[kde-linux] Users guide to KDE?

[Randy Kramer]

Anne (and all),

I'm sorry if I offended you.  I was looking for a post to respond to where my 
comments wouldn't be 100% OT, and wasn't trying to specifically respond to 
your words.

On Friday 04 July 2008 09:13 am, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Friday 04 July 2008 13:54:33 Randy Kramer wrote:
> > I might have read the wrong things, but it wasn't until after KDE4 was
> > released that I started to see the "caveats" that warned that KDE4 was not
> > complete nor really ready for the ordinary user.  
> >
> Yes, you read the wrong things, or none at all.

Well, I read slashdot regularly, and quite a bit of other stuff both on the 
web and off, so I wonder how I missed it?

Plus, I do remember some "media types" (without remembering their names) (or, 
at the least, apparently respected bloggers who came to my attention) who 
started hyping kde4 without any caveats--apparently they didn't get the 
message.

> > What "ordinary" user wants to transition to a new <anything> that has 
fewer
> > features than the old, except in very specific cases where those missing
> > features have been identified and are features he doesn't want to use?
> 
> Have you really so little experience that you don't know about version x.0 
of 
> anything?  I've been in computing since the 80's and it has always been 
> so.  .0 is 'mostly working, but you'll have some problems'.  The only 
> question is in how early in the .0 tree you get it to a wider audience.  M$ 
> use vendors as beta testers, I understand.  FOSS don't have that benefit.  
> They use volunteer users.  No-one makes you use this early version.

I built my first computer (from a kit) in 1976.  I've programmed computers (at 
various levels) since 1968.

You may remember from some earlier message exchanges with you on a list, 
(probably this one, but it might have been some other list, for example a 
Mandriva list to which we both subscribe) that I did not plan to make a 
transition to kde4 for several years yet (for a variety of reasons, but 
including the general problem of .0 releases).

The problem isn't what *I* expected, but what the "ordinary user" expected, 
based on the "media"--why are we hearing all these complaints about kde4 
being incomplete if "everyone" got the message?

> I'm going to start ignoring totally unproductive messages like this one.



Randy Kramer