > 
> 
> I just like the possibility to (from the user view) aggregate many related
> documents in one frame. This is *needed* if you have 20+ files or web pages
> open at the same time for one of the things you are doing!

You don't need MDI, tabbed or otherwise, to do that. Look at (e.g.) PWM.


> Short, It doesn't suck! I won't get over that developers say something
> sucks because it is too much work. If that is what you have to say, 
> say it as "This is to much work". And for the tabs matter: I just 
> included tabs because that what is mostly done in Gnome now, general
> MDI could is more versatile.

Woah, Bubba! Just who the hell do you think I am? Last I checked, my name
appears in some changelogs and one - just one - AUTHORS file. It used to
be in the HIG too, but I asked for it to be removed. Let me quote the opinion
of one of the prominent GNOME developers:

  Since to my knowledge you no longer work on either GNOME _or_ KDE
  (_or_ ROX _or_ XFCE), and your main contribution to GNOME anyway was a
  lot of flames, we really don't have to pay any attention to you at all
  in order to get things done, so...

So this notion that I'm a developer is as mysterious to me as the notion
that I work for some GNOME-shipping company. You might say I'm a volunteer,
except that I get flamed about pissing off 'volunteers' when they are paid
employees of some company shipping GNOME. ('volunteer' seems to be a job
title; damn, ain't I a sucker.)

Furthermore, I'm not one of the people who thinks, "This is too much work."
You'll probably find proof of that near where I'm flamed for pissing off
'volunteers'.

As for the particular nastinesses of tabbed UI, you can find out why by
searching the web. Not expensing this option may seem like a good idea
in the short-run, but in the long-run we're all dead - prematurely.


<snip>
> And that people make requests for tab features all the time is a good
> indication that many (at least of the people that post to the list and
> bugzilla) really use this functionality and really like it! Get over it,
> users like it.
<snip>

I guess it's too much work to try and make a good diagnosis. ;-D
I suppose that if you knew someone who liked chewing ice, you'd just
say, "he likes chewing ice," and leave it at that. That'd be a real shame
because then if he's suffering anemia you'd miss it.


Last note:
  "It sucks. It makes other things suck. Get over it. Have a nice day."

Do you really think that makes a good argument? It doesn't, IMO. That's
why I left it at that. If I'd wanted to debate the merits of tabbed-UI,
then I could have presented information about why it is not good and how
its deficiencies create problems for the rest of the system and how it
leaves the real problems to fester. Maybe I should have been so bland
as to say:

   MDI and Tabbed-UI are bad and create problems for the rest of the system
   while leaving the real problems unaddressed. A full accounting of the
   benefits and detriments of them will bear this out. However, I do not
   wish to discuss it because that has already happened many times before.

If it had been my intention to draw a response to that, I'd say you'd been
trolled. One will be more effective debating sigs.


Cheers,
Greg Merchan