These debates sound like many political debates to me, where people
debate their political philosophies of unobtrusive government, the free
market, the philosophy behind habeous corpeous (sp?!) etc. to the point
where any discussion of stuff that seems to threaten whatever it is that
you believe in philosophically is a complete non-starter.
This is true for computing and politics as well, I think, and that is at
some point it makes logical sense to put aside your philosophy and
accept some imperfection from time to time when you find something that
actually works. For instance, I wish we could agree upon what we ought
to do with the economy based on the actual math and sound, sober,
academically sound, purely rational economic theory rather than letting
our feelings and philosophical viewpoints cloud things as much as they
often seem to.
Don't get me wrong, philosophy definitely has its place, but it needs to
be kept in check. Returning to computing, I spend most of my time web
programming and working on my servers. I'm perfectly willing to cave on
my philosophical ideas of computing when it comes to what I use on the
desktop (OS X), because frankly I don't really want to spend time
tinkering with my desktop because that deters me from what I really want
to do (and make money doing). I use OS X because it just works for me,
more so than anything else. Without trying to sound condescending, I
don't know why more people aren't more like this and less religious and
philosophical when it comes to their computing.
I don't really connect with many Mac users though. I've encountered Mac
users that insist on using OS X apps that are perfect OS X citizens and
do everything "the Mac way". For instance, I use Postbox over OS X Mail
because frankly OS X Mail is a piece of shit IMAP client. This used to
manifest as a problem in bogging my computer down and making it
inconvenient for me to do some things (I won't bore you with the
details). It would be very, very nice if Postbox supported the OS X
Dictionary, Keychain, Address Book (I think it is partial support
there), but I don't see the logic in abandoning what works (Postbox) for
something that is philosophically in tune with the ideals of what a GUI
should be like in OS X.
Steven Black wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 02:05:28PM -0400, Barry Schatz wrote:
>> And in that thread of usability-versus-users:
>> [...]
>> https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/001593.html
>> -Linus
>> [...]
>
> This is a real gem.
>
> |"Usability" is an issue only if you can do something at all. But if you
> |can't do the thing at all, it's pointless to talk about usability: the
> |thing is BY DEFINITION not usable if it cannot be used for a specific
> |task.
> |
> |[...]
> |
> |There is no such thing as a "majority of end users" in general. For
> |example, maybe _I_ am in what you _claim_ to be a majority, in that I
> |want a simple printer dialog - because I have a simple printer, and
> |even simpler printer needs.
> |
> |So a simple printer dialog doesn't bother me, and as such you can count me
> |in your "majority".
> |
> |But I can guarantee you one thing: the _vast_ majority of people are part
> |of a specific minority when it comes to something. This is somethign that
> |the F.I. "interface designers" in the Gnome sense seems to continually
> |overlook.
> |
> |For example, maybe I don't care about printers. But I _do_ care about my
> |mouse. If I can't control the left/middle/right button actions, I get
> |really upset. Again, the "majority" of people may not care, so by your
> |majority argument, the mouse setup should be so simple that the majority
> |of people can never get confused. But I _do_ care.
> |
> |In other words: your "majority" argument is total and utter BULLSHIT. It
> |can be true for any particular feature, but it's simply not true in
> |general.
>
> Oh, it is a bit ranty, but also delicious.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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--
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
http://www.netmusician.org
joe@netmusician.org
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