Re: Apologies to gnome-gui if I ever said you guys were flamers...

[Tom Vogt <tom lemuria org>]

Dan Effugas Kaminsky <effugas@best.com> wrote:
> >it would have been YOUR job to find out how screenplays can be done,
> 
> So, I shouldn't design, I should code.

could you please abstain from playing dumb? I'm not know for liking that
very much.



> No, unconcerned.  My way of looking at it is that it's never been done
> right, it's never been integrated universally with an operating system, it's
> never been part of the help paradigm, essentially, I was *designing a better
> helpsystem* and Xlab came along and showed that the design structure I was
> defining wasn't all that impossible.  Am I supposed to look at this like a
> bad thing?

yes, you are. it's showing clearly that all you had was a nifty idea and
that you didn't care to do the basic research one could have expected from
someone who demands webspace and people to listen.


> Tom, I devote something like three paragraphs to this, exactly.  I provide
> references.  I describe old systems.  My word, I didn't stay holed up in my
> room researching and typing.  What happened to all that starry eyed
> idealism, that style guides shouldn't be held up waiting for perfection,
> that they should be open to the public?  I agreed with you here, is this my
> reward?  Being burned by the person who taught me?

geez, I'm not teaching anyone, my ambitions in that direction faded several
years ago.
but my opinion on this is that all that idealism isn't worth a dime if it's
not supported by down-to-earth research.


> >I'm not surprised that the reaction you get from the gnome-coders is very
> >much like what you'd get from any big games company with the same kind of
> >approach.
> 
> You know, it's funny you use this big games analogy, because, like movies,
> alot of games suck.

as with movies, the problem here is not bad design, but bad design goals.
both have to be sold to as many people as possible, which leads to lowest
common demoninator strategies. but this list is not the place to discuss
that. I was making an example, I did not intend on talking about it's the
finest details of the area where I took it from.



> wonderful.  Why not in GNOME?  Total Annihilation has build queues.  They're
> wonderful.  They should be in Starcraft.  They're not.
actually... they are - for the protos, the race advanced enough in both
technical and management areas to implement some. I don't know for terrans,
I have played starcraft only once during a network session.

but all of this IS besides the point.

-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
		-- Henry Spencer