[TriLUG] redhat-config-network question

Brent Fox bfox at linuxheadquarters.com
Fri Feb 28 00:12:28 EST 2003


On Thu, 2003-02-27 at 23:17, Tanner Lovelace wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-02-27 at 22:25, Brent Fox wrote:
> 
> > I don't know what the founders of Gnome and KDE believed.  What I do
> > know is that Apple was able to create Aqua for MacOS X in less time than
> > KDE and Gnome have existed.  As far as I can tell, Aqua is generally
> > regarded as superior to just about all other desktops in terms of
> > consistency, usability, and look and feel.  The Linux desktop efforts
> > are just beginning to understand things about UI design that Apple has
> > known for years.  Consistency *is* a good thing.  
> 
> Okay, I have to call you on this one.  Aqua for MacOS is just
> a differently themed NeXTStep, which has been around longer than
> Linux has.  So, no, they didn't do it quicker than KDE and Gnome.
> They've been working on it (probably continuously) since 1989!
> (My first experience with Unix was with a pre-release NeXT cube
> the summer of '89, so I know my dates on this).

I didn't know it was the same codebase.  I stand corrected.

> 
> > As Joel Spolsky writes, "The cardinal axion of all user interface
> > design: A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves
> > exactly how the user thought it would." 
> > (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html) 
> > Which is basically a rewording of the "Principle of Least Surprise." 
> > Just about every book ever written on user interface design reinforces
> > this over and over.  Having two sets of desktops, applications, and
> > graphics toolkits that look and behave differently violates this.
> 
> If you use two sets of desktops, yes.  But, from what I remember, 
> Lisa didn't want to use both of them.  She only wanted to use KDE.
> Unfortunately, Red Hat (got that right, Jeremy? :-) didn't think it
> was worth it to write their config tools in both toolkits, so that
> she wouldn't have to use both toolkits.  Whose fault is that?

You don't have to use two sets of desktops to run into the problem. 
Just running apps based on a different toolkit than the desktop you're
currently using is enough.  For example, in 7.3, if you're using KDE and
then launch balsa, balsa's buttons look different than other KDE apps. 
The user does not understand why Balsa sticks out like a sore thumb. 
The opposite is true if you're running Gnome and start up KMail.

We have to pragmatic about where to spend our limited development
resources.  What good would writing our tools in both GTK and QT do? 
Why stop there?  Why not in Tk too?  Why not write them in C as well so
the anti-python lobby will be happy?  Once we're finished, we can
rewrite them again in Perl.  By 2008, we'd finally have some config
tools.  :)

Besides, this doesn't address the problem of having apps written in
different toolkits look different.  You can't expect everyone to write
their apps in multiple toolkits.  Making QT and GTK look the same was
the best way to solve this problem.  The user can always change the
theme if they want to.


Cheers,
   Brent



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