Re: Nautilus 2.6 - We're going all spatial

[Seth Nickell <seth gnome org>]

> Well, that "bunch of people" were his customers. If you are telling me that
> a company should not listen to its customers' public outcry (literally!),
> then you are not telling me much really. Gnome today also has a bigger
> market of such "bunch of people" instead of office users (who are btw
> already trained on MS Explorer's navigational model and probably they prefer
> it because they know it).

What I don't believe was that the sampling method for receiving customer
input was not seriously coloured by a small but vocal minority. You
point out that BeOS had 150,000 users in its heyday... and I think
that's sort of my point. If only 1% of those users, probably the most
technically inclined out of an already enthusiast pool, felt very
strongly against the spatial model, we're looking at a thousand
complaints. That can seem huge, when its really a mole hill. I'm not
necessarily saying that BeOS users didn't as a majority want a
navigation based model... if any somewhat major computing environment
had users who I'd expect to want this its Unices first and then BeOS.
I'm just saying that lots of noise != the thing you should do.

> BTW, I would really need an answer on my previous question: I need more info
> of how OO Nautilus can improve my productivity overall. 

Its quite possible that it won't improve *your* productivity.
Though...at the end of the day developers fall prey to cognitive
psychology to, and there are certain benefits from a simpler conceptual
model even for those accustomed to handling great complexity. I think it
will be a trade-off and will depend on how you use the file system.
People who browse through deep and complex trees, especially if they are
rooted in many different places, will *hate* this (sysadmins are
probably the perfect example of who this is not right for). People who
deal primarily with documents in one or two fairly flat locations, for
whom the goal is to make a file browsing tool that they will actually
use on a regular basis without worry, will benefit a lot from this.

I think the whole point of Nautilus not completely kicking the
Navigation model is to provide for the hacker/sysadmin community (who
can configure preferences or drag a shortcut for the navigator to the
panel with ease, and are less likely to use a GUI file browser anyway).

> That's what really
> matters at the end of the day. We use computers to do our job faster and
> better, aren't we?

Most of us on this list... honestly, no. At the end of the day we use
our computers because they are fun, because we enjoy making things,
because we enjoy mastering complex systems, because we enjoy playing
with new technology, because we want to help other people use computers,
etc. The percentage of people on these lists who use their computer in a
remotely typical fashion relative to the general computer using
population (office suite + email + printing + a little web browsing)
probably rounds off to 0% (ok, maybe not, but I bet its less than 10%).
:-)

-Seth