Usability

John Peter Tapsell tapselj0 at cs.man.ac.uk
Tue Jul 24 17:22:11 UTC 2001


Just to troll....

Why do we /want/ newbies to be able to use gnome?
The current generation of clueless (l)users are going to be dead a 20-30 years
anyway, and it is our future generations that need to be catered for.

I started off on an old spectrum 48k (ah those were the days)  where it was all
CLI, where you could program your own games, and had to program your own
assembler to write assembly :)

My concern is that we are dumbing it down, and making it _harder_ for users in
the long run.
I used DOS, then windows, etc, and had to fix all the problems myself etc
But it made me learn how it worked, it forced me to think, and to understand.
Having to work with the computer, not expecting the computer to work on my
terms.

I already feel sorry this generation comming up, starting off on windows 98,
with no source code to play with etc.  How are they ever going to learn?

on the spectrum, a lot of games were written in basic, and were easy to follow
and alter.

And now, with all this trouble of dumbing down the interface, you want to do
that _more_ to gnome?? I say no!   I say, make the users think dammit!  Make
the users read man pages, understand the OS a little.
If they want something nice and simple, use KDE, or go use a mac.

I want a gnome that is useful for _me_.  A professional coder, and linux user.
Newbies add no real value, where as make it good for a new coder, and he might
just help out with it.

If gnome was mainly for profit, then I'd see why you'd want the newbie users,
but it's not, so stop trying to dumb down my interface!

</troll>

JohnFlux

-- 
"I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too
young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or
15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when
they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'" --Mike Godwin



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