Re: Don't overlook Simplicity.

[Ed Cogburn <ecogburn greene xtn net>]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> "Bob Smith" <rwsmith@cnw.com> writes:
> 
> |     I quite agree. What I'm trying to say is that in the excitement of
> | creating a powerful interface for experienced users, it is possible to lose
> | sight of the point that experienced users have to come from somewhere.
> 
> I think that the most important thing is too keep things logical.
> 
> If the user can follow the logic, they will quickly learn. Mostly when
> users gets into trouble is when the program is not acting logically.


	Logical?!?  Sadly, I don't think GNOME is getting very many
newbie types, because those kind of folks are hitting brick walls
in Linux, long before installing and getting GNOME to work.
	I don't believe GNOME or KDE will ever solve the problem
newcomers face with Linux, mainly because Linux is Unix, and
written by people in their own spare time to do things they need
done.  User friendliness, and never mind Documentation, is usually
the last thing these people think about.  By and large only
programmers, or folks who know enough to pretend to be programmers
(like me), can deal with Linux.
	My father is lately trying out Linux.  My father is not stupid,
he is now a teacher of computers in a high school.  Before this he
was a maintainer/engineer for a company which produced hard drive
subsystems for mainframe computers.  But he's not a programmer. 
Can you *just imagine* what it was like for him as he hit a brick
wall trying to figure out the INSANE Lisp-like syntax used in
isapnptools?  Then there was the largely undocumented syntax of
the ppp chatscripts:

02:52am ~$ pinfo chatscript 
Przemek's Info Viewer v0.5.4
Error: could not open info file, trying manual
Error: No manual page found either.
02:53am ~$ pinfo ppp
Przemek's Info Viewer v0.5.4
Error: could not open info file, trying manual
Error: No manual page found either.

Fortunately, he's smart enough to have heard about HOWTO files,
and is using them, but this doesn't change the fact that learning
to use Linux is a road littered with land mines for the
uninitiated.
	I just don't see the optimistic outcome many on this thread are
presuming when it comes to newbies to Linux.  The ones who survive
that minefield long enough to make it to GNOME aren't newbies. 
GNOME doesn't need to worry about true newbies until the
installation and configuration of *basic* functionality in Linux
is made painless.  Please tell me what is logical about shoving
Lisp-like code into the face of a newbie?

	Sorry, it just came out. :-)


-- 
Ed C.