Re: gtk icewm?

[robert havoc pennington <rhpennin midway uchicago edu>]

On Mon, 18 May 1998 raster@redhat.com wrote:
> 
> again a misnoma. different is neither bad nor good - it depends what
> new stuff you have. if beinf different was bad a GUi would have never
> been invented - terminals wouldnt exits.,. we'd be uing computers with
> switches and led's as output. Being diferent and having the guts to try
> somehitng new drives innovation and features. don't be afraid of being
> different. Embrace it.
> 

I agree in principle, but in practice it seems like this sentiment mostly
results in difference on the application level, much of it kind of
gratuitous (e.g. button styles, where the menu items are, etc.). If our
difference is guided by a good plan and is implemented across Gnome, and
really truly makes things better, then I'm all for it. 

At this stage there's all kinds of inconsistency in Gnome apps; I think
that's good, because lots of things are getting tried out, and the ideas
are flowing. Eventually though, IMHO, we want to pick the best of the
ideas and impose uniformity. When deciding which ideas to go with, I think
we should go with preexisting familiar ideas by default, and be different
only if there's a clear tangible benefit or no precedent to base the
decision on.

So basically all I'm saying is let's not be different just to be different
- let's have a good reason. And if all major GUI platforms do something
one way I think we should do it the same way, because people are familiar
with it and those platforms are based on all kinds of usability studies we
can't possibly do ourselves.

Havoc