Re: Two questions (Archive search + Dpkg frontend for X)
On Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 09:57:46PM -0200, Vitor Silva Souza wrote:
| At 14:49 27/11/2001 -0800, Brian Nelson wrote:
| > > Question two: I'm looking for a good graphical frontend for
| > > dpkg, sort of like a dselect for X. Any suggestions? I'm using potato
| > > and don't want to upgrade to unstable, so I need it to be on a potato
| > > deb package.
| >
| >No. The only frontends for dpkg that seem to be stable and reliable
| >enough for everyday use is dselect and apt. Why would you want it to
| >be graphical anyway?
|
| Well, graphical interfaces are easier to use and generally more
| powerful than text-based interfaces.
I have found the opposite to be true in most cases. I found this
quote in someone's sig once, and I agree with it :
"GUIs normally make it simple to accomplish simple actions and
impossible to accomplish complex actions."
--Doug Gwyn (22/Jun/91 in comp.unix.wizards)
A case in point :
My boss asked me to take a (large) jar file (from a 3rd party library
we use) and create a list of all the fully-qualified class names from
it. (he had a good reason for it, btw) He had started by using
winzip and notepad (that's how he confirmed his good reason), and
found it quite tedious so he asked me to do it instead. I was like,
this is easy! I used jar and sed on the command line and had his
listing for him in a matter of minutes. He was surprised that I had
it done so fast.
A GUI can do the things the designer thought of quite easily, but they
can't do anything else easily. Pipes and filters allow fairly simple
programs to be combined to perform complex and unique operations quite
easily, once the learning curve of the utilities is overcome. (BTW I
have a fair amount of experience in developing GUI apps)
I like a combination -- simple GUIs to look pretty and do the simple
things, but a console for the real work.
| I wish I had a graphical interface for everything I do in my
| computer.
That's your own opinion and you are welcome to it.
-D
--
How to shoot yourself in the foot with Java:
You find that Microsoft and Sun have released imcompatible class
libraries both implementing Gun objects. You then find that although
there are plenty of feet objects implemented in the past in many other
languages, you cannot get access to one. But seeing as Java is so cool,
you dont care and go around shooting anything else you can find.
(written by Mark Hammond)
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