automatic helpers which really suck!

[Joe Zeff]

On 12/17/2012 02:15 PM, Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. wrote:
> just because some developers or what-have-you decided to finagle things
> and make them different.

This reminds me of an interesting way to describe political movements on 
a two-axis graph that a friend of mine (http://www.jerrypournelle.com) 
came up with for his dissertation for a PhD in Poly Sci: one axis goes 
from trying to persuade people strictly by logic or reason ("Just listen 
to what we have to say and you'll see we're right.") all the way to 
movements that depend only on emotion; the other axis shows how much the 
members want change for its own sake.  (This goes all the way from 
"nothing must ever change" to "if it's new it must be better than what 
we have now.")  I mention this because from where I sit, much of what's 
new in Gnome 3 is change for the sake of change with nobody asking if 
the new is at least as good as the old.  (Yes, I know that there are 
many people who love Gnome 3 but there are also a large percentage of 
people who either left Gnome because they found the changes unacceptable 
or who probably should because they're finding it that hard to adapt.)