On Wednesday 21 May 2008 12:29:39 G T Smith wrote:
John wrote:
On Tuesday 20 May 2008 21:57:13 Washington Irving wrote:
G T Smith wrote:
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Basil Chupin wrote:
I do not think that sparking off a desktop religious war is terribly helpful at this point. (Especially, with some of the other fireworks going off around this issue).
If KDE4 is moving toward a 'user friendly' == 'dumbing down' path I am
You mean becoming part of the 21st century? The days of working in a little black box date back more than 30 years. While some enjoy entering mystical
My first contact with a GUI was with SunTools on SunOS in mid 1980s. A few years DOS based systems started acquiring a number of GUI and CUI windowing interfaces (remember GEM, Windows 2.0 etc ), Windows 3.x/OS 2 moved the goal posts somewhat.. (Even vaguely remember writing a CUI myself at some point)... current GUI is really a 20th Century technology... there is a need to innovate beyond current GUI constraints.. and I do not mean by adding more eye candy...
There are things that current GUIs are useful for and things they are bloody useless at. It is looking at the MMI to present the interaction for the latter tasks in more comprehend-able and flexible manner which is more important (not the pretty pictures).
among those not interested. I used to choose KDE over Gnome mainly because Gnome tended to be rather counter intuitive to use and ugly to look at, but I always felt that KDE tried too hard at being a poor mans Windows clone, (and I was never a particular fan of the Post 3.x systems).
Having no alternative other than working proffessionally with windoze I just
You have my sympathy...
can't view kde as a poor relation. It isn't. It's a much richer working environment that also offers the same conveniences. A user can make use of these or just use it. It's also lead the way on occasions.
That is a matter of opinion and I have no real desire to get to involved in a desktop religious war... KDE is a Curates egg, 'good in parts' there are KDE based tools I regularly use and others I never touch in preference to other options...
The main problem with the later GUIs is the very narrow and limited interaction framework, you either do it the way GUI writers say you do it or go through hoops to get it to do what you want to do, the way you want to do it. Not useful.. If KDE4 is going down this road I am not going to be making much use of it... Never was much of an enthusiast for the original MacOS environment for similar reasons...
There was a lot of very innovative work in the Xerox labs on 3D interactive interfaces in the 80s and 90s which were intended to help people work more effectively, that never seems to have been more generally adopted... (I am still unconvinced that wobbly windows, revolving cubes, and see through windows improve peoples productivity)...
Gnome on the the other hand has a very windoze attitude to the users and an interesting user interface
???
One thing I will say about kde4. For some reason the desktop looks even more beautiful. I have no idea why. Desktops are an art form.
Try out Enlightenment (16 or 17)....
It really shouldn't be forming part of a major release yet though. From the little bit I've seen it's going to get bad press before it's even ready for release.
John
-- =========================================================================== === I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
Bjarne Stroustrup =========================================================================== ===
All true but isn't time that bash had a change for the 21st century. Trying to effectively do that through a desktop would seem to be the only way - cock eyed as it is. There is also at least one stupid ommission. Try using ksearch with 10 to 20 gig on machine. Try uncompressing a password protected file too. No glamour in that area so no work. My view may be a bit unusual. I started writing software in the late to mid 60's storing things on paper tape. I've seen a lot come and go/rise and fall. companies, languages and os's too. I also have a thing about microshaft. Gates just doesn't know how lucky he was when ibm decided to use msdos. Intel too but that's another story. Both aspect were a long way short of state of the art at the time. Basically msdos had a similarity to cpm. From that view point I've seen what many would regard as garbage spread across the world. (and have had to use it) One of the reasons I run linux and kde is I did have hopes that linux might do something about the situation and open things up more. It wont while the mystical incantations into the black box mentality hangs around. That always reminds me of something I might do myself badly with a mix of ked,code and batch files. Times have moved on a lot since then. Having spent some time commercial hacking I can well understand why gui people have fun. I agree that rotating boxes and shimmering windows are a bit useless but can't be annoyed with them coming up with and trying gimics. Plus as I said in some respects desktops are an art form. People may as well have something nice to look at while they are working and what's wrong with mouse pushing. Never be as quick as short cut keys but it takes all sorts. Software developers should remember that a PC is just a tool to the majority of people. All people really. In some respect the black box is a little bit like choosing to saw wood with a blunt badly bent saw. Only a relatively few people are going to want to get into that and only a few will and only if they are desperate. Fine for earnings from support but useless in terms of increased use of what over all is a very attractive system. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org