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

["David Berg" <drberg1000 gmail com>]

On 3/16/06, Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com> wrote:
> --- David Berg <drberg1000 gmail com> wrote:
> > Repeat steps 1-3 if you aren't looking for copies of
> > the same disk.
>
> But isn't putting a list of filenames into the
> terminal a real pain?
> (Especially since dragging files to it has a bug)

Yes.  But how often, if ever, do you burn a set of "random" files that
are scattered all over the disk?  Usually you're backing up an entire
directory (simple to get listing), files newer than a certain date in
an incremental backup (use find), or a list of files in a full backup.
 The last one is really the only backup that would burn a list of
files with various exclusions.  In this case one generally saves the
list to be backed up and ignored so that it is only entered once then
modified.  How does one do that with gnomebaker?  I don't see any
options.

> > The idea behind that being that you can have a
> > different environment
> > when logging in different ways.  I can't give an
> > example of when its
> > useful because I don't have one for bash.  I do for
> > X though.  If I'm
> > logging in locally I want to run gnome because I
> > don't need to worry
> > about network lag.  However, If I'm logging in over
> > the network
>
> Whoa stop right there... you can log in over the
> network??? I wouldn't even know the purpose of that,
> and I doubt more than 1% of users would either.

Sure can.  Thats one of the things I like about linux.  It is very
easy to access my desktop from anywhere I can get an internet
connection.  If I cared to, I could have the full desktop environment.
 Why would I want to?  I usually don't because my laptop is just as
powerful as my older desktop so usually I only want the data and get
it over sftp.  If I had a cheaper laptop that couldn't compile or
manipulate any photos, I would.

> > > And that is one of our major problems. We're not
> > on
> > > the same level as the users we are hoping to reach
> > > with GNOME.
> >
> > I agree.  The solution isn't in hiding how things
> > work though.  We'd
> > get a lot farther by finding developers who
> > understand (or at least
> > willing to listen to) the users who simply want to
> > spend as little
> > time at the computer as possible.  Then sticking
> > those developers with
> > the not so desirable job of working between the
> > developers and these
> > users as a type of translator.
>
> Introducing... the GNOME usability project :)
>
> > In my opinion it would be ultimate if one had an
> > incredible memory for
> > options.  But alas, I don't have my uncle's
> > photographic memory, so
> > I'll have to continue reading man pages repeatedly
> > until the GUIs are
> > up to par.
>
> Exactly. Reading man pages is not my idea of fun.
> Whereas one can figure out a GUI quite quickly. And
> the documentation for GUIs is usually a lot better
> than man pages. (At least I hope so -- I'm blowing my
> own trumpet here, as I'm on the docs team :)

Man pages are a totally different type of documentation than the gui
documentation.  Their aim is to document EVERYTHING the program can do
and exactly how it does it.  Explaining how to accomplish a particular
task is left to other documents (howtos or tutorials).  Compare your
gui docs to a tutorial and you may not notice as much difference. 
Keep in mind that tutorials for the command line are written with the
so called "l33t" in mind.

> And perhaps this is the real difference between
> hardcore command line users and the rest of us. The
> former see the computer as a toy: learning how it
> works is fun. I see the computer as a tool: it sits
> between me and what I want to do, and it should be as
> unobtrusive as possible.

You have the same difference with just about every thing in life.  We
have car drivers, and auto engineers and everything in between.  But
each group is dependant on the others.  The drivers would still be
toting a cart behind a buggy (using a typwriter or printing press) if
the engineers didn't enjoy designing high performance engines, playing
with various gears and tranny designs etc.  And the engineers wouldn't
beable to take it beyond a hobby if there weren't millions (billions)
of people wanting to spend 3 to 300K dollars on a car/heavy equipment
etc (cell phone, desktop, server, supercomputer).

The difference I see with the computer analogy is that with the
internet, it is easy for all of the programmers and engineers to get
together and build an OS with out needing millions of users to support
it.

I've rambled on far too long.  The command line is great.  So are
GUIs.  They both have their place.

--Dave