Now Linux is doing this "ease of use" crap
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@bridget99 said:
My perspective on this movement is that it is not useful.
It doesn't matter that you think it isn't useful; it simply is. Windows' success is a testament to this.
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So let's say you want to connect your Linux laptop to a new wifi network then as an example. This is like two seconds with Network Manager. (Click the NM icon*, click the wifi network name, and enter the key.) The other way to do it is to follow a seven step process to connect to the network in the first place, then guess what, you need to configure the WPA supplicant, as described in this 15-page guide. Then, if it even works, you have to tell applications like Pidgin to ignore Network Manager since you know better and can do it yourself. (If it doesn't work, go back to step 1, and maybe try rebuilding your wireless drivers.) Finally, you gotta write a script to automatically connect on login, or just remember to do it by hand every time.
Sure, that's two seconds of work expanded to hours, but hey, at least it's not hiding the fact that's it's operating a digital computer from you!
* Or whatever pulls up the menu, it's been over a year since I last used Linux and wifi together.
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@MiffTheFox said:
So let's say you want to connect your Linux laptop to a new wifi network then as an example. This is like two seconds with Network Manager. (Click the NM icon*, click the wifi network name, and enter the key.) The other way to do it is to follow a seven step process to connect to the network in the first place, then guess what, you need to configure the WPA supplicant, as described in this 15-page guide. Then, if it even works, you have to tell applications like Pidgin to ignore Network Manager since you know better and can do it yourself. (If it doesn't work, go back to step 1, and maybe try rebuilding your wireless drivers.) Finally, you gotta write a script to automatically connect on login, or just remember to do it by hand every time.
Sure, that's two seconds of work expanded to hours, but hey, at least it's not hiding the fact that's it's operating a digital computer from you!
* Or whatever pulls up the menu, it's been over a year since I last used Linux and wifi together.
That seems like eminently reasonable logic, but the original complaint was about setup. Hopping on to wifi networks is an everyday thing. Setup is less frequent, and it shouldn't require a mouse. I do think that when I say this, some people will disagree, but most of these people have replacing Windows altogether as their agenda, and I don't agree with that.
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@Salamander said:
@bridget99 said:
My perspective on this movement is that it is not useful.
It doesn't matter that you think it isn't useful; it simply is. Windows' success is a testament to this.More to the point, everything Bridget says is wrong. If you're going to hang around on this forum, you should learn that sooner rather than later.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Salamander said:
@bridget99 said:
My perspective on this movement is that it is not useful.
It doesn't matter that you think it isn't useful; it simply is. Windows' success is a testament to this.More to the point, everything Bridget says is wrong. If you're going to hang around on this forum, you should learn that sooner rather than later.
I'm not the one who thinks "all open source products are crap" (direct quote from you). I'm also not the person who shed huge rage tears over a post jokingly comparing SSDS to Explorer. That wasn't you, either, but I mention it in an attempt to give some perspective. This site is full of impotent little Microsoft fanboys who are almost as afraid of the Bash shell as they are of Barack Obama. They cling to comfy abstractions like "a paperclip is helping me type up my letter."
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@bridget99 said:
I'm not the one who thinks "all open source products are crap" (direct quote from you).
Then provide a link, liar.
@bridget99 said:
I'm also not the person who shed huge rage tears over a post jokingly comparing SSDS to Explorer.
I don't even know what SSDS is.
@bridget99 said:
This site is full of impotent little Microsoft fanboys who are almost as afraid of the Bash shell as they are of Barack Obama.
Ok that's a new one.
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@blakeyrat said:
@bridget99 said:
I'm not the one who thinks "all open source products are crap" (direct quote from you).
Then provide a link, liar.
@bridget99 said:
I'm also not the person who shed huge rage tears over a post jokingly comparing SSDS to Explorer.
I don't even know what SSDS is.
@bridget99 said:
This site is full of impotent little Microsoft fanboys who are almost as afraid of the Bash shell as they are of Barack Obama.
Ok that's a new one.
I'm not going to sort through all your posts to prove the "direct quote" claim. But if you'll look at the thread titled "Here's a shocker: Eclipse-based Aptana Studio sucks shit!", you will see a post where you claim that "'open source' is code for 'we do not give a shit at all.'" Do you now care to retract that claim?
