RE: Fwd: Re: [Setup-tool-hackers] Similar frontends?

[David Joham <djoham criadvantage com>]

Hmmmm,

As one of the "every other hackers" that is a GUI expert, I disagree
strongly with the idea that the front ends could be different with no loss
in functionality. Here's why:

Our target audience is *not* developers. Our target is end-users and 3rd
party application developers. These people need consistency. One of the
points brought up in this list before was companies waiting to see who (KDE
or GNOME) would win the "war" to see who they would support before they
shipped product. This configuration GUI will be a very visible and important
piece of any KDE or GNOME installation. People and companies will use and
make reference to it all the time. This project will do nothing to solve the
perceived issue of incompatibility if someone like Cisco has to include two
separate sets of instructions to install their product. 

I'll address the issues brought up by everyone below....


<<Both have different styles. Besides, since when was the goal to make gnome
and kde similar? The goal is to make gnome and kde intuitive.>>

Intuitive to who? Developers? Hackers? In that case, why not stick with the
simple Perl scripts and write the XML to stdio by hand? Our audience is
broader than that. It's not intuitive if it is significantly different
between desktop environments.

<<The backend is the key issue. The users will never see the backend... >>

You made my point for me in your second sentence :) To the developers of
this project, of course the backend is the most important. However, to the
users, they couldn't care less. They just want it to work. And they don't
want to have to figure it out twice. Or have to write "If you use KDE, click
on the KSetYourIPAddress Tab, for GNOME click on GIPSetAddress"...


<<Plus every other hacker is a gui expert.>>

I guess you're right :)

<<trying to make the GUI interfaces similar is going to trigger endless
discusions about something that is artistic in nature.>>

Then might I suggest separate mailing lists so the developers don't need to
concern themselves with something that isn't important to them. That should
clear that issue up in a heartbeat.

---

OK, I'll give into the reality that in the real world the interfaces will
not be identical. However, I believe that we would be really hurting both
projects if we didn't at least try. If it doesn't work, well then as before
nothing is really lost. But if it does work, well then think of how much
further along we will be.

I guess I'd also like to add that I believe that this project can become
significantly more than just a setup tool project. Assuming that we can get
this system working for the basics, why couldn't we then extend the project
to setup Apache, BIND or any one of a number of different systems. The
architecture would be the same. I'm thinking of a centralized place to
configure most of what can be configured on your *nix* box. Of course this
is in the future, but I believe it is important to have a vision of where
you want to be in a year or two when starting projects of this nature.

Thanks for listening,

David