Re: Middle click, "dumbing down" Slashdotted

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Ray Morris <webmastersguide2000 yahoo com> wrote:
> Middle click got Slashdotted. Some of the comments on Slashdot may be of
> interest:
> http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/24/1252243/middle-click-paste-not-for-long

Must be a slow news day. That story is almost a month old.

> It seems to me that one should be careful of any change that may, in a few
> cases, make things simpler for users while they are new,
> at the expense of reducing functionality for the next 20 years, when they
> aren't new anymore.  If wanted SIMPLE interfaces, we'd
> all use baby talk.  We use English to interface with each other because we
> want a POWERFUL interface, even if we spend a lifetime
> discovering new ways it can be used.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. When this story broke it was
on the basis of two commits, and had no other background information.
In fact, it was precisely because we hadn't had chance to document,
discuss, and fully elaborate our plans that we reverted the change.

Before you go jumping to conclusions, you might want to wait to hear
what we're actually hoping to do in this area. Contrary to what is
being said, we are not simply planning on removing middle click paste,
but I guess that detail doesn't make for interesting news stories (no
one contacted us to ask what the real story is). We'll be working on a
round of designs during the next development cycle, and there will be
opportunities for discussion and feedback.

Allan