Re: [Fsfe-uk] An ignorant question?

[Chris Croughton]

On Mon, Jun 09, 2003 at 04:54:22PM +0100, Neil Darlow wrote:

> On Monday 09 Jun 2003 3:33 pm, Chris Croughton wrote:
> > Exactly, and that is a major area in which Free Software falls down very
> > frequently.  Good functionality, crap interfaces because the programs
> > are mostly designed by and for geeks who are more interested in writing
> > the code than in making it easy for other people who just want to get a
> > job done.  (And before people get mad, this describes me as well, my
> > idea of a good interface for a program I write ususally takes all of the
> > alphabet for command line switches!)
> 
> Which was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the AFSP (yes, I 
> know there's still a lot of publicity material for me to write). This being 
> the production of highly accessible, both physically and linguistically, 
> programs provided in stable, documented and well-tested releases - usable by 
> both the enterprise and average user.

The problem is that /at the moment/ there are a lot of people to whom I
can't recommend Free Software because they won't be able to use it -- or
they will take years to do the simplest thing.  Like someone said about
Flash and the like, it is possible to write it using vi (or Notepad on a
'doze system) but it will take far longer than the user can afford.  And
that for most people is the critical point, if it's something they can't
use productively then it doesn't matter that it's 'free' (in any sense),
they will look for commercial alternatives.  And what is worse, they'll
tell everyone else "it's rubbish, it didn't do what I needed".

> > As another example, I really want a version of Visual Basic, or
> > something as easy to use, for X.  I want to be able to knock up simple X
> > GUI apps without having to code in all the position stuff, message loops
> > etc., I want to just say "I want a button <here>" then right-click to
> > get to the code for that button with whatever events it handles.  And
> > before people say "If you want it then write it", the whole point is
> > that if I knew enough about X programming to write it I wouldn't need
> > the thing!
> 
> You might want to take a look at Glade if Gtk/Gnome applications are what 
> you're after. KDevelop performs a similar function for Qt/KDE. Neither are 
> turnkey application generators but they remove a lot of the drudgery.

Glade doesn't seem to work properly without Gnome, ditto KDevelop with
KDE.  I use fvwm (and that's another rant, having applications which
depend on a specific window manager is asking for trouble).  I want
something which will create straight X applications, not ones tailored
to a specific WM.  (And another common thing with X applications --
where are the keyboard shortcuts?  Far too many of them assume GUI =>
pointing device, and forget about keyboard shortcuts, which is something
even MS are not bad at.  OpenOffice/StarOffice isn't bad, Opera
(non-free) is very good (both available for Windoze as well), and the
very best I've seen is Noteworthy Composer -- Windoze only.)

Squeak/Smalltalk looks good, but I don't think that it's 'free' (it's
free as in beer but seems to limit freedoms in a way which looks
incompatible with GPL and possibly LGPL software).  I need to install it
from source, though, it doesn't like my installed glibc...

> The AFSP has, as one of its aims, the promotion of quality in Free Software 
> production. A longer term aim is to secure sponsorship for the development of 
> significant applications. With the GnuCash project moving towards being the 
> definitive personal finance application, I would like the AFSP to undertake 
> the development of an accountancy suite to give Sage and QuickBooks some
> worthy competition.

Yes, free software is getting there, and for some things is "production
quality" (I have no complaints at all about Vim, for instance, in either
text or GUI versions).  It isn't, however, there yet and I think that
pushing people into it before it's at least as good an interface as they
expect on other platforms can be counter-productive, especially when
they are people who depend on getting things done rather than faffing
about trying multiple versions.  As seen above -- "try this for Gnome,
that for KDE, or build it from source for something different", most
people will say "I'll use VB, I know that works".  And so, when I
actually need a simple GUI, will I, because I need something that works
/now/, where I can learn 90% of what I need through the help text and
actually write an app in under half an hour.

Chris C