On Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:47:38 -0400
Casey Dahlin <cdahlin(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 02:32:12PM -0400, Bernd Stramm wrote:
> So Gnome Shell is not for a good many of the people who had been
> using Gnome before that.
>
YES! I don't know why more people don't realize this: GNOME 2 was a
mediocre interface for a lot of people. It COULD NOT be a good
interface for the same number of people, and there is NOTHING wrong
with them pruning their userbase to a subset which they can
adequately serve.
> It is not good to counter a technical point with a personal attack,
> which is what you did.
>
No I didn't.
Sure looked like you did. Perhaps it not done with malice, let's go
with that version.
> Different workloads require different ways of working. In my case,
> there is not just one task that requires 100% of my attention.
> There is one big, long term task that can tolerate short
> interruptions, and several smaller ones. This is a perfectly normal
> situation.
>
That doesn't mean GNOME shell did not meet the goal you quoted. It
means that goal contradicts your own goals. The goal was "let the
user focus on the current task." You want your focus less singularly
distributed. Serving you brings them further from, not closer to, the
goal as stated.
That is actually not what I quoted. It is the part of the quote that
your comment addressed. Here is my quote again:
>Makes it easy for users to focus on their current task and
reduces
> distraction and interruption
Gnome3 has a problem with the last one. Selecting a new (or an
additional) application causes a major disruption. The switch to a
different screen takes time, causes the user to re-focus their eyes and
their attention. That's a serious context switch, given that the user
isn't necessarily trying to do anything dramatic.
Perhaps the Gnome3 way of thinking is that calling up an additional
application constitutes starting a new task in the work flow, so that
the big interruption happens anyway. I don't think that is a good
assumption for the design of a DE.
--CJD
--
Bernd Stramm
bernd.stramm(a)gmail.com