"James Montebello" <jamesm@quova.com> wrote on 04/13/2004 03:52:19 PM:
>
> >I guess it *could*, but you're the first person in 4 years to ever
> notice or care
> >(or at least mention it). Maybe you could persuade the dev@ list that
> this is a
> >pressing UI issue...?
>
> I guess I've read this just one too many times on this list. What you
> and perhaps many on the dev list fail to appreciate is that with the
> release of 1.0, you instantly attracted the interest of "non-core"
> users, and as the audience gets wider, it will also encounter more
> people who are less expert in using source control, and who are
> certainly less expert in using beta-quality software.
>
> Trying to handwave away what are generally trivial-to-correct UI issues
> with "no one ever asked for that before" isn't the way to make your
> software attractive to a wide audience. Things like very confusing
> error messages that appear to have nothing to do with the actual
> problem, or inconsistent use of command line flags, are easy fixes that
> can actually make a big usability difference.
>
Come on now. I agree with your general sentiment here, but surely you are
not saying that every possible command should support all of the same
flags. Likewise, adding more flags to a command does not make them more
usable, it probably makes them less usable. In this case, I think that
having a specific command, svn status is probably clearer and more usable
than the alternative.
By the way, I am also one of these new users you speak of, not a developer
of svn.
Just my 2 cents
Mark
Received on Tue Apr 13 21:58:39 2004