SSDS is Spectate Swamp's flagship product. If you really did not see where I made someone cry huge, bulbous rage tears by insulting Explorer, I highly recommend viewing this exchange. It's still on the last page of the main SSDS thread in "Funny Stuff."(Be careful you don't look in the "serious commentary " folder) .
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@bridget99 said:
I'm not going to sort through all your posts to prove the "direct quote" claim. But if you'll look at the thread titled "Here's a shocker: Eclipse-based Aptana Studio sucks shit!", you will see a post where you claim that "'open source' is code for 'we do not give a shit at all.'"
So either you were lying about it being a direct quote, or you don't know what the phrase "direct quote" means. Gotcha.
@bridget99 said:
SSDS is Spectate Swamp's flagship product. If you really did not see where I made someone cry huge, bulbous rage tears by insulting Explorer, I highly recommend viewing this exchange.
That thread is just a bunch of jackasses making fun of someone slightly different. It's shameful and disgusting. No I won't read it.
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@blakeyrat said:
@bridget99 said:
I'm not going to sort through all your posts to prove the "direct quote" claim. But if you'll look at the thread titled "Here's a shocker: Eclipse-based Aptana Studio sucks shit!", you will see a post where you claim that "'open source' is code for 'we do not give a shit at all.'"
So either you were lying about it being a direct quote, or you don't know what the phrase "direct quote" means. Gotcha.
@bridget99 said:
SSDS is Spectate Swamp's flagship product. If you really did not see where I made someone cry huge, bulbous rage tears by insulting Explorer, I highly recommend viewing this exchange.
That thread is just a bunch of jackasses making fun of someone slightly different. It's shameful and disgusting. No I won't read it.
No; I do recall you posting those exact words. I'm not going to find it, though, and I may have paraphrased very slightly, so I guess I'll plead "no contest" to your claim that "direct" was an exaggeration. There's never been any question about how you feel about FOSS, though.
And I don't make fun of SpectateSwamp. I make fun of everyone else. At least SpectateSwamp is not a pathetic sheep being led to the slaughter by Microsoft. That puts him above the 50th percentile on this site.
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@blakeyrat said:
@bridget99 said:
I'm not going to sort through all your posts to prove the "direct quote" claim. But if you'll look at the thread titled "Here's a shocker: Eclipse-based Aptana Studio sucks shit!", you will see a post where you claim that "'open source' is code for 'we do not give a shit at all.'"
So either you were lying about it being a direct quote, or you don't know what the phrase "direct quote" means.
From the thread:
@blakeyrat said:
I hate how "open source" is code for "we do not give a shit at all".
[url=http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/t/24771.aspx]Here you go.[/url] Tue, Aug 16 2011 12:20PM. You may apologize to bridget99 publicly on the forum.
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@nonpartisan said:
Here you go. Tue, Aug 16 2011 12:20PM. You may apologize to bridget99 publicly on the forum.
I never denied I said that though. So... your link changes nothing.
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@bridget99 said:
At least SpectateSwamp is not a pathetic sheep being led to the slaughter by Microsoft. That puts him above the 50th percentile on this site.
How cute. I bet you call every Linux-based operating system GNU/Linux whether or not it contains code form the GNU project.
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@bridget99 said:
@blakeyrat said:
@Mcoder said:
And you'd be completely wrong. Notice how the title of the post says that this crap "is now on Linux too". The reason is that that kind of incompetence was nearly everywhere, except on Linux. Now it is just everywhere.
Seriously? Ok you're so divorced from reality right now, I could be saying anything: purple dog liquefy.
Let me try to rephrase what Mcoder posted in a way that you understand. For years, Microsoft has been marketing to end users of the lowest skill level. Everything-from connecting to a network to writing a goddamned business letter - has been wrapped in GUIs, wizards, assistants, and such. My perspective on this movement is that it is not useful. I don't want or need the fact that I'm operatinga digital computer hidden from me. I would further posit that life and computing are too inherently complex for the wizards, assistants, etc. to actually succeed in most real-world situations. So, independent-minded people have long gravitated toward non-Microsoft technologies (much as people who work out of a vehicle gravitate toward vehicles that aren't family transportation). You personally seem to be an exception... you claim to be a programmer, but you embrace all of those wizards, assistants, and other CPU-melting abstractions. Set that fact aside, though, and realize thay the rest of us don't want Linux to go down the same idiotic road as Windows. Yes, there is probably some momentum behind getting Linux to the point where Granny can use it for e-mailiing cat pictures. But that momentum is precisely what this thread has spoken out against.
