Re: [gentoo-user] How many people use KDE?

[Uwe Thiem]

On 21 January 2006 16:50, Holly Bostick wrote:

> That's not the point, which is where we have a failure to communicate.
> Openbox and FVWM-crystal (and ICEwm, for that matter) are lighter,
> faster desktops than KDE partially because they do not contain the code
> to put icons on the desktop (whether I enable it in KDE or not).

Unused code does *not* slow down an application. It's just, well, ... 
unused. ;-)

> If I
> suddenly change my mind and want icons on my desktop, I have to install
> idesk or something. That's the way (unh-huh, unh-huh) I *like* it. If I
> want an application to perform a function that I want or need, then I
> install it. If I don't want or need the functionality, it *is not present*.

Frankly, I don't believe you. Some other part in your post indicates you use 
nano as an editor. Are you seriously claiming you have *ever* used all 
features (all the code) of nano? How about "-p"? Or "-l"? Is the 
corresponding code excluded from your nano?

How about all the features (all the code) of cp? How about "-l", "--parents" 
and "-x", ever used them? If not so, is the corresponding code excluded from 
your cp? I won't even start to talk about tar of bash.

I see that you use Thunderbird as your MTU. Does it support authenticating to 
the MTA when sending mail? Do you use that? Does it suport both POP3 and 
IMAP? Do you use both? Is the unused code excluded from your Thunderbird?

Almost no user will use all code in any non-trivial application (and yes, cp 
is non-trivial). What are developers to do about it? Make cp modular so that 
a user can decide at compile time what features they will use five month from 
now? Even a very small text-only linux installation contains a couple of 
hundred executables. You got to be kidding!

[ snip ]

> A lot of people care about this, both users and developers; It's a
> little issue known as User Interface Consistency, which people seem to
> find very important for new and/or inexperienced users (for experienced
> users it's more of an ongoing annoyance than a show-stopper, I think).
> Certainly programs exist to resolve that, both KDE and GNOME developers
> spend time migrating to the freedesktop.org standard to resolve that and
> users ask questions on this and other forums asking how to resolve at
> least the presenting visual issues.
>
> Myself, I generally try to solve the issue by sticking to one toolset,
> but that is not always possible. And it is annoying... if I use
> Krusader, and want to show hidden files in my home folder, the command
> or menu item to do that is in a different place than where it is in
> Nautilus or another GTK-toolset file manager or file browser for
> open/save dialogs. That means I have to *stop what I'm actually doing*
> (viewing my files) and think about which fm I'm using and remember that
> this one does it this way (as opposed to the one I usually use) and then
> go back to what I'm doing. It interrupts the seamless flow of your task,
> and people object to that to a greater or lesser degree, depending on
> how much interruption they can support before the task becomes
> unperformable, or more difficult to perform than the task is worth.

These two paragraphs, of course, are very good, though not all, arguments 
*for* DEs. As a computer user (and software developer), I go back to the 
famous ZX-81 when it was new. (Those who do not know it google for it!) 
Nonetheless, consistent menus, dialogues, ... speed me up in using 
applications - especially apps I don't use that often. I do admit that KDE 
hasn't reached that goal completely yet. For example, some applications show 
"Configure This-app" as the first entry under "Settings", others as the last 
one. I am pretty sure similar examples can be found in the GNOME world. 
Still, both DEs are far better in this regard than any wild mix of xpdf, 
xterm, OpenOffice, GIMP, xmms and 700 other UIs.

Uwe

-- 
Unix is sexy:
who | grep -i blonde | date
cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger
mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount
sleep
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