Workspace Next Sprint Organization

[Alex Fiestas]

On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 12:54:16 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> there was something started quite some time ago by .. i forget who? .. here:
According to the history of the page, by you.

> 	http://community.kde.org/Plasma/TheWaysOfThePlasma
> 
> there are other bits spread around the wiki there as well. i am fully
> supportive of streamlining and updating the text.
This is something we need to do so we can work on them before, during and 
after the sprint.

> > I can imagine a future where my workspace acts as a iGoogle
> > (www.google.com/ig) or something like that, and I can imagine that being
> > sorted by activity etc I saw it in Active and I like it but I don't think
> > that should be the vision but instead part of it.
> 
> here's where you lose me because that *is* the vision we've been working
> towards. device spectrum, organic scalable interfaces and activities.
> 
> arriving 4 years into that and then saying "let's not" to those who have
> been doing the work is .. well ... :/
Well you have to understand (you and any other plasma developer) that 
newcomers are always newcomers and if they come with preconceived ideas they 
are even worse so please, have patience with us/me.

I have been years reading all plasma-devel and #plasma channel talking with 
you about all kind of things related to plasma (with you, notmart, sebas, etc) 
and is just know I'm learning all this vision so I need time to digest and 
process :p

> the alternative proposed of "make applications launch great" is anemic in
> comparison. it is very clear you have a set of concepts you wish to work on,
> and that is important. but i'd like to challenge you to look around those
> concepts and place them within the context of a larger scope of ideas, and
> then design from that point of reference.
> 
> this is what "vision" and "design" do for each other ...
I'm really afraid that willing to do this "more complex" vision we will end 
into something that is not good doing the basics, whatever the basics are.

Specially I'm burned with the current paradigm as you all know, I hate being 
stressed by the defaults we have that's why I'm so tiring with the "app 
switching". 
> > Applications are too important to be excluded from it in many ways, the
> 
> i agree that applications need to be well supported. how that happens needs
> to be derived from the goals of the workspace in terms of user benefit,
> which means knoing what those goals are.
> 
> "support application work flow" is not a vision. perhaps where you and i
> disagree is that i do not think any one uses an app because we like using
> applications. i believe we use apps because they let us accomplish specific
> things like "read a web page". and we do those things because they fulfill
> needs for information, social contact, etc etc etc.
I see this now (previous notmart email opened my eyes in this area), I'm still 
processing it.

> those are the elements of the goals that need to be met. the eventual design
> needs to reflect a deep awareness and respect of those goals.
> 
> there are N different ways to launch, switch between, integrate, etc.
> applications. which one(s) do we want to create? well, that depends on what
> we want them to help the person using the system accomplish. which means:
> the design needs to be prefaced by the goals, or vision.
> 
> > vision should include:
> > -What the desktop does when an app is executed (for example be quiet and
> > not bother)
> 
> i assume you read that i wrote almost exactly this in my previous email,
> yes?
Yes, but it wasn't part of the vision, instead it was part of some "vision 
extension" for the application management.

> > -Application integration.
> 
> absolutely .. we started with "centralized, consistent management and
> display of services applications use"; i'm sure we can go much further,
> too. the question is: to accomplish what?
> 
> the centralization was to provide single well-known places to do common
> things that run (from a user's POV) largely external to an application (aka
> the window we can see) in a consistent manner. the hope is to limit the
> number of things / places people need to learn and think about when using
> the system.
> 
> that principle, extended, brings us to things like SLC ...
> 
> what other sorts of application integration can we do, based on that goal?
> 
> and, btw, i can think of other sorts of application integration we could do
> that don't meet the principle above. which is why starting with principles
> is important, because otherwise saying "integrate applications" will likely
> not result in a coherent and usefully designed thing, but a bunch of
> features smacked together because they are cool or seem to look nice.
> 
> > At the end a user spent most of its time on applications.
> 
> is that why they are using the computer, to use applications? or is there
> something more fundamental going on for them, and applications are a means
> to that end? if so, what is it and how can we support that.
Still processing this :p