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> So why bother making Haiku? All of that strawman's needs are served perfectly well, in fact even better, by a Chromebook. That is not true in theory or in pr

> So why bother making Haiku? All of that strawman's needs are served perfectly well, in fact even better, by a Chromebook. That is not true in theory or in practice except for a very, very small number of people. Maybe if you use the "Linux on Chromebook", but then it's more than a "Chromebook" is typically understood to be... > Maybe this is something you can only really get if you grew up with computers that booted into BASIC. What "this" are you referring to here? I think 99.999% of people that use computers are more than happy with the fact they no longer boot into BASIC, and would dislike them doing so again, and this includes 99.9% of programmers, I'd say. > A well designed system can be understood in pieces, or layers, giving the user a path to more power and a better understanding of their tools as they seek it at their own pace. There isn't a "wall". You can go as deep or as shallow as you like; and there are plenty of middle grounds, too, in Haiku. So we definitely adhere to this part of your philosophy. > The attitude I'm against is the one that says if you don't want to do the "normal user" thing, then the next step is a C compiler. And we definitely agree with that, for the first two or three standard deviations. But way out in the long tail? Yeah, you are going to need the compiler.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> That is not true in theory or in practice except for a very, very small number of people. Maybe if you use the "Linux on Chromebook", but then it's more than a "Chromebook" is typically understood to be... What do you mean? Your strawman user just needs email, a webbrowser, etc. That's all perfectly well served by a Chromebook. > I think 99.999% of people that use computers are more than happy with the fact they no longer boot into BASIC, and would dislike them doing so again, and this includes 99.9% of programmers, I'd say. Yeah, see, this is not-getting-it. It isn't about booting in to BASIC, it's about recognizing that the Computer is a tool to make the user's life better, and part of that role is making sense and guiding the user towards leveraging it better. > There isn't a "wall". There is an abrupt incongruity in the metaphor for how applications work. They appear to be files in some location (/system/Applications?) but are actually not. The user sees that /system/Applications/MyHaikuApp is a file and thinks "oh, I can just treat that as a file", but then discovers it isn't true. They were lied to. It's an illusion. > But way out in the long tail? Yeah, you are going to need the compiler. No disagreement here, but consider your solution to me wanting to use hpkgs from a different partition.
- waddlesplash 7y ago
  > Your strawman user just needs email, a webbrowser, etc. That's all perfectly well served by a Chromebook. Maybe it is in theory. In practice it turns out not to be; Microsoft Office or LibreOffice do exponentially more and faster than Google Docs, online image editing is really not on par with desktop editors either free or open source, conference calling is still mostly Skype or Zoom that have much better apps than websites, etc. Or maybe they need tighter integration than the web provides. My point is just that I have rarely come across users that really, truly could get by with a web browser, and only a web browser. I don't know why you claim that my theoretical user is a "strawman." It's most of the people I know that use computers, and survey shows that it's indeed most of the people who use computers in general. > Yeah, see, this is not-getting-it. Your comment was extremely vague, and I specifically asked what you meant, so it's not surprising I got it wrong... > It isn't about booting in to BASIC, it's about recognizing that the Computer is a tool to make the user's life better, and part of that role is making sense and guiding the user towards leveraging it better. Of course I agree with this. Haiku has some phrases very, very similar to this in our FAQ, user guide, and interface guidelines (https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/HIG/index.xml https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/HIG/index.xml). > There is an abrupt incongruity in the metaphor for how applications work. They appear to be files in some location (/system/Applications?) but are actually not. The user sees that /system/Applications/MyHaikuApp is a file and thinks "oh, I can just treat that as a file", but then discovers it isn't true. They were lied to. It's an illusion. But they are files mounted in that location. You can treat them as a file: copy them to another location, get info about them, search them, etc. You cannot modify them in that location; but are users really that unfamiliar with the concept of "read-only files / folders"? Can we really not trust them to understand that? We decided that we could, so that's what we did, instead of hiding all this behind more layers of abstractions. We aren't "lying" to them by showing them those files, it's just the same as if they plugged in a volume and chose to mount it read-only. > No disagreement here, but consider your solution to me wanting to use hpkgs from a different partition. Yes, and as stated many times above, your use-case is in the minority (i.e., the long tail) ... for now. When we get around to better enterprise support, then it will be less so (i.e. run packages off of network drives), but that is not a current priority at all. But as also already stated, we would be more than happy to accept a patch that added this.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

> That is not true in theory or in practice except for a very, very small number of people. Maybe if you use the "Linux on Chromebook", but then it's more than a "Chromebook" is typically understood to be... What do you mean? Your strawman user just needs email, a webbrowser, etc. That's all perfectly well served by a Chromebook. > I think 99.999% of people that use computers are more than happy with the fact they no longer boot into BASIC, and would dislike them doing so again, and this includes 99.9% of programmers, I'd say. Yeah, see, this is not-getting-it. It isn't about booting in to BASIC, it's about recognizing that the Computer is a tool to make the user's life better, and part of that role is making sense and guiding the user towards leveraging it better. > There isn't a "wall". There is an abrupt incongruity in the metaphor for how applications work. They appear to be files in some location (/system/Applications?) but are actually not. The user sees that /system/Applications/MyHaikuApp is a file and thinks "oh, I can just treat that as a file", but then discovers it isn't true. They were lied to. It's an illusion. > But way out in the long tail? Yeah, you are going to need the compiler. No disagreement here, but consider your solution to me wanting to use hpkgs from a different partition.

waddlesplash 7y ago
> Your strawman user just needs email, a webbrowser, etc. That's all perfectly well served by a Chromebook. Maybe it is in theory. In practice it turns out not to be; Microsoft Office or LibreOffice do exponentially more and faster than Google Docs, online image editing is really not on par with desktop editors either free or open source, conference calling is still mostly Skype or Zoom that have much better apps than websites, etc. Or maybe they need tighter integration than the web provides. My point is just that I have rarely come across users that really, truly could get by with a web browser, and only a web browser. I don't know why you claim that my theoretical user is a "strawman." It's most of the people I know that use computers, and survey shows that it's indeed most of the people who use computers in general. > Yeah, see, this is not-getting-it. Your comment was extremely vague, and I specifically asked what you meant, so it's not surprising I got it wrong... > It isn't about booting in to BASIC, it's about recognizing that the Computer is a tool to make the user's life better, and part of that role is making sense and guiding the user towards leveraging it better. Of course I agree with this. Haiku has some phrases very, very similar to this in our FAQ, user guide, and interface guidelines (https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/HIG/index.xml https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/HIG/index.xml). > There is an abrupt incongruity in the metaphor for how applications work. They appear to be files in some location (/system/Applications?) but are actually not. The user sees that /system/Applications/MyHaikuApp is a file and thinks "oh, I can just treat that as a file", but then discovers it isn't true. They were lied to. It's an illusion. But they are files mounted in that location. You can treat them as a file: copy them to another location, get info about them, search them, etc. You cannot modify them in that location; but are users really that unfamiliar with the concept of "read-only files / folders"? Can we really not trust them to understand that? We decided that we could, so that's what we did, instead of hiding all this behind more layers of abstractions. We aren't "lying" to them by showing them those files, it's just the same as if they plugged in a volume and chose to mount it read-only. > No disagreement here, but consider your solution to me wanting to use hpkgs from a different partition. Yes, and as stated many times above, your use-case is in the minority (i.e., the long tail) ... for now. When we get around to better enterprise support, then it will be less so (i.e. run packages off of network drives), but that is not a current priority at all. But as also already stated, we would be more than happy to accept a patch that added this.