I should make this clear: I don't oppose the "dumbing down" of computing. There are certain things that these wizards and pre-configuring things do well, and others that they don't. That is in fact why I LIKE linux, because you can run a script or a program, use a wizard or utility to do some mundane task, and usually, it works (as it does in most environments, when you look at the statistics). Now here's the catch: If it doesn't work, Linux let's me pop open the hood and see what went amiss. I can tell you that most sharing issues on my iMac I could resolve in about 5 minutes with access to the smb.conf which is hidden and hidden and hidden away to the point where tracking it down requires investing in a bounty hunter. Windows is less obstructive, but the problem there is that often to apply simple changes you need to restart the entire system (linux you only need to restart the relevant service; this is hit and miss in Windows.)I have no issue at all with making things easier for users, I really don't. I can't stand it, however in cases like this, where they've deliberately or unintentionally ruined portions of good software in order to do it. It's like saying we've made the pocket knife easier to use by having the blade always out; no you haven't, because it's not a goddamn pocket knife anymore, it's a steak knife, which is a completely different tool for a completely different purpose.
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@blakeyrat said:
@nonpartisan said:
Here you go. Tue, Aug 16 2011 12:20PM. You may apologize to bridget99 publicly on the forum.
I never denied I said that though. So... your link changes nothing.
Actually you called him a liar in reference to the statement, so you did.
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@bridget99 said:
Let me try to rephrase what Mcoder posted in a way that you understand. For years, Microsoft has been marketing to end users of the lowest skill level. Everything-from connecting to a network to writing a goddamned business letter - has been wrapped in GUIs, wizards, assistants, and such. My perspective on this movement is that it is not useful. I don't want or need the fact that I'm operatinga digital computer hidden from me. I would further posit that life and computing are too inherently complex for the wizards, assistants, etc. to actually succeed in most real-world situations. So, independent-minded people have long gravitated toward non-Microsoft technologies (much as people who work out of a vehicle gravitate toward vehicles that aren't family transportation). You personally seem to be an exception... you claim to be a programmer, but you embrace all of those wizards, assistants, and other CPU-melting abstractions. Set that fact aside, though, and realize thay the rest of us don't want Linux to go down the same idiotic road as Windows. Yes, there is probably some momentum behind getting Linux to the point where Granny can use it for e-mailiing cat pictures. But that momentum is precisely what this thread has spoken out against.
There is a germ of truth in this. A subset of the Linux community wants to transform Linux into a free version of Windows to the extent that that's possible. This annoys the old guard to no end. It also annoys people who like to use Linux because it's not Windows. Fortunately, having different distros allows the old guard to be left alone and not have to deal with wizards and the like if they don't want to. On the other hand, the fact that there are different distros at all annoys the free Windows crowd because they want one choice, or at least one clear choice [cough]ubuntu[/cough].
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@Master Chief said:
Actually you called him a liar in reference to the statement, so you did.
She was a liar. That's not a direct quote. And now two people on the forum don't know what the phrase "direct quote" means! The dumb keeps piling up.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
wizards and the like
When's the last time you guys left the time capsule? Wizards have been outmoded for a solid decade now. Windows doesn't have any. (Pedantic dickweed alert: I'm sure you could find one or two leftover if you really dug, but the policy is to remove them and has been for the last 3 major revisions.)
If you don't like Windows fine. Do what you like. I understand that mindset; I didn't like Windows for a long time and frankly the only reason I use it now is because OS X actually got worse than Windows was.
But if you're going to talk about Windows, either talk about Windows as it exists today and not 12 years ago, or shut the fuck up and admit you don't know what you're talking about.
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@MiffTheFox said:
@bridget99 said:
At least SpectateSwamp is not a pathetic sheep being led to the slaughter by Microsoft. That puts him above the 50th percentile on this site.
How cute. I bet you call every Linux-based operating system GNU/Linux whether or not it contains code form the GNU project.
No , I think Stallman's full of crap on that point. He bet on GNU Hurd, and GNU Hurd went the same place as most ambitious projects trying to be revolutionary , i.e. nowhere. Also, the GNU part is not the OS. Grep is an application. Bison is an application. Richard, if you wanted to write an OS, you should have written one.
