Fwd: Re: Application duplication (was: Re: cdbakeoven)

[Thomas Zander]

On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 03:14:20PM +0200, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
> On Saturday 20 April 2002 13:54, Marc Mutz wrote:
> >
> > Just because Windows dumbed down users to the point that they can't even
> > browse the web without a help wizard doesn't mean we should do the same.
> 
> As you say, users want to browse the web. Likewise, they want to burn CDs. 
> They don't want to choose between half a dozen of web browsers and CD 
> burners. It's all about performing tasks and solving problems, not programs.
> 
> > GUIs are not there to make dumbed down programs but to make programs easier
> > to learn
> 
> No, to render tasks easier to accomplish.
> 
> > Free software is also about choice.
> 
> And that's its curse. That everyone feels entitled to create yet another irc 
> client, window manager, mp3 player, etc... because "free software is about 
> choice". In some cases it's justified (like when you want good integration 
> with a platform), but in general it's just ego-driven, and all you get is a 
> bunch of half-finished programs.

I only half agree here; in practice the people that start a new application 
are just starting to look into programming and their program will die out soon
if its the nth application of its sort.
While I agree that that is a wast of time in the end; the difference you forget
to make is that for an end user that little experiment is useless; but for a 
programmer its a learning curve.
In the end there are lots of programmers that can not work together (yet)
with a bunch of others, they will never contribute to others software. I don't 
want those people working on KDE anyway since they get mad if you alter the
way their code works.

Most software is created by people that look into the subject quite different.
The best gains in programming have been with the acception of new programmers
into a project.
Looking at other projects there are gains in different levels of the whole; 
a different UI, a new feature I never thought of etc.

> Suppose you could buy a HiFi set with four different CD players, all with 
> different buttons and features. Even if it was at the same price as a 
> "normal" HiFi set, would you be interested ? 
Luckely the practice is that most look at the status-quo and copy the basic
stuff; so the buttons are doing the same thing, have the same labels.
The difference is that in my CD player I have features I have not seen in 
others; features I love and I hope others will copy.
Unfortunately in the hardware world that will not happen too soon; copyrights
and trademarks limit competition in that manner.

> Suppose you could replace the 
> steering wheel and pedals of your car by something totally different where 
> you'd steer with your feet and control the accelerator and brakes with your 
> hands. Would you do it ?
Again the divergence from the status-quo; that is not what will actually happen.
There are lots of different project that try to do things in their own way; but
they all copy the stuff uses are accostumend to.

Or are you saying that buttons and mouse and stuff is being re-invented every 
time a clone is made?

> What I'm trying to make you understand is that your perception is skewed by 
> the fact you're interested in computers and programming. So for you, having 
> multiple programs for one thing is cool, you have the interest in trying them 
> all out and selecting which one your prefer. But most users don't have this 
> interest.

No; they look into the first they see and try that, but if certain features
he needs are missing, he will try another one. But mostly just ask people what
they did.
> 
> Try to imagine what it would be like to have a similar choice about something 
> you don't really care about, and see if it's still cool.

In the short term you are right; choice is bad as I don't want to choose between
right and right.  In the long term it is good as projects start to compete on
features they both grow, they grow because they have to, they will die if they
stop growing.
This is why we have cd-players with more then just a play/stop button. This is
why we have cars that can shift-gears without you shifting the stick.

If you create something nobody can use; the project dies. Look at the koncd 
project for a good example for this.  Competition is good; adding similar packages
to the KDE source is not. See another post in this thread from me.

-- 
Thomas Zander                                            zander at earthling.net
The only thing worse than failure is the fear of trying something new
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