Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, Gertjan Klein wrote:
> point-and-click interfaces suck, because they are too easy. Windows
> could learn a lot from Linux in terms of performance, power and
> stability, but Linux doesn't even come close to the ease of installation
> and use you'll find with Windows. This is not something to be proud of,
Who said it was?
> or something to blame on (new) users. It would be nice if the people you
It is not blamed on users. Contemptible complaints and demands attract
contemptuous replies. Ignorance does not. Love of ease does not. These
have nothing to do with it.
> mention above realize that the vast majority of computer users in
> general are absolutely not interested in learning about operating
> systems, file systems, the files in /etc, and so on - they just want to
> get a job done, as quickly and easily as possible. There is absolutley
> nothing wrong with that.
This self-important and self-serving claim is made too often. There is a
pretence that I am a serious, business-like person with a job to do, and
therefore I am too important and too busy to learn how to do it. That is
bogus.
> >If you like to do things the hard way, then fine. But it doesn't really
Not many people like to do things the hard way. That is not intelligent.
This is absolutely irrelevant.
> >mean that you're more intelligent or more knowledgeable than people who
> >click a few buttons in a GUI to accomplish the same thing.
> Even if it did mean that, so what?
And intelligence has nothing to do with it either. It is laughable to
think high intelligence is required to discover the Install Manual on the
Debian Web site or to discover install.txt on a Debian CD. The problem
was that too much explanation was given. That is hard to avoid in the
circumstances. The information is addressed to people who know nothing,
who need background in everything. But this has nothing to do with
intelligence. Simpler here means save me the effort of reading all this.
> Alan Cooper has written an interesting book about user interface
> design (he prefers to call it interaction design). It addresses a lot of
> the issues that users have to deal with when operating high-tech
> equipment like computers; these issues are universal, and apply to
> interacting with Linux as well. A sample chapter is available online at
So what? What is the relevance of saying that user interfaces can be
designed, and that we can move beyond the present to better systems in
future?
We would all like the installation of Debian to be simpler. Debian is a
huge effort directed to making installation and maintenance of Linux
simpler. That is exactly what it is about. However simple it is we would
like it simpler. We'd like to do everything more easily.
But only a shithead screams "MAKE IT SIMPLE!" so that he won't personally
have to make any effort. If you want someone to MAKE IT SIMPLE! all you
have to do is ante up a billion dollars. Come to the party with
Microsoft's development budget.
Debian is developed and maintained gratis, by volunteers. Linux is
developed and maintained gratis, by volunteers. A few, with very good
track records in free software development, may in the end get do to paid
development on tiny parts of these systems by the likes of RedHat. But in
essence, if anyone gets paid it is a donation, a grant. Ditto the GNU
utilities. The person who screamed "MAKE IT SIMPLE!" had not paid a cent
for the software.
It is completely bogus to suggest that the world is divided into
businesslike people who want to do serious work with the computer, just
want to get on with using the software, and masturbators who just like to
fool with it. The real distinction is between the tolerant and
appreciative who will make an effort to solve their problems, and the
intolerant and demanding who will not, who think people who have given
them free software are their servants and that they have a right to
complain about anything not perfectly to their liking. And a right to
demand to be helped by the user community at large.
Those in the first group learn by their first efforts. They find their
problems are soluble. And then they are better placed when they strike
other problems. They grow in knowledge and ability. They are able to
help others. And to judge and flame others who will not do what they did.
But they are still users who have the software to use it.
People in the first group, even if they stick to Microsoft Windows and
leave Linux alone, use the software effectively. The person who is too
busy to make an effort to learn how to use Microsoft Excel, who just wants
to use the program for real work, who is too busy and too important and
too demanding to direct any attention to the software itself, will remain
a lame and inefficient user, just limping along, wasting vastly more time
than he pretends to save.
My employer once sent me to a two-day course in Excel. No-one recoils in
surprise that there are such courses and such training, that it takes so
long just to get an introduction to the program. Why the amazement that
you have to read a few pages to install the Debian Linux operating system?
Why the complaints about difficulty when you have refused to spend the
necessary time learning how to do something on Linux?
Reply to: