Adieu, Fedora

[Marcus D. Leech]

On 06/13/2011 12:06 AM, Phil Savoie wrote:
> James,
>
> No point in arguing with this guy.  This *is* the reason why linux in 
> general is the state in which you describe.  Responses like his only 
> further prove your points.  It's too bad that there are way more David's 
> out there than those like you who have valid arguments for what you were 
> describing.  If one gets this kind of reaction for merely suggesting 
> something helpful to bring more into the fold, then it is really no 
> wonder.  With attitudes like this, noobs would be scared to ask 
> questions for fear of flames and or RTFM type answers.  This elitist 
> type of attitude is something I have always despised but seems to run 
> pretty big in the linux community.  If you do not agree with me then you 
> are wrong.  If you don't know as much as me then you're dumb and what 
> you say doesn't matter.
>
> Just my 2 cents,
>
> Phil
>   
I think the point that David was trying to (perhaps less-than-elegantly)
make is that there is no
  "you Linux guys over there".   Unlike with a commercial offering like
Windows, there *are*
  channels for keen users of the system to make contributions, rather
than "waiting for Redmond",
  so to speak.

A huge number of the contributors to Linux distributions of various
flavours are part-time people
  doing it on their own time, because they want to.  Most software
developers aren't really keen on
  producing end-user documentation, so you end up with mountains and
mountains of really-good
  software that has a smaller audience because of lousy documentation. 
That's rather an emergent
  property of the beast.

But another point I'd like to make.  I've been doing computing and
software development for over 30
  years.  I have *yet* to find a UI that is usable by *EVERYONE*.  Not a
single one.  I've certainly
  met UIs that pretty-much-everyone agreed were nearly-useless.  But
once a UI gets over some of
  the initial usability humps, then what you run into is the fact that
not everyone interacts with
  their world in the same way as everyone else.  Something that's
"natural and intuitive" for one person,
  can be utterly baffling for others.  The people who are likely to find
a given UI "natural and intuitive"
  are very likely to be people whose cognitive apparatus functions along
the same wavelengths as
  the developers of that UI.

For example, the new UI on Microsoft Word for Win7, I find to be almost
utterly impenetrable.  But
  others just love it.

Yup, "man" pages aren't very friendly for newbs.  But they aren't really
intended for that audience.
  They're intended as handy reference documents, rather than tutorials. 
Some of them are better
  written than others.  Unfortunately, not all software developers are
also skilled technical writers.
  Sad fact.  In a well-funded corporate effort, there'd be tech writers
working alongside the developers.
  The fact is that more competent software developers are "drawn" to the
open-source world than
  tech writers.


-- 
Principal Investigator
Shirleys Bay Radio Astronomy Consortium
http://www.sbrac.org