4 ms·

Awesome! Its exciting to see new applications of *nix OSes that are design-forward and targeted towards modern computing paradigms / platforms. I’m a grumpy gr

Awesome! Its exciting to see new applications of *nix OSes that are design-forward and targeted towards modern computing paradigms / platforms. I’m a grumpy graybeard who likes Arch on my laptop and Debian on my server...but cosmetics and familiar visual vocab and adopting industry ux practices—these are undeniable obstacles that must be overcome before “the year of the Linux desktop “ :)

gh02t 6y ago
I don't want to be too hard on this project, but is it really "design-forward" when it's blatantly and explicitly copying the look and feel of iOS/iPadOS? Originality seems like an important component of good design.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  "Picasso had a saying -- 'good artists copy; great artists steal' -- and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    >Picasso had a saying -- 'good artists copy; great artists steal' I obviously can't say what Picasso thought that meant, but I have a theory on what it actually means: "Copying" vs "Stealing" refers to how well you break it down and use the underlying components of a design. "Copying" is more or less just mimicking the feature with a few tweaks, whereas "stealing" is redesigning it from first principles based on what the best ideas in it seem to be, and making it your own. For example (not necessarily a good one, I don't claim to be a "great artist"), take regenerating health in COD: the idea appears to be removing persistence between engagements, by resetting health back to full after you've stopped being shot. Okay then, why not have regenerating ammo or regenerating grenades? Well, it looks like it's a stealth nerf against really good players - after a few fights without being killed, you have to fight without grenades, VS freshly respawned players (who statistically are the players who die more often) who do get grenades. Unless the player was conserving grenades through early fights, which is also a disadvantage (if self-imposed). Okay, what can we do with this? Well, if you're playing a highly competitive game then perhaps add "regenerating grenades", else add some sort of bonus score for getting killstreaks. If you're making a more casual game, then you can amp the regeneration effect up by giving more low/single-use items that are essentially a quiet buff for newbies who'll die before they get a kill anyway. Maybe you could add a pool of none regenerating health to limit the effectiveness of it on pro players, without removing it entirely? Like armour that you spawn with, that blocks e.g. 10% of damage but slowly breaks as you take more and more damage? Point is, this all started with regenerating health, yet now it's informing grenade stuff. If you'd just directly copy/pasted "perFrame: health++" with minimal changes then you'd miss out on a ton of useful tools here. EDIT: also, you could take the mechanic in a different direction entirely - what would happen if everyone lost health outside of battle instead of gaining health? Maybe combine that with gaining some health after every kill, so people are forced to get into battles to stay alive? Or, what if health was always regenerating, instead of only regenerating when you're not being shot at?
  - clusterfish 6y ago
    If you're gonna steal, better damn make sure your output is better than the original. Otherwise it'll have a cheap knockoff feel to it. Copying Apple's style of e.g. the settings icon is just that, copying. Nothing to be proud of, and just tells me the developer has their priorities wrong if they think this style is part of what needs stealing to give the user a good experience.
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    This quote is not from Picasso, it is in fact much older[0]. The stealing part of this phrase was more about how great artists make existing ideas their own("stealing"), reinterpreting them on the way. [0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/
    - wyattpeak 6y ago
      That was Jobs's error, though, not the parent's. And the fact that Jobs said it is the relevant point.
  - goodcjw2 6y ago
    I guess "steal" means that it's a more advanced way of "copying", i.e. you can get away with grabbing others' idea without being noticed and can still be considered as "original". To do that, one needs to get the essence, the principle, and the deep underlying logic of another work, rather than simply copying something at the surface level.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Way more people use an iOS or iOS-like UI than any tradition *nix GUI. I read the parent to mean that indicates the present mobile is experience a step forward in that context.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Good design explicitly values borrowing/stealing. Unlike the tech rat race, UI design is very happy to credit inspiration.
  - gh02t 6y ago
    Sure, but I don't think this is "inspiration" so much as blatant, wholesale copying, at least if the screenshots and copy on the page are representative. ElementaryOS borrows heavily from Apple style without being an outright copy, that seems way less icky to me.
- mickael-kerjean 6y ago
  The only thing that matter to me is can it run a terminal and can it run emacs. With the ipad/iphone failing on both those, this is quite forward to me
  - michaericalribo 6y ago
    I’m not advocating that you _should_ do this, but you definitely _could_ do _at least_: Install an ssh app (they exist for iOS. I’ve used them. They’re ok! They’d be better w a paired Bluetooth keyboard, easy to come by) Log into your server of choice—even just your personal machine on your LAN Hack away in emacs This has the added benefit of not requiring local access to files on your mobile device, or setting up yet another custom dev environment on a new system Now that I mention it, I _do_ want to try this!

