Re: network-manager-n2n

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 16:57 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 11:37 -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> > Well, think about GUI config now *too*, since otherwise, you're
> > basically giving users the finger.  If the VPN has a lot of options, a
> > lot of thought needs to go into the interface to make sure you don't
> > just have a huge dialog with a bunch of buttons that no user can ever
> > hope to comprehend.  Just making it "the sysadmin's problem" isn't the
> > right solution either.
> 
> Right. Although I do much prefer the 'run this shell script and then
> it'll work' approach rather than trying to tell people how to set it up
> the pointy-clicky way :)

That's because you use computers and know what to do :)  Too often, it
doesn't always work after running the shell script, or it'll work for a
while and then somethign stops working, and it's quite useful to have a
UI that users aren't entirely confused by, where they can at least try
and validate whether the settings look OK.

> > But if you're just getting it up and running for now, then yeah, the
> > GUI bits aren't necessary quite yet, but can be done after that.
> 
> Yeah -- that's what I meant. You can get the nm-n2n-service bits done
> first, then do the GUI _second_. Not that you can defer the GUI for
> ever. I think I did it the wrong way round, by attempting to do the GUI
> first.

Certainly not.  IMHO everything we do should look at user scenarios
first (with a full knowledge of how things work underneath of course),
and drive the interaction and operation from that angle, working to
ensure that just because the UI doesn't expose something doesn't mean it
can't be changed, but ensure that we don't show users options they won't
require on a daily/weekly basis.  We should *always* be thinking about
how the user (be they CLI or GUI users, doesn't matter) will interact
with the software we write.  It shouldn't just be "magic!", but should
give the users some understanding of how things work and operate.

Dan