On Tue, 8 Oct 2002 10:03:04 -0500 Praedor Tempus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> There is an important point to consider, however. If one is intending to be a > commercial vendor of software, one of the MAIN considerations has to be > useability/ease-of-use. Ease of code maintenance or code efficiency for > programmers MUST be a secondary concern. Debian can get away with the > latter, as can a lot of raw open source projects (unfortunately). > In all too many cases, developers of opensource software don't give a damn > for the user, all they care about is having fun coding, making efficient > code, scratching an itch. If the interface to their code is a useability > nightmare, too bad - don't use it (their typical response). For a commercial > company seeking users and money from users, this is a bankrupt attitude and > is economically untenable. > While I can appreciate that revamping code can make it easier to maintain or > update from the developer point of view, you must NEVER lose sight of the > fact that end-user useability issues are very VERY important and should > actually take front and center station. It doesn't matter how easy to > maintain, how stable, or how efficient a piece of code is if it is simply not > easy to use. Many simply will not use it or will move to another > distro/product that IS easy to use. > I am not actually taking a nasty shot at Mandrake here, as it remains my > distro of choice at this time. I do seek to remind the Mandrake developers > that they are a commercial operation seeking new users and big money-making > accounts. You cannot, under any circumstances, sideline > useability/ease-of-use for the sake of the ease and comfort of your > developers and still remain a viable commercial enterprise. There seems to > be some valid complaints about the revamping of rpmdrake from the user point > of view, for instance. I don't know personally because I cancelled my 9.0 > order based on reviews online and comments in this list - I will wait for 9.1 > to give Mandrake a chance to fix new bugs and useability issues. That said, > it may be/should be possible to simply correct some of these user issues > without wrecking the easy-to-maintain-and-upgrade desires of the Mandrake > developers. As much as is possible, and even at the expense of some > developer/coder comfort, the end-user experience should be maintained or > enhanced - this is what makes more customers and return customers. There was a great shout on the [cooker] list when the new software management first turned up in 9.0 beta 1; there were changes and, after about beta 3, it was barely mentioned. I think the "problem" is that it's best driven by the MCC, unlike the old version; it's pretty clear what's happening when you click on Software Management. (The 8.2 version, by contrast, was a wreck, with controls all over the place). I wonder if the four icons should've been removed from Configuration | Packaging? Having two access points, which work differently, for the same function(s) is probably not a good idea. Alastair
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