taskbar: onlyGroupWhenFull

[Sebastian Kügler]

On Sunday 02 November 2008 12:48:57 Michael Rudolph wrote:
> 2008/11/2 Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org>:
> > it depends if you want to just start an exploratory session or actually
> > pitch a mostly- or wholey-formed idea. but the essentials generally are:
> >
> > * be realistic
> > * be ready to test
> > * be ready to present tangibles beyond words
[...]
> > every time i've seen someone appear and end up with nothing happening
> > it's because they have failed on one or more of the above.

> now that's really great. Considering that I'm involved for quite a
> while now, a sooner note would probably have helped all of us.
> Regardless of the quality of my contributions so far, I think they
> show at least enough engagement to warrant such a note from you
> (anyone in the community) to tell me, that you don't know what to make
> of my contributions.

I wouldn't take this offensive, it just touches the very basics of KDE 
practicality.

The "tangibles" thing is probably what you are afraid of since you "can't 
code" (put bluntly). So instead you need buy-in from those who do. How does 
one get this buy-in? By proving that working with you, based on your ideas and 
designs makes the lives of developers easier. There are actually quite some 
people inside KDE that "can't code" but have a lot of influence when it comes 
to technical implementation. Think of Nuno, Celeste, but also Dan Leinir 
Jensen. They all do design work and hardly ever touch code, still they're very 
respected inside the community and people actually listen to them and 
developers implement it in the way those designer-people tell them to.

It's not easy, but it's also not impossible to have noticable influence on 
implementation without being a developer.

> I think your distinction between philosophy and applied philosophy is
> rather counter productive, but I won't go into that one; it'd probably
> be rather philosophizing than applied philosophizing :-)
>
> I thought we agreed in Frankfurt, when we briefly discussed the ways
> of the plamsa, that it would be better to keep the document rather
> abstract, to not simply present solutions, but rather point to
> mistakes of the past, show what's wrong with current user interfaces
> or metaphorically speaking: show the box people are in, so they can
> start to think outside of it themselves.

I think a distinction between "applied design principles" and "crazy ideas 
that could make a difference in the future" is necessary here, and would in 
fact clear up the misunderstanding.

> I sure don't mind presenting my own ideas (and see them become a
> reality), that'd be absolutely amazing, but wouldn't it be much more
> productive right now to bring disruptive ideas to wake everyone up and
> thus allow everyone to come up with ideas of their own that are more
> than just variations of the win95 idea?

You know, there aren't a lot of disruptive ideas. There only are if you're 
watching from the outside. Every noticable innovation (with very little 
exceptions in fact) is the result of years of hard work and incremental 
improvements. It only looks like a disruptive thing to people who didn't 
follow closely. (A good read is "The Myths of Innovation" by Josh Berkus.)

That would also explain why I don't see how "Plasma is so totally different 
for normal users" (while it supports pretty much all the exact workflows 
people are used to, only with added flexibility). It's hard to notice how much 
your child grows when you see it every day ... (wild guess here ;-)).

> So if you have something different in mind or are simply not satisfied
> with my execution on the ways of the plasma, just let me know. I'll
> gladly help plasma -- with what I have to offer.

I'd say it's your contribution. The more useful it is to people working with 
it, the more it'll be used. The more it'll be used, the more you can steer the 
direction plasma takes. (Well, probably not steer but facilitate the 
movement.)
-- 
sebas

 http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org |  GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 489 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/attachments/20081102/54f65d9e/attachment.sig