This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 12:36:40 -0700 To: Daevid Vincent <DayWalker@thematrix.com> Cc: svlug@svlug.org Subject: Re: [svlug] gui lilo..? From: Chris Waters <xtifr@dsp.net> On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 12:14:59AM -0700, Daevid Vincent wrote: > By the way Karen, I wasn't cyring to the list for help, I was just jumping > in to point out that there is an elitist click forming around the Linux > community and it's not good... It's not forming and it would be a "clique", not a "click", except it's not that either. And I'm not even sure it's elitist. The command-line folks have been part of the linux community for longer than anyone else, because, at first, that was the only interface available. (Then curses was ported, and whole new worlds opened up!:-) Thus, it's the core of the community that prefers command-line, not a clique (or even a "click"), and it's not forming, because it did that long ago. And as for the charge of elitism, well, I admit, it does look that way at times, but the fact is that I know many people, raised on DOS, who still prefer command-lines, but still don't know squat about computers. My youngest brother, for one. Learning the meaning of cryptic icons is no easier than learning the meaning of strange words. And as for menus, well, guess what? That's not a GUI feature at all. Lots of programs have menus. Command-line (or console/terminal, which is actually different, because it allows the use of curses) is not inherently harder. The fact is that Apple's greatest innovation was the idea of a *consistent* user interface. The GUI came from PARC, but Apple had been after a consistent interface since the IIe days. They succeeded with a GUI because they were able to force everyone to rewrite all the applications, but it wasn't the GUIness that produced the consistency. That was just an excuse. (The sad part is that almost no one at Apple recognizes what really happened, and all of them are hooked on the idea that GUIs are "easier". Thus, they overlook what should be one of their greatest claims to fame.) But bottom line, when it comes to boot loaders, you don't gain anything except overhead by adding graphics. This is not an ease-of-use issue here -- lilo may suck, but other boot loaders offer simple menus without all the bloat and complexity of graphics. Unless you want to claim that only an "elitist snob" is able to move a cursor around and choose items from a menu, your whole argument falls apart. Ease-of-use (or ease-of-learning, which is what most people really mean when they say that) is orthogonal to graphicalness. === Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 12:55:09 -0700 To: "Gareth J. Greenaway" <gareth@wiked.org> Cc: svlug@svlug.org Subject: Re: [svlug] gui lilo..? From: Chris Waters <xtifr@dsp.net> [...] > The thing I think everyone has forgetten here is that with a OS like > Linux or various other open source solutions we have choices. If there > was a friendlier front end to lilo, true to the Linux and open source > world if someone didnt want to use it then someone wouldnt have to use > it. We haven't forgotten, and you'll get no argument here. Where I begin to disagree is when we go from this simple and obvious statement to what many consider the obvious next step: a graphical interface is easier/"friendlier". False! (In fact, check out blender ( http://www.blender.nl ) for a perfect counter-example to the claim that GUIs are easy for newbies. This is a 3d program with a learning curve that makes vi look trivial. And like vi, its proponents claim that it has a great interface, despite a learning curve as high as Everest. Easy-to-use and easy-to-learn are orthogonal concepts, despite what marketing spuds would have you believe.) Anyway, you quoted mutt as an example of a good interface, so I don't think we're actually disagreeing. I just want to clear up the whole "graphical" issue. GUI does mean graphical, and graphical is not inherently better.