On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 11:07:19PM +0200, Brice Méalier wrote: > Sure a GUI is not a bad habit! far from that! but it has the drawback to > lower the "brain use" of the user... A computer is a tool which use you > must learn and unfortunately GUIs tend to avoid any learning from the > user side.
What's wrong with lowering the brain use of the user? For a lot of us on this list, a computer is something we play with -- in our off hours, many of us (myself included) get a kick out of learning new things on these boxes, testing their limits, etc. To put it very mildly, I believe most users are not this way. They have some stuff they need to get done, and they do it: they browse the web, write email, do some stuff in their word processor/spreadsheet, etc. That's it. So an interface that stops most users from learning will be precisely what they want. And if we ever want to get a large share of the desktop market, we can't assume that people care about learning how to extract the most from their computers. Think about computers like cars: most drivers get in, drive to work, gas it up every now and again, maybe change the occasional fluid, but don't care in the least about extracting the maximum efficiency and speed from their engines. > But I think that if we get this e-mail that means the sender wants to > learn, so why not try to give him some useful hints even if he will not > use them, at least he'll be aware of. > I don't think that normal users will approach specialized mailing-lists. The original poster wanted to know how to make Debian (I presumed GNOME, but I don't know) do something that Windows could do. It could be handled entirely through the GUI. I've not gotten down to do it yet, but I set up a challenge for myself: spend one month in front of my computer without touching the command line, mutt, or vim. I want to sell Linux to my friends, and I can't sell it to them by doing anything at the command line or using an extremely arcane text editor. I love the arcane bastard, and I think I can get more done with vim's regular expressions *alone* than any Windows user can do with Notepad. However, this will not sell Linux to Windows or Mac users. Most Mac users are not aware that they have a /etc directory. That's pretty amazing, if you think about it. So we should tie one hand behind our backs and think, whenever possible, of how we can do particular tasks using the GUI. It's just better salesmanship for new users. > Yes initially windows is organized but you have to keep it organized as > well as some programs purely install in C:\ Incorrect. The only programs that do so, in my experience, are those programs that the user mistakenly puts there. Some programs will put their installer files in some directory under the root, but any program that uses, say, InstallShield will put its executables under C:\Program Files\[Whatever Its Name Is] or, better yet, C:\Program Files\Manufacturer\Program Name . I know it's bad form to say anything nice about Windows, but this part of Windows really isn't so bad. -- Stephen R. Laniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] +(617) 308-5571 http://laniels.org/ PGP key: http://laniels.org/slaniel.key
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