End users are not programmers
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| r_a_trip Feb 14, 2012 5:07 AM EDT |
One interesting thing they did with the shell was that they made it possible for end user to script the desktop in a very easy way with JavaScript extension. End users don't program. Period. If an end user programs, he has become a programmer (how ever good or bad). This mind set of "I you don't like it, fix it yourself." is nice in a hacker culture. Once your software is used by millions of people with a thousand other things to do than learning Java script and the (largely undocumented) programming model of Gnome Shell, it is just kicking people who are already down. But this is business as usual. |
| caitlyn Feb 14, 2012 9:30 AM EDT |
I don't see many people other than Miguel de Icaza praising GNOME 3. For that matter, I don't see many people praising Mr. de Icaza lately. |
| kikinovak Feb 14, 2012 9:50 AM EDT |
He should try a C#/Mono port of GNOME :o) |
| montezuma Feb 14, 2012 10:11 AM EDT |
Well it is true that there are now many extensions for gnome 3 due to *easier* access to desktop customisation for programming literate users. They put up a website where you can try them VERY easily. Problem I found was however that they can interact and unexpected annoying things can happen. For example the tooltips for panel launchers moved 5 inches to the right of where they should have been. So it seems to me that this customisation idea is a good one but judging from the implementation through said website a bit of a half baked after thought by developers. The disorganisation here (and the lack of developer enthusiasm for user extensions) appears to have resulted in the partial forking of the project with the cinnamon project of Mint. |
| devnet Feb 14, 2012 10:21 AM EDT |
I agree...I don't see ANY of the people I work with as a distribution developer excited about Gnome 3. They are, however, VERY excited about Cinnamon via Linux Mint. Just goes to show you that Gnome 3 and Ubuntu via Unity are just deluding themselves and continue further down the rabbit hole. |
| r_a_trip Feb 14, 2012 11:26 AM EDT |
I don't see ANY of the people I work with as a distribution developer excited about Gnome 3. They are, however, VERY excited about Cinnamon via Linux Mint. Which makes me a bit less wary about the future of the Linux desktop. I'm using Cinnamon 1.2 on LM 12 and while right now it has definitely some rough edges here and there, it is a pleasure to use. More distributions using it in the future will only enhance the chance that Cinnamon is here to stay. |
| Koriel Feb 14, 2012 11:33 AM EDT |
Im currently running Linux Mint 12 with the XFCE 4.8 extension :) Its a doozy. |
| montezuma Feb 14, 2012 12:24 PM EDT |
Yes I am also using cinnamon and even though it is labelled as alpha software it is a pleasure to use and highly functional already. They also have a good webpage where you can get applet, theme and extension goodies: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 14, 2012 5:35 PM EDT |
I guess I'm midway between user and programmer, but I think the ability to write extensions in Javascript instead of C++ or (insert language here) is a pretty good thing. |
| tracyanne Feb 14, 2012 5:37 PM EDT |
@Steven, yes I'll take javascript as a language form developing extensions, ove c?C++ anyday. |
| Fettoosh Feb 14, 2012 6:31 PM EDT |
Besides, many users (non-programmers) write macros for Exell/word and even write html/javascript for personal web pages. I too think it is a pretty good thing. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 14, 2012 8:33 PM EDT |
Is someone here able to comment about the security implications of using javascript for the desktop? Is it really a good idea to use the same code for scripting web-pages and the desktop? It strikes me as asking for trouble, but I'm not really qualified to an opinion on the subject. |
| Khamul Feb 14, 2012 10:27 PM EDT |
@Bernard: Aside from the security implications (which I doubt are that important; it's a desktop, not a web browser; even if it's using the same technologies underneath, it's not directly transferring data from untrusted sites on the internet), what about the performance implications? Using Javascript, an interpreted language, to render your UI? Along with CSS (which is an abomination of a standard)? It just sounds dumb. Web technologies are fine for the web, but it makes no sense to hobble yourself with parsed and interpreted languages/stylesheets, rather than using C or C++ to write your UI system. In case anyone hasn't noticed, computers aren't getting any faster the way they used to. Now they just tack on a few more cores, but those cores aren't much faster than they were 5 years ago, and one process can only run on one core. We don't need software designers maxing out our CPUs and saying "the hardware will be 4 times as fast in 1.5 years so let's not worry about it". It's not 1999 any more. |
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