Re: GNOME Usability - General Questions

[Michael Rogers <banthafodder connectfree co uk>]

John Kodis wrote:
>         (4) Optimal (Makes full and optimal use of the available
>         resources by shedding the baggage generated when trying to
>         imitate the look-and-feel of legacy proprietary operating
>         systems and instead assuming that the user is willing to
>         invest a few minutes in learning a new and better desktop
>         paradigm.)

If we have 1, 2, 3, AND 4 then there's no way 4 is going to be
lightweight - it will be yet another display engine on top of the same
backend. We might as well compromise on a SINGLE interface and implement
it cheaply. Abstraction is not cheap. Configurability is not cheap. It
would be cool to have a system that could switch from being a Mac to
being a Windows PC to being a 1337 workstation at the click of a radio
button, but it would take 3 times as long to code and run 3 times as
slow. Each user would only use 1 of the interfaces, making the bloat
hard to justify. Let's concentrate on making a desktop that's as good as
the Windows desktop before we start worrying about 'a better desktop
paradigm'.


Michael