Re: Disliking gnome 3

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

On Sun, 2011-09-04 at 09:15 +0300, Pasha R wrote:
> > I concede that our solutions are not meant for everybody, as there may
> > be people with different conflicting requirements, but we're still
> > convinced they apply for the vast majority of our target user base. On
> This is my first problem: what is your target user base? I don't think
> it is "advanced" users, since they usually want to customize their
> systems much more than allowed by current design.

-1 : on the continued implication of the correlation between "advanced
users" (those performing sophisticated tasks using a workstation) and
"tweakers" (those infatuated with playing with UI configuration and
dressing it up with eye-candy).  As a system and network admin for 20
years with hundreds of users - these groups have little overlap.

>  It is also probably
> not "novice" users - for example I don't see my mother typing
> application name anytime soon, and she will definitely feel lost in
> all these icons thrown into overview.

Stop insulting joe-six-pack / "novice" / "average" users.  They aren't
stupid.  They don't have any issue at all pressing a few keys to perform
a task.  Once the principle is explained to him joe-six-pack takes to it
like a fish to water.  Assuming end-users are 'simple' is why we do
*not* have set-top-boxes, web-tops, thin-clients, etc... in any
significant number; as all those platforms underestimated the
sophistication of the end-user and how they interact with their data.
I'm probably close to loosing my cool if I meet one more hacker bitchin'
about the "bloat" of LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, platform-X, who in
the next sentence says,  ....drum roll...... that they never user a word
processor.  Who in that scenario is the simpleton?   I just want to ask
him: OK, how to I insert a foot-note in vi?  And just wait for him [it
is always a him] to tell me that *I* don't need footnotes.  Wow, thanks
for clearing that up for me;  all these years I've wasted effort
complying with decades of coherent document structure! 

> Options probably have a huge cost, but lack of them has huge cost,
> too. 

A sensibly limited number of options approaches perfection!