RE: [gnome-love] Where to make a policy suggestion?

["Christian Sasso (csasso)" <csasso cisco com>]

Ciao all, this is my first email to GNOME Love (so if you DO recollect
my name, then you have a memory problem :)

Joachim, I feel what you are saying and what David is proposing are not
two essentially conflicting points of view.
David wants to give an option to GUI users to learn how to use the
command line: he feels user that want to go to the next level may enjoy
such didactic tool. His proposal seems brilliant to me: while performing
every day activities with GNOME a user can also learn how to solve the
same problems using a terminal. Such feature would be optional and
disabled by default, so not to get in the way of those users that would
be only confused by it. Please, also notice one last thing: adding such
an option would not mean that GNOME hackers have to stop doing every
possible effort to spare the terminal to those users that would rather
not touch one with a long stick: in an ideal GUI environment, no user
has to use the command line, but that doesn't mean that learn how to use
one is not a good thing. OK, one more point and I am really done: the
more fundamental reason why I *really* like David's proposal is that it
goes in the commendable direction of helping users to better understand
how computers work. And that's in my opinion is the most user-friendly
gift any GUI can give to its users.

My 2e,
Christian Sasso
 
Owning knowledge is wrong. Knowledge should be shared, that's what it
exists for.

-----Original Message-----
From: gnome-love-bounces gnome org [mailto:gnome-love-bounces gnome org]
On Behalf Of Joachim Noreiko
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 1:16 PM
To: David Berg; gnome-love gnome org
Subject: Re: [gnome-love] Where to make a policy suggestion?


--- David Berg <drberg1000 gmail com> wrote:
> The reason I'm writing is a complaint I've had about GUI's in general 
> since I started with linux around '99.  They do too good of a job of 
> hiding the command line.  They are great in that the make the learning

> curve more gradual and give you an idea of what is possible.  I think 
> that they could go a step farther though and do a wonderful job of 
> teaching the command line.
>
> So here's the feature request I'd like to file:  The command line that

> is to be run should be visible to the user before it is run.  For 
> example if I burn a CD in GnomeBaker, I should see the `cdrecord 
> dev=/dev/cdrom image.iso ...` line in a status bar underneath the 
> "start" button when I initiate the burn.

Simple question: why?
If a user can burn a CD in GnomeBaker, why show them some arcane and
hard to remember command? 
Every single time I find something that needs the command line, I go
looking for a GUI alternative. Why?
Because GUIs are easier to learn and remember. I want to focus on the
things I am doing, not remembering how to apply a patch, how to get a
diff out of CVS, or how to burn a CD.


        
        
                
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