Felix Miata said the following on 12/05/2011 12:24 PM:
In general (not always), more flexibility equates to more complexity.
I'd say that flexibility is a result of design decisions and attitudes, not of complexity. Complexity often leads to rigidity and turgidity. All to often people confuse "Different" with "Complex". I met this a lot in Europe when working for an American firm and having to deal with US managers and technicians visiting. They all wanted to drive, usually a Big, powerful car like a Jaguar, Mercedes or BMW, even though European roads are more suited to smaller cars. In England it was worse, they were "On the OTHER side of the road" and many streets in London would be a tight fit. On one occasion a US executive clipped the wind mirrors of every car on side of the street because he was misjudging the width and position of the vehicle. But "complexity". The Americans almost always complained about the European signs. These signs are very consistent: the colour and the shape tell you a lot. But except for direction signs they don't have words. (Well, lets not get into arguments about Wales, OK?) so how can the Americans know what they mean? They generally told me that European signage was "too complex". What they meant was that it was "different". So tell me: which is "to complex": Microsoft Office Excell or OpenOffice Calc? Word or OOWriter? I could go on with the GUIs, not just Widnes vs Linux but Gnome vs KDE vs LXDE ... And sometimes it takes complexity to hide simplicity. Think of an automatic gearbox on a car. High end cars have automatic .... lights, self levelling suspension, automatic climate control, automatic demisting mirrors and windscreen, automatic turn signal cancelling ... all of which takes deign effort and engineering effort and adds to the cost and complexity, but makes things simpler for the driver. No, I'd say that if things appear complex to the user its because the interface designers made it so when they could have hidden that complexity. -- I thought about being born again, but my mother refused. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org