[ale] gnome3. I give up.

[The Don Lachlan]

On 06/08/2011 08:20 AM, Mike Harrison wrote:
> I think we have reacheed an age where being stuck with ONE interface and
> paradigm for everything is gone. That's the good news and the bad news.
> Every uber-geek I meet has hacked their system into a completely
> customized world that -they- like and is almost unusable to anyone else.
> The interfaces for the rest of the world are evolving, some for the
> better, some for the worse. We will have to sort out the good and the bad
> and help it evolve more.
> Out of chaos: order

I hate fax machines. I use one _maybe_ once a year. Each time, I have to 
spend five (or ten) minutes figuring out which side the page faces, how 
I feed multiple pages, do I dial first or after it scans, etc.

Microwaves are similar, though it usually only takes a second to figure 
it out. Now its TVs and DVRs and phones and everything else. Mostly, I 
don't care what the UI is, I just want it to be consistent. No matter 
what microwave I use, I want to push the same buttons, in the same 
order, everywhere.

That ONLY applies to appliances. (Applies. Appliance. Heh. Apple?)

My computers are platforms for expression. My computers run a UI that is 
consistent for me and only me and I use the same config files no matter 
where I go. But that's me and I'm an extreme data point - most users 
treat computers as appliances and they need the same consistency I need 
with a fax machine.

I view the chaos as bullshit created by groups/individuals who want to 
distinguish their product from the other one just by making it 
different, not better. Appliances shouldn't be unique, one microwave 
should work just like another. Computers (or other platforms for 
expression) should work the way the user wants, ignoring whatever any 
other user wants.

-L