Re: Contribution

[Maxim Udushlivy <maxim udushlivy gmail com>]

Calum Benson wrote:
> I don't know many "successful" Windows applications that don't broadly
> follow the guidelines, though, apart from games.  (And Office, which is
> a slightly special case, because it's where MS have always pushed their
> latest UI developments first... but the successful ones all find their
> way back into Windows and the guidelines eventually.)  Of course, your
> definition of successful may be different from mine :)
>
>   
A mental experiment... Imagine John Smith who takes a sheet of paper, 
writes "2+2=4" and adds below: "The Great John's Guideline". A year 
later, I do some "2+2=4" calculations on the other side of the planet, 
not knowing about John existence. Do I follow John's guideline?

> I would say it's more the case that the HIG has been part of their
> professional growth, to the extent that pretty much all the core GNOME
> developers are now familiar with the parts relevant to them.  Prior to
> the HIG, many of the developers may have been capable of writing
> applications that were usable in isolation (although, frankly, some of
> them weren't), but I would say the HIG has helped them to write
> applications that are more usable as part of a consistent, coherent
> desktop.
>
>   
This means that the HIG has also some educational value. Do not want to 
quarrel about HIG anymore :)

> > > > So here is that principle that I think make Google successful: reduce
> > > > number of UI controls and expand application functionality while
> > > > preserving UI/functionality coherency. I think that consumer electronics
> > > > inherently follow this principle (TV, video recorders, phones, etc.)
> > > >         
> Well, I somewhat disagree :)  In general, it's just always not possible
> to continue to reduce the number of controls while also expanding
> functionality-- you often just end up with the typical nightmare
> VCR/phone/remote control scenario where each control has multiple,
> unmemorable context-dependent functions.
>
> What you can certainly strive for is a simple UI that does a few things
> well, progressively discloses more complex functionality if need be, and
> interacts richly and predictably with the other (hopefully also simple)
> UIs around it... much like the original Unix command line philosophy, in
> fact.
>
> The Google example you cite is a perfect example of that: their search
> page user interface is so simple because it has precisely one function,
> and the default behaviour and inherent complexity (as defined by the
> search algorithm they use) is completely transparent-- and in most cases
> irrelevant-- to the user.  If you head for the advanced search page, the
> UI is a whole lot more complex, albeit still clean and well-designed,
> but most users never need to see that.  That's pretty much the current
> GNOME philosophy in a nutshell, too.
>   
Another mental experiment...
Imagine a commander and his soldiers at a war. To be effective our 
commander cannot use normal language, so he *reduces* it to a certain 
number of command words. Also, he wants to *expand* a number of his 
soldiers, because he needs a manpower to win. At the same time he cannot 
use too many soldiers (or too small number of words) because commands 
and reactions may become not *coherent* - there will be a mess.

How does this metaphor apply to desktops? A commander is a developer, 
commands are widgets, soldiers are application functions.

So this, say, "Gideon Principle" is like a path to an effective control. 
Quite possibly some theory exists about this, but I don't have time and 
desire to find references :)

>   
> > My main thought about Gnome is very general: too much bureaucracy and 
> > politics, not enough technology and real activity ;)
> >     
>
> Well, I don't see it like that at all (although there are certainly
> times when more cool stuff is happening than others, but that's just
> natural), but maybe I'm just too used to working for bureacracy-laden
> big companies :)  Which other large open source projects would you say
> are doing things better?
>
>   
It's FreeBSD, and I may try to explain why I think so ;)