Toddintr, Sun 2012-05-13 @ 06:59:42-0700: > Christian: > > Besides, big red warning messages should always be read, because > > they don't usually happen. > > This is the "Soviet" style of user interface design: it dictates *how* > people should use a product, and ignores the real-life scenarios. > (Much like the opening line of your message - "Please don't top poste > and please wrap to 75 columns.") If I *really* care about customer > feedback, I don't care how the customer sends me feedback / it can be > top-posted, bottom-posted, sideways. What is important is that I am > getting feedback about the worst thing that can happen w/ my product.
I agree with you that Vim could be improved in this regard. Certainly, not losing data at all is preferable to losing data after a warning. Understand, though, that contrary to what your message suggests, Vim is not a product and you are not a customer. It is developed entirely by a community of volunteers, who are not paid anything for their work. (If you donated, then great! But that money went to charity; it is not lining the pockets of any developers, not even Bram's.) So in short, the community on this list does not owe you anything at all, and whatever help is offered is offered out of good will alone. So, when you show up on the list and start bashing the design of the software (perhaps understandable in this case) and admit to ignoring bold, red error messages which explained exactly what was about to happen to your data, you aren't likely to win much support. What's more, you defiantly refuse to adhere to the posting conventions of the mailing list, which are essentially the same conventions followed by nearly every FOSS list, despite the fact that "do not top-post" appears in the signature of every posting here, and even after being explicitly asked to by another contributor. Exactly what kind of response do you expect to receive? The most constructive way to improve open-source software of this type is to make the improvements yourself and submit patches. That's how the real work gets done. If no one else is independently motivated to work on the problematic behavior, and you are unable or unwilling to do it yourself, then the only way you are going to get support is by interacting with the community in a way that makes other people want to help you. Only then is anyone likely to consider spending a portion of their own personal time and energy addressing your complaint. With a less entitled attitude, you would probably find that most people here are very friendly and eager to help.
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