4 ms·

It’s amazing the trauma that can be carried. If you have children, and they have children, I hope that those grandchildren of yours grow up hearing stories abo

It’s amazing the trauma that can be carried. If you have children, and they have children, I hope that those grandchildren of yours grow up hearing stories about what a travesty the roll out of KDE 4.0 PLASMA Desktop was.

coddle-hark 6y ago
I know you’re being sarcastic but these kinds of stories are well worth passing on to future generations. Managing expectations isn’t about not hurting people’s feelings, it’s about preventing blowback that will at best distract and at worst demoralise the team. You can bet the plasma team wasted a lot of energy on dealing with all the hate they got. Energy that would be better spent improving plasma.
- tmp538394722 6y ago
  I was only sort of being sarcastic. I also remember the switch to KDE 4.0 very clearly. Here’s my entry into the annals of KDE 4.0 Plasma Desktop Release circa 2008: It basically worked for me. I was a sysadmin, so abused my authority at work to sudo apt install kde-desktop on my mandated Ubuntu work machine. My personal machine was a Gentoo thinkpad running fvwm2, but I did use the excellent Kate editor and AmaroK media player. I was a glutton for punishment at the time. I think more than anything, seeing how salty people were about the transition taught me the psychology of the downstream user, and how a classic “politics of power” narrative can be applied to almost any situation for rhetorical effect, appropriately or not. It’s kind of an impossible quagmire. The developers were mostly volunteers working on what they thought was interesting and worthwhile, most users were probably fine and silent, and a percentage of very loud users felt very personally wronged, as if something immoral had occurred. They’re not wrong to give feedback, but the situation is that they basically have to beg volunteer strangers. And, broadly speaking, most of the people complaining didn’t come from a background prone to begging or being told no. Another thing I chuckle to reflect on, is that iOS has been shifting towards a “KDE 4 AIR” look and feel since 2015. The latest iOS innovation: KDE4 style “Widgets” ;)

coddle-hark 6y ago

I know you’re being sarcastic but these kinds of stories are well worth passing on to future generations. Managing expectations isn’t about not hurting people’s feelings, it’s about preventing blowback that will at best distract and at worst demoralise the team. You can bet the plasma team wasted a lot of energy on dealing with all the hate they got. Energy that would be better spent improving plasma.

tmp538394722 6y ago
I was only sort of being sarcastic. I also remember the switch to KDE 4.0 very clearly. Here’s my entry into the annals of KDE 4.0 Plasma Desktop Release circa 2008: It basically worked for me. I was a sysadmin, so abused my authority at work to sudo apt install kde-desktop on my mandated Ubuntu work machine. My personal machine was a Gentoo thinkpad running fvwm2, but I did use the excellent Kate editor and AmaroK media player. I was a glutton for punishment at the time. I think more than anything, seeing how salty people were about the transition taught me the psychology of the downstream user, and how a classic “politics of power” narrative can be applied to almost any situation for rhetorical effect, appropriately or not. It’s kind of an impossible quagmire. The developers were mostly volunteers working on what they thought was interesting and worthwhile, most users were probably fine and silent, and a percentage of very loud users felt very personally wronged, as if something immoral had occurred. They’re not wrong to give feedback, but the situation is that they basically have to beg volunteer strangers. And, broadly speaking, most of the people complaining didn’t come from a background prone to begging or being told no. Another thing I chuckle to reflect on, is that iOS has been shifting towards a “KDE 4 AIR” look and feel since 2015. The latest iOS innovation: KDE4 style “Widgets” ;)