Adam Tauno Williams said the following on 12/01/2009 09:09 AM:
Now when you read reviews of things like OpenOffice it tends to be, for
Most reviews are worthless page fill.
On the whole, I find it hard to argue with that :-)
the most part, a technical comparison, since the GUI looks pretty much
I would never call most of the reviews I see as "technical comparisons". Most are little more than authors-gut-feeling or a collection about niggles regarding the authors favorite / least-favorite features.
While true or the most part, there are many that list the features and all to many that compare them to how its done in Windows.
the same. Even reviewers who are Windows users think its a fair competitor. But when you read reviews of GIMP done by people from the Windows world they concentrate entirely on the GUI and slag the Gimp 'cos it has a different interface.
Because the interface of an application does matter. a lot.
In absolute terms, yes. Cars for the disabled don't have pedals for a very good reason. I've seen some antique cars that had too many levers and pedals and were confusing.
Because the point of the application is to do-work, and if a user can't sit down and do-work the value of the application is diminished. Time spent learning a radically different application is time spent not in do-work mode.
Which was the point of the GUI. Early advertising for Microsoft Windows made the point that tools like WordPerfect and other "text mode" (though full screen) were obscure, depending on magical key combinations that were radically different. The Microsoft advertising made the point that the GUI had icons whose meaning was self-apparent (their words, not mine!), so making it easy of learn a new application. Yes, in the real world we've gone back to the magic keystrokes so we don't have to take hands off the keyboard. But from the POV of a GUI that point still holds. The screen layout of OpenOffice Writer and its basic set of icons is pretty much the same as MS-Word of Office97 vintage. There's a good case that moving to later versions of MS-Office requires more re-learning than moving from Office97 or Office2000 to the current version than it would to move to OpenOffice. Yes, GIMP is radically different from MS-Word. It brings in a whole slew of new concepts, like "layers"; like "brushes"; like "palettes". If anything, Inkscape is more like the art tools in MS-Word, dealing with objects: text is always text, and so forth. But there are probably more differences in the interfaces of vehicles, even road vehicles, not to include aeroplanes, than between GIMP and Photoshop. I've driven cars and truck, auto and quite a number of variations of manual transmission. Shift on the column on the floor. Drive on each side of the road. Clutch and brake, like on Subarau, non-synchromesh gear boxes that need double-de-clutching, trucks with multiple gear levers. I've worked tractors, combine harvesters and heavy equipment with cabins full of levers. This doesn't make me a genius. There are plenty of guys that do this without degree or even graduating high school. In each case the tools and the context go together. I grant that you get used to working with one machine. Your reflexes know here the levers and buttons are. But that this makes you incapable of operating a similar machine? I don't think so. But try reading Asimov's "Profession" http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php and see what you think. -- We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough. -- Niels Bohr -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org