Re: Random thought...

["Dan \"Effugas\" Kaminsky" <effugas best com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Vogt <tom@lemuria.org>
To: gnome-gui-list@gnome.org <gnome-gui-list@gnome.org>
Date: Friday, August 14, 1998 7:39 AM
Subject: Re: Random thought...


>Dan Effugas Kaminsky <effugas@best.com> wrote:
>> >who ever said that? I remember that a few people - me among them -
argued
>> >that compatibility to other ui isn't a holy cow and we should be guided
by
>> >our own things more than by that. but more than that? can you point me
to
>> >the mail where someone said that?
>>
>> Yeah.  I think it was Sun who said nearly those exact
words--"Compatibility
>> with other HCI standards is too stupid an argument to discuss".  I'll
>> private email you the quote if you don't believe me--such hyperbole I
>> wouldn't make up.
>
>please do. not because I don't believe you, but because I'd like to see the
>context and which that sentence was said.


------------
Dan "Effugas" Kaminsky wrote:

> The file menu is one of those things that's just INCREDIBLY consistent,
I'm
> sure the Mac HCI guidelines REALLY lock down its contents.
> (Note...Kaminsky's Second Law...)  That's just it...consistent interface,
> time after time after time after time makes users SCREAM if something
isn't
> done right.

so you're arguing that we should keep quit in the file menu in order to
be consistent with _other gui's_?

i won't insult your intelligence by telling you what's wrong with that
argument.

> I mean, something is up here. I told my GF about screenplays, she was like
> "that's pretty cool".  I told her about the menuprint stuff, she said "ok"
> and kinda gave me a look like "I'm no geek, stop telling me this stuff."

by your arguments, you haven't understood the basic proposal, so i can't
imagine you actually explained it to your so the way i have proposed it.

> Then I told her that people wanted to change the name and contents of
file,
> and move quit.

so you told her we wanted to change:

1.) the name
2.) the contents
3.) quit

see? you completely messed up on #2. all we want to do is change 1 and
3.

until you understand this issue, dan, your girlfriend will not be used
as the guinea pig new user for this project.

> Off the top of your head... [much deleted]

off the top of our heads?

dan, are you proposing that we should keep quit in the file menu in
order to be consistent with _other gui's_?

i won't insult your intelligence by telling you what's wrong with that
argument.

> My girlfriend, my 75 year old grandmother, and every user I know will RUN
IN
> FEAR away from GNOME if it f***s with file.  I can get them to sign a
> petition if you like, there's SERIOUS user anger that's triggered if you
try
> to break this.

dan, are you proposing that we should keep quit in the file menu in
order to be consistent with _other gui's_?

i won't insult your intelligence by telling you what's wrong with that
argument.

we're simply not going to accept "because the other guys do it that way"
as an argument, so you might as well stop using that to defend your
case. the "other guys" and kaminsky's second law can go cry in their
beer in a poorly-lit bar somewhere for all we care.
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
-------------

>well, as far as I can see, this is one of the reasons for the whole
>customization thing. see, one of the things I didn't like about kde is that
>it brought it's own wm thingy. I have hunted high and low for a wm that I
>like, trying everything from icewm to fvwm2 to some exotics, before I found
>afterstep and loved it from the start. everything that even dares to
SUGGEST
>I switch my wm has a bad mark from the beginning.
>
>see what I'm aiming at? if someone wants to use the BrainDead(tm)
>windowmanager, he damn should be able to. and if someone wants to have his
>desktop resemble the mac interface he's used to, it should be possible.
>maybe not 100% but enough to have that person feel at home. so if someone
>wants to have wordperfect keybindings, there should be something we can
>offer him.


Bigtime agree.  Remember Tom, I'm the guy who came up w/ da Keybox,
keythemes, menuthemes, etc. etc. etc.

BUT.

GNOME needs an identity, a starting point, a well designed base of
operations from which extender wm's can operate and users can
pick-and-choose their level of extension.  You know, one of the smartest
parts of Windows themes are the fact that you don't have to retheme
everything--want to retheme just sounds, or just colors, or everything but
mouse pointers?  You can do that.  Like Bowie loves to say--open, but
controlled ;-)

>
>> >> We have an audience.  We have *users*.  Pragmatism, man.  That's *why*
>> Linux
>> >> is growing.  Ignore and diez!
>> >
>> >that's exactly what we're doing. going our way, see. that's another
reason
>> >why Linux is growing. :)
>>
>> Huh?  You lost me.
>
>pragmatism is one thing why Linux is big. but it's not the only one.


It's the big reason.  Pragmatism is our God.  Look at the reasons for Open
Source that are really penetrating corporate america--"You wouldn't want to
buy a car that you couldn't pop the hood, even if you didn't know how to fix
it, you would want to be able to take it to someone who could".

>ok, got it now. you're right, it's not quite the same. emulation works by
>setting some arbitrary (very short, some ms) time. if during that time both
>buttons are down, a middle-button-click is sent to the app, otherwise a
>single button one. I don't know if it looks for the state of the buttons
>before.
>
>ok, it wasn't designed for games. it works good in apps, because you
usually
>don't have to press several mouse buttons simultaneously.


You don't have to press buttons simultaneously because I believe HCI
research says it's awkward.