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@blakeyrat said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
wizards and the like
When's the last time you guys left the time capsule? Wizards have been outmoded for a solid decade now. Windows doesn't have any. (Pedantic dickweed alert: I'm sure you could find one or two leftover if you really dug, but the policy is to remove them and has been for the last 3 major revisions.)
If you don't like Windows fine. Do what you like. I understand that mindset; I didn't like Windows for a long time and frankly the only reason I use it now is because OS X actually got worse than Windows was.
But if you're going to talk about Windows, either talk about Windows as it exists today and not 12 years ago, or shut the fuck up and admit you don't know what you're talking about.
I was using "wizards" as a catch-all for "GUI crap that's over-simplified and annoying" and that was sloppy. I am pretty sure there are wizards in Windows 7, though. Go to "Network and Sharing Center " and click the "troubleshoot" link. I think any of the options on the next screen will open a wizard.
And really, I think wizards are far better than most GUIs. At least a wizard gives the user a clear cue as to what the next step is. Contrast that with the typical MDI or SDI GUI, where there is no clear indication which one of dozens of clickable items should be used first. Lately, I've been coding my new apps as system modal, topmost wizards that tightly control the entire display. I'm not sure that's the answer to network troubleshooting, though, and I do not think any part of Linux should be like that.
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@blakeyrat said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
I see a wizard every time I import data into a table using SQL Server Management Studio 2008. Doing anything with replication also brings up a wizard.wizards and the like
When's the last time you guys left the time capsule? Wizards have been outmoded for a solid decade now. Windows doesn't have any. (Pedantic dickweed alert: I'm sure you could find one or two leftover if you really dug, but the policy is to remove them and has been for the last 3 major revisions.)
If you don't like Windows fine. Do what you like. I understand that mindset; I didn't like Windows for a long time and frankly the only reason I use it now is because OS X actually got worse than Windows was.
But if you're going to talk about Windows, either talk about Windows as it exists today and not 12 years ago, or shut the fuck up and admit you don't know what you're talking about.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
I see a wizard every time I import data into a table using SQL Server Management Studio 2008. Doing anything with replication also brings up a wizard.
This might come as a surprise to dumbshits, but SQL Server is not part of Windows.
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Well, you did issue the pedantic dickweed alert earlier, so I can't say that I wasn't warned.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
Well, you did issue the pedantic dickweed alert earlier, so I can't say that I wasn't warned.
WTF? Saying Windows and SQL Server are different products is now considered pedantic dickweed?
Christ, this forum guyz.
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Every installer ever is a wizard?
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@blakeyrat said:
@Master Chief said:
Actually you called him a liar in reference to the statement, so you did.
She was a liar. That's not a direct quote. And now two people on the forum don't know what the phrase "direct quote" means! The dumb keeps piling up.
I love how you immediately toggle from pleasant discussion with something I say to disagreeing violently when I call you on your incredulous shenanigans. Answer me this: Have you ever admitted to a slight error? Ever? It's a sign of character.
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@blakeyrat said:
When's the last time you guys left the time capsule? Wizards have been outmoded for a solid decade now. Windows doesn't have any. (Pedantic dickweed alert: I'm sure you could find one or two leftover if you really dug, but the policy is to remove them and has been for the last 3 major revisions.)
They may not call it a wizard, but it's the same realm of applications. What comes immediately to mind is the first time you start Windows 7, and you get the little dialog for choosing security settings based on Home, Work, or Public networks, and then setting up a home group. Sure, it doesn't have Wizard in the title, but if you pry the emblem off a Chevrolet, that doesn't make it a Chrysler.
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@blakeyrat said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you go back to not replying to my posts.Well, you did issue the pedantic dickweed alert earlier, so I can't say that I wasn't warned.
WTF? Saying Windows and SQL Server are different products is now considered pedantic dickweed?
Christ, this forum guyz.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@blakeyrat said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you go back to not replying to my posts.Well, you did issue the pedantic dickweed alert earlier, so I can't say that I wasn't warned.
WTF? Saying Windows and SQL Server are different products is now considered pedantic dickweed?
Christ, this forum guyz.
It doesn't work that way.
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@blakeyrat said:
@toon said:
I suppose you dislike all those poor saps who spend so much time learning vi?
If you, starting from scratch, spent 40 hours learning Vi and someone else spent 40 hours learning Visual Studio's editor (or Sublime Text as someone else posted), do you believe you would be more productive than the other guy? Do you have any evidence to back your opinion up? (And I mean real evidence, not Sheridan's retarded "popular = good" bullshit.)
