On 04/08/2012 01:26 AM, Dane Mutters wrote:
Michael and others,
I realize it can be very satisfying to deliver a well-placed rant, but
I hope I'm not "out of line" to remind everyone that without
moderating our language to be as unoffensive as possible, no web
conversation can be very productive. The issues you've brought up
are, of course, quite valid; I only suggest that the conversation
avoid inflammatory epithets ("whose stupid idea...", etc.), and that
we try to get to the root of whatever problem exists with the help of
those who generously donate their time to Ubuntu, rather than ranting
at those same people. I realize that my own language has been pretty
blunt, but within the bounds of explaining an issue, I hope I haven't
been too offensive.
On the contrary, I found Michael's rant refreshing. Politically correct
rants look like a lot of nitpicking over nothing.
"Well, I don't like the idea of moving everything from /usr/bin into
/bin. It's just not clean."
"Well, someone broke /run. Moving /var/run to /run makes no sense."
Ok, so you're getting some push-back, there are rough edges, and people
are wary of new things. That's cool, move forward.
"What *@*@* stupid moron came up with this @#*% !? I swear if it isn't
one stupid thing it's another, the whole world's gone vacant latched on
some idiotic trend..."
WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA get behind something! Perhaps this is a good
indicator that you should stop and consider what "Progress" means and
maybe your amazing forward-moving ideas are just useless paradigm shifts
that are ill-targeted.
Unity and Gnome 3 have gotten a lot of attention like that from people I
know that are into UI design--I mean UI design as a researched, studied
field, not "I have a cool idea and I know a thing or two about UI
design." I mean people who have read the ergonomics studies, results on
focus groups, and consider the value of traditional design and the value
of well-routed behavior in new interfaces like touch screens and very
tiny screens. These people are a little different crowd than the normal
love/hate on Unity and/or Gnome3 (I personally like Gnome3, but this is
irrelevant).
What it all tends to boil down to is simple: while a lot of people
love/hate Unity and/or Gnome3, those in-the-know are able to quantify
that desktops are not tablets and tablets are not cell phones.
Attempting to wedge desktops with dual 24-36 inch wide screen monitors
and cursor-based pointing into the same paradigm as a 3 inch portrait
touch screen doesn't work any better than attempting to use Gnome2 on
your cell phone. The problems are different, but the UI is just
annoying. I like Gnome3, but its failure to separate application
[quick] launcher (menu/icon) from application window indicator (task
bar) annoys me. This abstraction is great for cell phones, where an
application will always have a single window, and where access implies
executing it iff it's not running; but the interface concerns of the
desktop are different, and here it becomes jarring. This specific
concern is immaterial; I only mean to illustrate that big-screen
desktops are not micro-touch-screen cell phones or 7 inch tablets.
But of course a little "We shouldn't do this, it's a bad idea" just gets
an enthusiastic push-back from strong-headed "visionaries" that think
they're onto something. When the criticism starts coming in force and
with sharp language, a threat to ration and reason is made--in other
words: humans fear losing arguments in the same way they fear being
punched in the face, and strong and vicious protest is threatening in
that it makes being wrong particularly high impact. If the whole world
is iffy but unenthused, they will swallow your crap and then
complain--unenthusiastically--that it's not great. If you are being
flamed and shouted at, then when the whole world doesn't turn around and
realize how excellent your new ideas are--perhaps because they're
not--you take a MAJOR social hit and suddenly nobody likes you, and as a
bonus they also get it in their heads that anything you touch is a born
disaster and probably will never come near you again.
In other words, maybe you'll listen when people actually say what they
mean instead of sucking all the emotional meaning out and presenting
simple facts--facts which you may dispute with other simple facts.
Facts are facts, whether they're true or false. Information is more
than just facts: the emotional weight carries, and the presentation
makes that. Do you honestly think Unity would have ever happened if
Shuttleworth got called a pinhead whenever someone commented on the
design proposal and subsequent betas? It would have been quickly
abandoned as every single developer associated with the project ran for
cover from the raining fire and brimstone.
Plus it's fun to read people speaking frankly, though if you spoke like
a Franc I guess you'd have to use a lot more accents and apostrophes.
--Dane
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