[CS-FSLUG] Random comment on comment

[Don Parris]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:17:38 -0600, N. Thompson <n.thomp at sasktel.net> wrote:
> On September 14, 2004 7:41 am, Ed Hurst wrote:
> > Aaron Patrick Lehmann wrote:
> > > When you guys talk about interface, are you speaking of the UI?  I think
> > > of the code interface when I say it...  Ad FYI Ed, in coding terms, clean
> > > means that you allow those who will use your interface the functionality
> > > they need, and no more.
> >
> > There we have a coder's viewpoint, and I can see that. But when someone
> > writes a review and splatter around meaningless terms, I get cranky.
> > Most of what I've ranted about so far applies to the reviewers, not the
> > coders.
> 
> I know what thats like, a lot of people on OSNews like to write articles or
> post comments as if they had doctorates on everything with a power cord
> attached, they use all sorts of words interchangeably with "I like" and "I
> don't like" to make it sound as if they are an expert on the subject and are
> speaking on behalf of the majority of users. Really when they say something
> like program such and such has an unclean interface they really should be
> saying "I didn't like the user interface" but they want to make it sound as
> if its more then just their opinion that the interface is bad. Probably the
> worst offenders for this kind of missuse of words in an attempt to deceive
> people is when the KDE and Gnome fanatics begin to fight over which window
> manager is better, by now everyone must have heard the argument: "it has a
> cleaner interface" or "it has a cleaner toolkit" etc... but thats not true
> for either since its all relative to what each person likes.
> 
> [snip]

To be honest, I'm aware that there is some squabbling over KDE/Gnome -
as there is with GNU/Windows.  I'm not aware of the use of "clean" to
describe the likes and dislikes - moainly because I've never had time
to actually get involved in those debates.  When I describe GNU to Win
users, I focus on GNU's technical capabilities.  I don't think I've
ever said anything about the "elegance" or "cleanness" of the GNU
interface.  I refer to the virtual desktops as a better way to
organize my applications, or the virtual terminals as the ideal way to
recover from a frozen desktop in those rare instances that something
like that actually happens.

Thanks for enlightening me about the use of "clean" as a buzzword.  I
will _try_ to pay attention to it.


-- 
DC Parris GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/
gnumathetes at gmail.com
Free software is like God's love - 
you can share it with anyone anywhere anytime!