The only reason you think Vi is so great is because you spent so long learning it. If you spent the same amount of time in any other equivalent tool, you'd have the exact same productivity. It's basically sunk cost fallacy in software form. I could be convinced with evidence, but I've never seen any and I doubt anybody pushing Vi actually has any.
I believe vi is supposed to be a powerful tool for typing really fast. It's got all kind of stupid weird-ass keys for:
- moving left, right, top, down: there's arrow keys for that. Welcome to the year of ... I don't know, some time before I was born??
- moving a whole word, deleting a whole word, etc. ... Guess what: Ctrl-arrow does that too in any other text editor. Combined with Shift for selecting and Del for deleting, I got word deleting in two logical moves.
- million other things like that.So it seems to begreat for typing. But my typing speed is not the bottleneck most of the time, I'm not a secretary. An IDE gives me better tools than that without spending years to learn it.
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@bridget99 said:
. Lately, I've been coding my new apps as system modal, topmost wizards that tightly control the entire display. I'm not sure that's the answer to network troubleshooting, though, and I do not think any part of Linux should be like that.
Okay, your wizards are evil. What, pray tell, does it do if the user alt-tabs* or uses another monitor?** Doesn't mean all wizards are. Hell, start up Debian-Installer in advanced mode, it's got a TUI and no mouse but that can still be called a wizard.
* Pre-emptive strike: Or whatever sequence of keys tells the window manager to switch windows.
** If it changes the graphics mode I am going to hunt you down and murder you.
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@MiffTheFox said:
@bridget99 said:
. Lately, I've been coding my new apps as system modal, topmost wizards that tightly control the entire display. I'm not sure that's the answer to network troubleshooting, though, and I do not think any part of Linux should be like that.
Okay, your wizards are evil. What, pray tell, does it do if the user alt-tabs* or uses another monitor?** Doesn't mean all wizards are. Hell, start up Debian-Installer in advanced mode, it's got a TUI and no mouse but that can still be called a wizard.
* Pre-emptive strike: Or whatever sequence of keys tells the window manager to switch windows.
** If it changes the graphics mode I am going to hunt you down and murder you.
You think bridget's applications allow people to get out of them? Or anything userfriendly in any way? Besides, you can't alt tab out of a system modal window usefully. Hence why it's system modal and the worst possible way to design any application ever. Which is to be expected from anything bridget designs though.
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@topspin said:
I believe vi is supposed to be a powerful tool for typing really fast. It's got all kind of stupid weird-ass keys for:
- moving left, right, top, down: there's arrow keys for that. Welcome to the year of ... I don't know, some time before I was born??
- moving a whole word, deleting a whole word, etc. ... Guess what: Ctrl-arrow does that too in any other text editor. Combined with Shift for selecting and Del for deleting, I got word deleting in two logical moves.
- million other things like that.So it seems to begreat for typing. But my typing speed is not the bottleneck most of the time, I'm not a secretary. An IDE gives me better tools than that without spending years to learn it.
They very likely had arrow keys when vi was invented, probably in the 70's in the early UNIX days. My guess (but again, I'm not a vi user) is that they figured that by having the h, j, k, l thing be arrow keys, you don't have to move your fingers around as much. If you really want to type efficiently, it's actually not such a bad thought. Remember, this is about 40 years ago, when you really had to be a geek to even think about ever being near a computer. I'm not saying vi is the way to go over an IDE's editor; after all, the modern pointy-haired IDE designers have 40 years of user interface knowledge over those bearded birkenstock wearing vi hippies, but it's probably not like that weird interface doesn't have some merit.
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@toon said:
They very likely had arrow keys when vi was invented, probably in the 70's in the early UNIX days.
I think it depended on your terminal. Which is why they avoided weird stuff like arrows.
@toon said:
I'm not saying vi is the way to go over an IDE's editor; after all, the modern pointy-haired IDE designers have 40 years of user interface knowledge over those bearded birkenstock wearing vi hippies, but it's probably not like that weird interface doesn't have some merit.
If you're truly proficient, I imagine it can be a real productivity boost, assuming the right sort of work, like if you've memorized all of the keyboard shortcuts in Excel, and never have to touch the mouse. Personally, I doubt that it would be worth it to use it enough to get to that point, with the things I do, but I'm open to the possibility. This is what people call having an open mind. Or possessing some degree of imagination. Don't try this trick around blakeyrat, because he has neither.
