4 ms·

That's a rather long article for stating the obvious. It worries me a little that the author seems to have just found out about it though, and what's even weird

by quchen 13y ago

That's a rather long article for stating the obvious. It worries me a little that the author seems to have just found out about it though, and what's even weirder is the conclusion, which says that now he found out where the anger is from he can enjoy it while working on as usual.

rachelbythebay 13y ago
It looks like it's time to break out this one again: http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html Be sure to note the date on this.
- Afforess 13y ago
  As a maintainer and volunteer on some open source projects, the reason for CADT is that popular projects receive significantly more bug reports than could ever be handled by their volunteers. We're just volunteers and you can't just throw more developers at the problem. In the end, you get what you pay for. Nothing.
  - shadowfox 13y ago
    > significantly more bug reports than could ever be handled by their volunteers Maybe I misunderstood this. So are you saying that the same volunteers can handle a total rewrite of the module maintaining its specified (hopefully) behavior, while remaining incapable of fixing its bugs?
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    If the bug is still valid, then don't close it. It's not a competition for time to fix! If you don't know if the bug is fixed, don't close it. Certainly don't ask the reporter to log it again!
ds9 13y ago
The bit about psychology is "obvious", but the argument falls apart when trying to get from that to the conclusions. It's true that taking away something that people count on makes them unhappy. To declare, however that this is the sole or main reason for the widespread rejection of the Gnome changes requires more evidence. It is definitely false in the case of many users (myself included). It's really just a variant of the old line "you dislike this only because it's different; but try it our way and you'll find it's better". This is a dishonest, and frankly an offensive rhetorical trick. It presumes to know the reader's mind better than the reader does; implies that familiarity is the only reason anyone ever prefers one thing over another; and assumes that all change is always good - all of which is absurd. Similarly in the linked article, the author pretends that there is no objection based on the actual merits of the software: in other words, users object that the removal makes the software less useful, and the writer pretends to misunderstand the complaint as "we now have n - 1 features instead of n features". He even arrogantly says that some features they "shouldn't have had in the first place" - when in reality, people complain because they were using the feature for something they cared about and aren't satisfied with the new way. The really important hidden premise of apologists like this is that there are no intrinsic merits of one design over another - that it's only a matter of style and fashion and what's familiar, and there's never any factor of one way being intrinsically better or worse suited to the interaction of human and device. That's a big assumption, but once they've put in a huge amount of work based on it, they can't even admit that anyone could have any intelligent objection, and defensively blame any dissent on an irrational emotional response. The same observations apply in the case of Ubuntu Unity and Windows 8: the root cause of their failure is a sort of paternalism where the GUI designers disregard what users actually prefer, and can't even admit that the preferences are based on practical workflow considerations rather than emotional reactions.

by quchen 13y ago

rachelbythebay 13y ago

It looks like it's time to break out this one again: http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html Be sure to note the date on this.

Afforess 13y ago
As a maintainer and volunteer on some open source projects, the reason for CADT is that popular projects receive significantly more bug reports than could ever be handled by their volunteers. We're just volunteers and you can't just throw more developers at the problem. In the end, you get what you pay for. Nothing.
- shadowfox 13y ago
  > significantly more bug reports than could ever be handled by their volunteers Maybe I misunderstood this. So are you saying that the same volunteers can handle a total rewrite of the module maintaining its specified (hopefully) behavior, while remaining incapable of fixing its bugs?
- chris_wot 13y ago
  If the bug is still valid, then don't close it. It's not a competition for time to fix! If you don't know if the bug is fixed, don't close it. Certainly don't ask the reporter to log it again!

ds9 13y ago

The bit about psychology is "obvious", but the argument falls apart when trying to get from that to the conclusions. It's true that taking away something that people count on makes them unhappy. To declare, however that this is the sole or main reason for the widespread rejection of the Gnome changes requires more evidence. It is definitely false in the case of many users (myself included). It's really just a variant of the old line "you dislike this only because it's different; but try it our way and you'll find it's better". This is a dishonest, and frankly an offensive rhetorical trick. It presumes to know the reader's mind better than the reader does; implies that familiarity is the only reason anyone ever prefers one thing over another; and assumes that all change is always good - all of which is absurd. Similarly in the linked article, the author pretends that there is no objection based on the actual merits of the software: in other words, users object that the removal makes the software less useful, and the writer pretends to misunderstand the complaint as "we now have n - 1 features instead of n features". He even arrogantly says that some features they "shouldn't have had in the first place" - when in reality, people complain because they were using the feature for something they cared about and aren't satisfied with the new way. The really important hidden premise of apologists like this is that there are no intrinsic merits of one design over another - that it's only a matter of style and fashion and what's familiar, and there's never any factor of one way being intrinsically better or worse suited to the interaction of human and device. That's a big assumption, but once they've put in a huge amount of work based on it, they can't even admit that anyone could have any intelligent objection, and defensively blame any dissent on an irrational emotional response. The same observations apply in the case of Ubuntu Unity and Windows 8: the root cause of their failure is a sort of paternalism where the GUI designers disregard what users actually prefer, and can't even admit that the preferences are based on practical workflow considerations rather than emotional reactions.