I read this and thought about all those little knobs you can adjust in the latest Linux compiz stuff. All of it is completely unncessary but it's a good example of where pointless things not only make a neat demo but also get someone to try out the product for more than 10 minutes ... as I did.
There is absolutely nothing necessary or useful about them.
noah
· 9 months ago
Like I said, though, it depends on how you define "useful". Adding those knobs and levers attracts the KDE types to compiz - the people who want their UI to be infinitely configurable, so that they can make it feel just right. It also makes the extension author's life easier - instead of making decisions about what looks best, he or she just leaves it effectively unconfigured (hopefully to the trade off of making the extension even better).
And besides that, my rant isn't meant to say that you *shouldn't* care about things looking pretty, but that you shouldn't sacrifice real usability for making things pretty (e.g. if compiz causes your computer to crawl when any of the effects turn on, to the point that normal UI actions take 4x as long, fewer people would use it). If none of the software on my mac worked well, I'd probably care much less that they all look pretty to me.
Remind me later to give you the real-life example I encountered that led me to write this blog; it would be funny if not for the fact that the person suggesting it was completely serious :)
Corry
· 9 months ago
This is an annoying problem, though as you show in your example, a fair share of the fault lies with the customer, who is willing to have management make the purchase.
All Comments
There is absolutely nothing necessary or useful about them.
And besides that, my rant isn't meant to say that you *shouldn't* care about things looking pretty, but that you shouldn't sacrifice real usability for making things pretty (e.g. if compiz causes your computer to crawl when any of the effects turn on, to the point that normal UI actions take 4x as long, fewer people would use it). If none of the software on my mac worked well, I'd probably care much less that they all look pretty to me.
Remind me later to give you the real-life example I encountered that led me to write this blog; it would be funny if not for the fact that the person suggesting it was completely serious :)