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@DescentJS said:
@MiffTheFox said:
@bridget99 said:
. Lately, I've been coding my new apps as system modal, topmost wizards that tightly control the entire display. I'm not sure that's the answer to network troubleshooting, though, and I do not think any part of Linux should be like that.
Okay, your wizards are evil. What, pray tell, does it do if the user alt-tabs* or uses another monitor?** Doesn't mean all wizards are. Hell, start up Debian-Installer in advanced mode, it's got a TUI and no mouse but that can still be called a wizard.
* Pre-emptive strike: Or whatever sequence of keys tells the window manager to switch windows.
** If it changes the graphics mode I am going to hunt you down and murder you.
You think bridget's applications allow people to get out of them? Or anything userfriendly in any way? Besides, you can't alt tab out of a system modal window usefully. Hence why it's system modal and the worst possible way to design any application ever. Which is to be expected from anything bridget designs though.
There seems to be a lot of interest in this design technique of mine, so I'll give some more information. The forms that comprise my wizards are topmost and occupy one corner of the primary display. In the title bar, there is a "Move" button that cycles the form's location through the four corners of the primary display. This allows the user to relocate each screen, as needed, to uncover any underlying areas that are hidden. It is not possible to relocate the wizard freely in the X and Y dimensions. The user can most definitely switch to another application, using ALT+TAB or whatever else, but Windows enforces the topmost nature of the wizard for display purposes.
The wizards are single-threaded. While a wizard is doing something time-consuming and cannot respond to messages, it displays a topmost banner that covers the entire primary display, and this prevents interaction with the wizard. The alternatives to this were to either 1) allow access to the GUI during long-running operations, and queue requests somehow, at considerable development cost or 2) allow Windows to lock the GUI and display its stupid "Not Responding" verbiage. My actual design is preferable to either of these options. There's not really anything my program's GUI can legitimately do during these longer-running operations... it would most likely have to simply ignore more user requests during that time. So, user input should just be locked out in an orderly fashion. (It amazes me that other people don't see this. I think they get a petty thrill from upping their thread counts.)
If the user has additional display(s), these remain fully accessible at all times. In fact, the user can exit the wizard altogether at any time, and return to (fully functional) Windows. This is not a security system, it's a workflow management system. I do like the idea of changing display mode to circumvent the use of additional monitors, but I have not done that. If nothing else, making this change might help smoke out some creative ways of doing things that management may not know about, and which may not be desirable.
Our goal is for each wizard to be all-encompassing for its process, i.e. to operate without the use of other applications. If it's not, the solution (in my mind) is not for the user to attempt to navigate to some other program, but for the requisite functionality to be brought within the wizard. Or, if this is not possible, the wizard needs to do the application launching and window management... not the user.
The overall goal of all of these design decisions is to reduce the number of options and decisions that confront the end user. Previously, the tasks done in my wizard were done using a Microsoft Dexterity-based system with an MDI user interface. Upon starting this predecessor system, the user was confronted with about twenty clickable items of different sorts, in different orientations, many of them with child controls (e.g. submenus). Nested in this GUI were the search forms and add / edit / delete functions that were previously used to do the work done in the wizard.
In essence, these vendor package features had been cobbled together into a system, which was unfortunately tangled up with a large, full-featured, confusing software package. There was nothing in the GUI to tell the user where to start. There was never anything in the GUI to tell the user which step in the process he or she was on. "Did I search for an existing client record? What were the results? Did I add a new client record?" etc. were inevitable questions. I don't mean that they asked me; I mean that the users were constantly having to ask these questions of themselves, and often getting them wrong.
Many of these "where am I" questions arose because the users were (and are) expected to take customer phone calls while going through this process. The wizard really facilitates doing this in an orderly fashion. If a customer question requires the use of other applications, that's fine. However, the user must exit the wizard if this is the case, at which point his or her exact position in the process is saved by the system. The overall effect is that the user is either inside the wizard or outside it, and at any point in time the user's place in the wizard is known. I consider these points to be very valuable. In fact, my wizards have eliminated whole categories of errors, which is not something that I can say about any other UI paradigm I've with which I've ever worked.
