Re: Switch to .ruby extension?

On Monday 14 June 2004 16:46, Zach Dennis wrote:
> >Most programmers
> >never get to that level, so there are a lot of programmers out there who,
> >when asked to do something they simply can't do, defend themselves by
>
> saying
>
> >it shouldn't be easy to use/learn in the first place.
>
> Whoa...I don't recall ever seeing anyone say that something shouldn't be
> easy to use/learn on this thread. I think *common sense* should apply here.

Did I say anyone said that here?

> If you are unwilling to take the time to learn something then don't go cry
> wolf and say that it isn't *intuitive* enough. It also isn't that
> developers cannot do something, there are so many hours in a day, days in a
> week, weeks in a year and then you have to bring home a paycheck so you can
> put food on the table. You have to weigh and balance what is needed for the
> product to be benefecial to the user, and you need to be able to have it
> developed in a worthwhile time. I would love to write you an OS that is so
> intuitive a three year old could use it without any help...however who's
> going to fork over the cash and wait n number of years for it to be
> developed?

So in your mind, the reason so much software is hard for people to use is 
because programmers don't have time to do any more than just get the software 
working, and ease of use simply isn't going to put food on the table.

That's really laughable.  Steve Jobs and Bill Gates might have something to 
say about that particular position.

> >That mentality is, thankfully, going away as more and more truly brilliant
> >programmers are putting some of their time into newer open source
> > projects, instead of only into commercial ones.  KDE is one good example
> > of how that way of thinking is fading away in the *nix community.
>
> It isn't that that *way* of thinking is fading away...it took many years of
> developer building blocks to get to the point to where developers can start
> focusing on projects so intensely like KDE. You have to lay a foundation,
> and the build the walls before you can hang pretty pictures on it. Now that
> I think about it...building a house isn't intuitive enough....I should be
> able to build my own without ever having to learn how to build ;) right?

If you mean *nix is the foundation on which KDE is built, sure, of course.  
But no one designed unix with KDE or even X-Windows in mind.  KDE could very 
easily be just as difficult and cryptic to everyday users as anything else in 
*nix.  It's not that KDE can now afford to be easy to use because *nix laid 
the foundation.  What about Macs, Windows and Beos?  Those aren't (well, OS X 
is) based on a Linux core, and they're easy to use.

No, I stand by what I said.  New talent is working around Linux these days and 
things are getting easier to use, as well as remaining, or being more, 
powerful.

>
> >The command line interface, though, is a tough nut to crack because it's
>
> been
>
> >around so long.  If it were being developed from scratch today, surely
>
> there
>
> >are enough inexperienced computers users that you could probably design
> >something that's both powerful and intuitive to use.
>
> The CLI does what is needed to do. It isn't evolving because there is no
> need for it to evolve. That is why people are developing GUI's. Eventually
> sometime I'm sure it will evolve, but at the moment there doesn't seem to
> be a need besides a ...wouldn't it be nice.

Where did I say the CLI needed to evolve?  Where on earth are you getting the 
material to argue against anything I've said in that paragraph?  Are you just 
arguing to hear yourself argue?

	Sean O'Dell