[Fwd: Re: [Proposal] Remove some stuff from Application menu]

[Darryl Rees <a4atuuj02 sneakemail com>]

Shaun,

sorry, finger troubles - have forwarded on-list as you suggest...

Cheers,

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [Proposal] Remove some stuff from Application menu
Date: 	02 Jul 2003 03:56:11 -0500
From: 	Shaun McCance shaunm-at-wolfram.com |lists-and-general| 
<m0hlhhe3xp0t sneakemail com>
Organization: 	Wolfram Research, Inc.
To: 	Darryl Rees <rees netnam vn>
References: 	<1056796827 2372 23 camel localhost> 
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<1057106451 31545 18 camel shaunmlx wolfram com> 
<3F027D92 4070602 sneakemail com>



I don't know if you meant to reply off-list.  Feel free to re-reply or
forward on-list if you like.

On Wed, 2003-07-02 at 01:37, Darryl Rees wrote:
> Shaun McCance wrote:
>
> >I don't think "the home concept" is all that hard.  I mean, it's just
> >where you put stuff.  Is it really that hard to understand that I put
> >stuff in my home directory?  As for "Personal Files", I'm not sure that
> >everything in my home directory qualifies as personal.
> >  
> >
> How is that definition distinct from the definition for 'Desktop'?
>
> (...Should I put stuff in my home or on my desktop? How come when I 
> click on my Home there is a folder called  desktop, and when I  click  
> that... :-)

And Personal Files contains Desktop, which contains Personal Files. 
Simply renaming doesn't solve this little conundrum.

I can't speak for how all users view their desktop.  But I can speak for
myself.  My desktop is not where I keep all of my files.  My desktop has
a link to my home directory, two links to two incredibly-often accessed
directories (one of which is not in my home directory), Trash, and any
removable media that might be mounted.  My home directory is where I
keep everything.  My desktop is just my starting point.

> >The home directory is so thoroughly entrenched in Unix and Unix-like
> >systems that trying to remove it is an exercise in futility.  First,
> >you'll have a huge number of people loading up Gnome and screaming,
> >"Where is my home directory?"  Second, even if Gnome went through all
> >the effort of removing all references to home from all programs and all
> >documentation, you'll never get home removed from all the programs and
> >documentation that aren't Gnome.
> >  
> >
> Conversely, non-unix-like systems where the gui was designed to be the 
> primary mode of interaction have never had anything like a home icon.

Granted.  And it might be cruft.  But I'm not at all convinced that it's
cruft you'll easily do away with.  Renaming just masks the cruft, and it
just isn't worth the problems it will cause.

Somewhat OT:  We should be very careful in how we look at non-Unix-like
systems for ideas.  While we might have Unix cruft, I assure you that
both Windows NT/2K/XP and Mac OS X have an incredible amount of cruft
from their roots as single-user systems.

> If you are a shell user and it bothers you that your shell and desktop 
> default dirs are different, one solution is to set 
> apps/nautilus/preferences/desktop-is-home-dir to true.

See above.  I'm not a big fan of desktop-is-home-dir.  It doesn't fit my
usage patterns.  I don't at all mind that my GUI starting point isn't
the same as my shell starting point, because the GUI and the shell are
significantly different in how I interact with them.

Hiding the complexities of the operating system is good.  Flat-out lying
to the user about the nature of the system is something else.  If you're
using Gnome, you're using a Unix-like system.  There are certain ideas
which pervade the system so deeply that you can't possibly hide them
from the user.  In these cases, I think it best just to show it to the
user up-front and explain it.

--
Shaun