On 19/02/2013 04:06, jonc wrote:
On 02/18/2013 10:49 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 02/18/2013 07:32 PM, jonc wrote:
Your tone seems to suggest you think developers owe something to users ("very, VERY justified criticism"). I don't think they do, and I don't think developers have any more reason to pay attention to anecdotes from users than users have a reason to pay attention to anecdotes from developers.
How about when they replace a program that works fine (anaconda) with a new version that doesn't do as much and/or is much harder for most people to use. Do you find that type of criticism justified?
I think saying you don't like an interface design is legitimate. I think projecting that on all other users is not legitimate.
The old Anaconda is easy only because we all used it so much. It's little more than a wrapper around parted. So, if you don't already know how to partition a system, it really isn't that easy. No installer that exposes manual partitioning is, or can be.
And every system that gives the user a choice along the lines of "you can have any partitioning you want as long as it's the default one" is guaranteed to make a pigs ear of most installations, not least because of file system alignment issues (especially on RAID or SSDs).
That illustrates my basic point in this discussion: Anaconda's developers made a *developer's* decision. As long as software works for them, users don't care if it works for anyone else, or if it is bug-ridden and a time-consuming pain to maintain. But, it's irrational for users to expect developers to continue to pour resources into propping up that software if they want to replace it with something that's better from their point of view. Users and developers have different objectives.
I am not disputing this, but the important point is that the developers that don't care what their users think of their software are going to end up without any users pretty quickly.
Gordan