gh02t 6y ago

I don't want to be too hard on this project, but is it really "design-forward" when it's blatantly and explicitly copying the look and feel of iOS/iPadOS? Originality seems like an important component of good design.

kstenerud 6y ago
"Picasso had a saying -- 'good artists copy; great artists steal' -- and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >Picasso had a saying -- 'good artists copy; great artists steal' I obviously can't say what Picasso thought that meant, but I have a theory on what it actually means: "Copying" vs "Stealing" refers to how well you break it down and use the underlying components of a design. "Copying" is more or less just mimicking the feature with a few tweaks, whereas "stealing" is redesigning it from first principles based on what the best ideas in it seem to be, and making it your own. For example (not necessarily a good one, I don't claim to be a "great artist"), take regenerating health in COD: the idea appears to be removing persistence between engagements, by resetting health back to full after you've stopped being shot. Okay then, why not have regenerating ammo or regenerating grenades? Well, it looks like it's a stealth nerf against really good players - after a few fights without being killed, you have to fight without grenades, VS freshly respawned players (who statistically are the players who die more often) who do get grenades. Unless the player was conserving grenades through early fights, which is also a disadvantage (if self-imposed). Okay, what can we do with this? Well, if you're playing a highly competitive game then perhaps add "regenerating grenades", else add some sort of bonus score for getting killstreaks. If you're making a more casual game, then you can amp the regeneration effect up by giving more low/single-use items that are essentially a quiet buff for newbies who'll die before they get a kill anyway. Maybe you could add a pool of none regenerating health to limit the effectiveness of it on pro players, without removing it entirely? Like armour that you spawn with, that blocks e.g. 10% of damage but slowly breaks as you take more and more damage? Point is, this all started with regenerating health, yet now it's informing grenade stuff. If you'd just directly copy/pasted "perFrame: health++" with minimal changes then you'd miss out on a ton of useful tools here. EDIT: also, you could take the mechanic in a different direction entirely - what would happen if everyone lost health outside of battle instead of gaining health? Maybe combine that with gaining some health after every kill, so people are forced to get into battles to stay alive? Or, what if health was always regenerating, instead of only regenerating when you're not being shot at?
- clusterfish 6y ago
  If you're gonna steal, better damn make sure your output is better than the original. Otherwise it'll have a cheap knockoff feel to it. Copying Apple's style of e.g. the settings icon is just that, copying. Nothing to be proud of, and just tells me the developer has their priorities wrong if they think this style is part of what needs stealing to give the user a good experience.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  This quote is not from Picasso, it is in fact much older[0]. The stealing part of this phrase was more about how great artists make existing ideas their own("stealing"), reinterpreting them on the way. [0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/
  - wyattpeak 6y ago
    That was Jobs's error, though, not the parent's. And the fact that Jobs said it is the relevant point.
- goodcjw2 6y ago
  I guess "steal" means that it's a more advanced way of "copying", i.e. you can get away with grabbing others' idea without being noticed and can still be considered as "original". To do that, one needs to get the essence, the principle, and the deep underlying logic of another work, rather than simply copying something at the surface level.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Way more people use an iOS or iOS-like UI than any tradition *nix GUI. I read the parent to mean that indicates the present mobile is experience a step forward in that context.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
Good design explicitly values borrowing/stealing. Unlike the tech rat race, UI design is very happy to credit inspiration.
- gh02t 6y ago
  Sure, but I don't think this is "inspiration" so much as blatant, wholesale copying, at least if the screenshots and copy on the page are representative. ElementaryOS borrows heavily from Apple style without being an outright copy, that seems way less icky to me.
mickael-kerjean 6y ago
The only thing that matter to me is can it run a terminal and can it run emacs. With the ipad/iphone failing on both those, this is quite forward to me
- michaericalribo 6y ago
  I’m not advocating that you _should_ do this, but you definitely _could_ do _at least_: Install an ssh app (they exist for iOS. I’ve used them. They’re ok! They’d be better w a paired Bluetooth keyboard, easy to come by) Log into your server of choice—even just your personal machine on your LAN Hack away in emacs This has the added benefit of not requiring local access to files on your mobile device, or setting up yet another custom dev environment on a new system Now that I mention it, I _do_ want to try this!