Some users have asked about things that are missing compared to a traditional Windows GUI. Ultimately, though, there's no reason the users would ever need to (for example) move a wizard screen to an arbitrary location, or hide it behind some other program, if they're doing their jobs as intended. If this is not true, or becomes untrue, the right thing is for IT and management to be made aware of this... not for the end users to invent workarounds using some baroque window management infrastructure foisted on us by a vendor (i.e. Microsoft). After all, that's all Microsoft is. The notion that I should constrain my design activities within their guidelines is just anathema to me.
At the same time, I must give credit to Microsoft for the wizard metaphor. My recollection is that (whether or not Microsoft invented wizards), they first came to prominence in Windows 95 (along with tabbed dialogs, the tree view, and the "Start" button). I think wizards got a bit of a bad reputation, because many of the early wizard designs were not fine-grained enough. Rather than being single questions, the wizard steps ended up being arbitrary subdivisions of the process. That misses the point, which is to make the overall process manageable for the user by hiding portions that are irrelevant at any point in the process.
I also think that wizards, especially my topmost wizards, have a (limited) appropriate place in UI design. I'm skeptical at wizards targeted at DBAs; my users are very different from DBAs. I don't foresee much value in wizards that just attempt to wallpaper over the hard work done in Control Panel to troubleshoot problems with networks and peripherals. However, the people who designed the concept and incorporated it into the overall Windows 95 design deserve credit.
Having gone through the successful development and implementation of my wizards, my entire perspective has changed. When I look at GUIs like this one, I really feel sorry for the end users. There must be 50+ individual clickable items on that screen. Some things are graphical, some are labeled with text, things are located all over the place in variously-oriented groupings, and there's no obvious or standardized significance to any of these differences. It's worth noting that this screen shot comes from the process of registering a patient at a hospital; that's an easily-definable sequential process just like the ones for which I implemented my wizards, and the obscenely complex screen that I linked to above is a missed opportunity to actually help the users do their jobs better. I'm sure people presented with that GUI for the first time (or the hundredth) are quite humbled by it; if they knew what an easy alternative was available, in the form of the topmost wizard, I think they would experience a strong urge to defenestrate their IT department.
The mentality of the people who designed that system was much different from my own. I do not know them, but they were no doubt constrained in their thinking by a whole lot of past practice and a host of Microsoft recommendations about GUI design (e.g. the SDI and MDI paradigms) that did not serve them well. They had lost sight of the fact that their product is just a means to an end. No doubt they acquired skills and experience that would impress a tech recruiter, or the posters at this site; but the end result is garbage and whatever those people make at their next, better job will be garbage as well.
It amazes me that designs like that one remain typical of commercial software (or, at least, more typical than my design). I am exhausted from constantly having to defend myself and my designs from other developers, most of whom I believe to be selling dangerously defective products. While I will probably always program, I've recently begun taking steps to disentangle myself from the profession of software engineering. I would like to say that I am taking classes in another discipline because I believe a day of reckoning is coming for the snake oil salesmen who run the software field at present. Realistically, they will escape serious censure. Many of the worst culprits are wealthy already. However, I no longer wish to be associated with other software developers.
There is a recurring theme of impotence in many of the posts here; earlier in this thread, I was told that "it doesn't matter what I think." I disagree. Ultimately, we all vote with our feet. No, we don't flick levers or punch out chads with our toes. But we express our preferences in the jobs and credentials we choOse to pursue. I choose to cry "humbug" at most of what you are doing, and I choose to remove myself from your ranks. While I'm still around, I will do things my way only, and my users and employers will only benefit.
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@toon said:
They very likely had arrow keys when vi was invented, probably in the 70's in the early UNIX days.
The "smart" terminals at my engineering school (circa 1980) did have arrow keys, but those didn't send any codes, just moved the cursor locally; there was no way at all for a program to detect when one had been pressed. The terminals had a crude inbuilt visual editor for onscreen forms, and that was the only thing the arrows, along with the Insert Character, Delete Character, Insert Line and Delete Line keys, existed to support.
There were also a few dumb terminals around the campus that were pure glass TTYs where the cursor always stayed on the bottom line. On those terminals, vi would still work but only in ex mode.
Every version of vi I've ever used on any terminal that includes detectable arrow keys has had those properly bound to vi's cursor movement functions; I've not needed to use hjkl for many years. The most likely explanation for the persistence of those bindings, it seems to me, is that given vi's modal design there's simply never been any good reason to remove them.
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FreeBsd is awesome to use from the command line.
