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Re: geekyness and ESR's recent tome

From: Lawrence Kesteloot <lk_at_teamten.com>
Date: 2004-03-03 00:10:35 CET

Erik Huelsmann wrote:
> Then could you explain to me why it is that it is completely normal to you
> that he starts yelling at everybody they are assholes

Remember that his email was in a <rant>, so you should assume that he's
frustrated and ignore his tone. That's what <rant> means. (Plus,
you're completely exaggerating.) People who care about fine-grained
usability get frustrated easily and will make posts like that. You
shouldn't ignore them. You're too far into it to be annoyed by these
usability problems, so feedback from people like GrayGeek is invaluable.

> Which is what he would have gotten if he hadn't started out as he did.

I doubt it. I can't think of any way he could have phrased it and
gotten anything other than a reply of, "The reason installation was so
frustrating is because you didn't do X, Y, and Z."

John Peacock wrote:
> Now I get to argue that /you/ missed the point. ;~)

You're right, Windows is an easier case. Still, I think I'm right that
Windows and Mac developers tend to making one-click-install (and work) a
priority. Unix developers tend to assume that users are more technical,
and I'm arguing that this assumption is harmful.

> THE RPMS ARE NOT OFFICIALLY RELEASED BY THE SUBVERSION PROJECT!

Then don't take GrayGeek's email so personally. This mailing list
should be open to all Subversion-related discussion (I think?), so
discussing difficulties with the RPMs should be allowed without
Subversion developers freaking out that RPMs aren't their problem. In
addition, the fact that you're even making this distinction means that
you're not thinking about this from the user's point of view.

I don't think any of this is too big a deal in this case. Subversion's
fragile installation process will work itself out and distros will start
packaging it by default. I guess this (what I perceive to be) macho
attitude is a pet peeve of mine, which is why I spoke up.

And, to balance out my negativity: I think Subversion's fantastic and
I've been pushing it onto all of my friends.

Lawrence

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Received on Wed Mar 3 00:09:45 2004

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