Usually I try not to get involved in the mind-numbingly pointless desktop wars,
but Benjamin produces
one of the most
flawed arguments I can remember having seen.
Fair enough that you want to use the keyboard. I'm much quicker on the keyboard
than on the mouse, and presumably so are you. After a long time using
computers, and CLIs in particular, this is no surprise.
Most people are not this way. I can assure you that my mother is not this way,
and prefers the comfort of the mouse whne navigating around. I don't see what
your assertion that 'stating that a typical Gnome user does not want keyboard is
simply false' is grounded in. Have you done studies? Do you know the exact
breakdown of geeks vs normal people using GNOME? Remember that it's not just
for the cool kids who can write their own code anymore -- I know plenty of
'normal' people using Linux now, typically with a GNOME-based desktop.
But, it's 'but don't say it is for users sake' that really throws me.
Why do you think they do it? For fun? To see how many people bitch on blogs
about it when they do it? Because they hate people and this is the best
practical way to take out their anger on the world? They've done studies on
their userbase (e.g. the Sun usability study), and they're doing what they
believe is best. This is true of every desktop: they simply do what they
believe will produce the best desktop for their userbase. Sometimes this
results in decisions which people think are bad. Fine then, so be it. This is
what's happened here, as opposed to your suggestion of a deep-seated hate for
all their users, individually and collectively, or something.
Your claim to be a normal user is simply false. I can't claim the same thing.
A good rule of thumb is that if you're capable of writing the application you're
using, then you're not a normal user. In some cases, this means you're not its
target userbase (not always: this holds more true for, say, Evolution, than
mutt).
If you have truly constructive suggestions (not using the words 'crap' and
'simply false'), then provide feedback to the developers through the appropriate
channels. If you don't think GNOME is for you, try some of the many excellent
other desktops (KDE, XFce, GNUstep, whatever else is around). If you like GNOME
otherwise and would like to make a concrete improvement, then submit patches.
Daniel Burrows's point was simple: you are probably not GNOME's target audience
(this is not specific to benj; if you are reading my blog, then odds are you
aren't GNOME's target audience). So, assertions that they've got it all wrong
and they should listen to you on matters of interface design aren't really going
to be helpful, because you just aren't the primary target market.
PS: Just because you write it in Latin, doesn't make someone else's argument a
logical fallacy.
PPS: If you're still having trouble wrestling with this entry, imagine instead
someone bitching about Debian being crap because they don't include the
proprietary Flash plugin, a bunch of closed-source games, VMware, etc. That's
not what Debian's about. Make sense now?