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@bridget99 said:
@DescentJS said:
@MiffTheFox said:
@bridget99 said:
. Lately, I've been coding my new apps as system modal, topmost wizards that tightly control the entire display. I'm not sure that's the answer to network troubleshooting, though, and I do not think any part of Linux should be like that.
Okay, your wizards are evil. What, pray tell, does it do if the user alt-tabs* or uses another monitor?** Doesn't mean all wizards are. Hell, start up Debian-Installer in advanced mode, it's got a TUI and no mouse but that can still be called a wizard.
* Pre-emptive strike: Or whatever sequence of keys tells the window manager to switch windows.
** If it changes the graphics mode I am going to hunt you down and murder you.
You think bridget's applications allow people to get out of them? Or anything userfriendly in any way? Besides, you can't alt tab out of a system modal window usefully. Hence why it's system modal and the worst possible way to design any application ever. Which is to be expected from anything bridget designs though.
There seems to be a lot of interest in this design technique of mine, so I'll give some more information.<snip>
<snip><snip>
<snip><snip>
<hack><slash><burn>
<snip>
<snip>
I choose to cry "humbug" at most of what you are doing, and I choose to remove myself from your ranks. While I'm still around, I will do things my way only, and my users and employers will only benefit.
Swampy! You're back!
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@toon said:
They very likely had arrow keys when vi was invented, probably in the 70's in the early UNIX days.
AIUI, they didn't - vi preceded the detachable keys so keystrokes do the equivalent of U/D/L/R plus PgUp/PgDn/Home/End etc.
@flabdablet said:
Every version of vi I've ever used on any terminal that includes detectable arrow keys has had those properly bound to vi's cursor movement functions;
Ditto for terminals here, but not for terminal emulators - it took some messing around with matching the server's TERM and TERMCAP to the correct keymap layout in the emulator (VT100/VT220 seem to work for most things) but that wasn't a vi thing (or Unix thing), it was simply trying to match configuration settings in two different places that resulted in a working model.
@flabdablet said:
The most likely explanation for the persistence of those bindings, it seems to me, is that given vi's modal design there's simply never been any good reason to remove them.
It's the same reason why keyboard shortcuts in many applications haven't been removed when the mouse arrived: some people were familiar with key-based operations and removing them presented more drawbacks than benefits.
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@bridget99 said:
...buncha stuff...
The takeaway: all her users run the software in a VM to workaroud her poor design choices.
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@Lorne Kates said:
@bridget99 said:
...buncha stuff...
The takeaway: all her users run the software in a VM to workaroud her poor design choices.
No, that's not an option here. But if you would like to explain to me why my users need the whole windowing metaphor (in a time when Microsoft seems to be inching away from it) I'll listen. I'm not going to code that way just for your amusement.
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@bridget99 said:
@Lorne Kates said:
@bridget99 said:
...buncha stuff...
The takeaway: all her users run the software in a VM to workaroud her poor design choices.
No, that's not an option here. But if you would like to explain to me why my users need the whole windowing metaphor (in a time when Microsoft seems to be inching away from it) I'll listen. I'm not going to code that way just for your amusement.
It isn't as much the metaphor used as it is that users need multitasking.
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Bridget, have you ever actually talked to any of your users? Have you ever watched them use your program?
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@blakeyrat said:
Bridget, have you ever actually talked to any of your users? Have you ever watched them use your program?
Sure, we talk, but I generally try to steer the conversation away from computers. Computers bore the shit out of me.
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@MiffTheFox said:
@bridget99 said:
@Lorne Kates said:
@bridget99 said:
...buncha stuff...
The takeaway: all her users run the software in a VM to workaroud her poor design choices.
No, that's not an option here. But if you would like to explain to me why my users need the whole windowing metaphor (in a time when Microsoft seems to be inching away from it) I'll listen. I'm not going to code that way just for your amusement.
It isn't as much the metaphor used as it is that users need multitasking.
I thought I addressed that in my wall of text. They don't need multitasking for these particular tasks. In fact, I've found it to be detrimental.
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I meant talk about your-- oh nevermind, Bridget is hopeless.
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@blakeyrat said:
I meant talk about your-- oh nevermind, Bridget is hopeless.
Yes, of course we talk about my little wizard things. They replaced a vendor package that was around for at least a decade. There was one user who told me my program sucked, and I addressed her complaints (without changing the overall topmost wizard design).
Users want to do their jobs. They care less about a lot of this shit than you do.
