Re: Mummy, I made a platform in my pants! [Was: focus!]

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Havoc Pennington">

> > We can, and should, do both. :-)
> 
> I don't disagree, but I think the natural emphasis of a big horde of
> programmers (including myself) is to think 95% of the time about how to
> improve the platform to make their own lives nicer, and 5% of the time
> about the actual point of the software for some audience, so when deciding
> what to cheerlead I'd tend to avoid the "go platform!" point of view. ;-)
> 
> Certainly GNOME tends to be badly skewed toward the platform side of
> things. I prefer working on APIs to working on UIs myself, I have to
> admit.

That said, culturally we've taken a lot of emphasis and glory away from the
platform since pre-2.0, so it hasn't had the attention it really needs to
improve what we can deliver on top of it. I guess the point of my post is to
make sure we don't completely disempower/unglorify the platform in our drive
towards coherent user focus.

It's like the Apple comments about whether they've been successful or not. I
think anyone who's seriously looked at their platform will know that they
have massive silos of ammunition and opportunity in reserve - because they
can and will be able to deliver compelling results to users faster, as will
their developer ecosystem.

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia           http://lca2007.linux.org.au/
 
                           Wars end, love lasts.