Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro@gnome.org> wrote on Sun, 28 Dec 2014 11:05:00 -0600:
On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Alec Leamas <leamas.alec@gmail.com> wrote:
Possibly. But isn't there quite a difference between the "novice user" and the Fedora Workstation target user i. e., developers?

Not necessarily. I wrote:

"Yes, Workstation targets developers, but not exclusively, and also developers who use fancy IDEs and who don't work with the terminal. I just don't want this thread to degenerate into a discussion of this lousy definition [of normal/novice users], since it's not important. What's important is that we want Workstation to be excellent for users who never touch the terminal."

Fedora currently suffers from the impression that it is a complicated OS for advanced users only, and that novices (including novice developers) should use Ubuntu instead.


Well, I was really surprised that developers are considered a target audience here. GNOME Software *might* be considered good enough for normal users, but its far from usable for a developer; even a developer who don't want to touch the terminal. Actually, it is *terrible* for such a developer. Why?

1. He search for "C++" and .... (I doubt that it tries to interpret it as a regular expression or something. Probably it thinks that the user is an idiot and removes "+" signs on behalf of him).
2. He has installed Eclipse + CDT and hopefully he can compile his C++ programs with GCC. Now, he learns about Clang and would like to try it.
3. He is using an x86_64 system, but he happen to need to compile his program for 32bit systems. or even cross-compile for ARM.
4. He needs a networking library, or want to use Boost, or ....

GNOME Software is not that useful for a developer. As Rechard himself said, he'll need a package manager anyway. So, If Workstation product really targets developers, specially the ones who don't want to use terminal, it MUST include a graphical package manager.

Regards,
Hedayat