5 ms·

What causes you to say that putty is pretty awful?

by cturner 11y ago

astrodust 11y ago
How about the fact that it's awful? Can you seriously compare PuTTY with even the most lacklustre terminal available on OS X or Linux? It's an atrocity of UX design straight out of the Windows 95 era. Their home page is also the epitome of not caring about user experience even to the slightest degree. Nearly zero effort: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ I've seen people construct more impressive pages given only a few hours of HTML and CSS training. I'm not even kidding. I'm not saying everything has to be slick and beautiful, but there's a thing called pride in craftsmanship, and PuTTY has none of that. It's just sad.
- jff 11y ago
  Maybe he should put that same content into a Twitter Bootstrap site
- c22 11y ago
  I think the page is nice. Fast, usable, and seems to contain a ton of content. I don't think anyone was slacking when they put this together.
- Cacti 11y ago
  Wait... you think a terminal emulator, which by definition has almost no graphical UI at its heart, is crap because of its UI? Really? You think the entire program is crap because, what, you don't like how the Preferences panel is laid out?
  - kyberias 11y ago
    To be fair, the only piece of UI in Putty that one needs besides the actual shell, namely adding and managing hosts that you connect, is absolutely broken beyond imagination. It has always been like that and it probably will be. Of course if one never ever uses the UI, then it's ok, but putty more or less forces one to use it.
    - Cacti 11y ago
      I know exactly what you're talking about but "broken beyond imagination" is pushing it a bit. I agree it's not obvious how to use that portion of the UI, and the UI is far from ideal, but once you understand how it switches profiles, then you're pretty much set. That issue doesn't occur again anywhere else in the application so it's a rather minor issue if you ask me.
- jimmaswell 11y ago
  The home page is clearly organized and readable, only having some text and links. What more do you want from a website that only exists to distribute one program? There's a link to the download page right on top. It's more than good enough. Do you need flashy CSS animations and a Konami Code to find a website cool enough for you? There's not a single thing wrong with PuTTY's UX either. The terminal area is just a terminal area that does what it's supposed to and behaves exactly like any other terminal emulator, and the options are clearly organized. There is literally no meaningful change you could make to improve its UX because it's already optimal.
  - Aloha 11y ago
    It's a well designed win32 application, designed to the portable as far as windows applications go. I just don't get the hate on PuTTY.
    - astrodust 11y ago
      It's a functional application. It's not well designed. It's not "portable". The hate is because it is so mediocre it's insulting to anyone who uses Windows and has to suffer through it. If you prefer it, that's fine, but some people expect a bit more from their tools than merely being "functional" no matter how ugly.
      - Aloha 11y ago
        It runs on various unixes (without wine), it ran on win32 Alpha (another meaning of the word portable) - I'll give you ugly, but its fully functioned, and arguably much easier to use than the command line openssh-client. Well designed can refer to more than just the interface. It meets historical windows human interface guidelines too. I'd also suggest that its an open source project, and could be forked, with a new UI wrapped around the existing pretty good terminal emulation.
      - jaredsohn 11y ago
        I am pretty sure that putty is portable. I think portable here is referring to being able to run software from a USB drive without running an installer or just being able to download a file into a temporary folder and removing trace of it by deleting the folder when done. I feel a lot of the initial love for putty was the fact that it was portable (and it also helped back in the day that the download was so small, too.) It is possible as far as I know that it doesn't meet the formal definition in some way, but since you used the term in air quotes and didn't qualify it (like 'but it stores settings in the registry' or similar), I think you may be interpreting the term differently (i.e. I don't think the term is being used to suggest that you can use the same executable across operating systems.)
- Navarr 11y ago
  > What causes you to say that it's awful? > How about the fact that it's awful? Is this really what passes today for a decent reply? It's an atrocity of attempted logic straight of the Windows 95 era. The logic used is also the epitome of not caring about putting up a decent argument even to the slightest degree. Nearly zero effort. I've seen people construct more impressive arguments given only a kindergarten education. I'm not even kidding. I'm not saying everything has to be lengthy and grammatically correct, but there's such a thing called pride in logic, and astrodust has none of that. It's just sad.
  - mekael 11y ago
    Best response or bestest response? Me thinks it's the bestest.
- rsync 11y ago
  "Their home page is also the epitome of not caring about user experience even to the slightest degree. Nearly zero effort" I wish more websites were functional and clean like that.
- jaredsohn 11y ago
  If somebody wants the website to look better, I recommend hacking on Halibut (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/) which is a document preparation system built by the same author and used to create the site.
- Grue3 11y ago
  >Can you seriously compare PuTTY with even the most lacklustre terminal available on OS X or Linux? Yes, I can compare. PuTTY is superior than the default xubuntu terminal, whatever it is. 1. I can configure it to connect to specific server automatically, including setting up all required SSH tunnels. On Linux I have to write shell scripts. 2. It allows to automatically set up a SOCKS proxy that sends my traffic through the remote server. 3. Selecting text copies it straight to clipboard. Copying to middle-click buffer is much less convenient, because I often want to replace other selected text with what I selected in terminal.
joshstrange 11y ago
One acronym: PPK Most of the people I know that use putty really use MTPutty [0] nowadays for multiple tabbed terminal windows. I haven't touched windows in years but if I were to go back I would use cygwin or similar before I used putty. [0] http://ttyplus.com/multi-tabbed-putty/ http://ttyplus.com/multi-tabbed-putty/

What causes you to say that putty is pretty awful?

by cturner 11y ago

What causes you to say that putty is pretty awful?

How about the fact that it's awful? Can you seriously compare PuTTY with even the most lacklustre terminal available on OS X or Linux? It's an atrocity of UX design straight out of the Windows 95 era. Their home page is also the epitome of not caring about user experience even to the slightest degree. Nearly zero effort: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ I've seen people construct more impressive pages given only a few hours of HTML and CSS training. I'm not even kidding. I'm not saying everything has to be slick and beautiful, but there's a thing called pride in craftsmanship, and PuTTY has none of that. It's just sad.

jff 11y ago
Maybe he should put that same content into a Twitter Bootstrap site
c22 11y ago
I think the page is nice. Fast, usable, and seems to contain a ton of content. I don't think anyone was slacking when they put this together.
Cacti 11y ago
Wait... you think a terminal emulator, which by definition has almost no graphical UI at its heart, is crap because of its UI? Really? You think the entire program is crap because, what, you don't like how the Preferences panel is laid out?
- kyberias 11y ago
  To be fair, the only piece of UI in Putty that one needs besides the actual shell, namely adding and managing hosts that you connect, is absolutely broken beyond imagination. It has always been like that and it probably will be. Of course if one never ever uses the UI, then it's ok, but putty more or less forces one to use it.
  - Cacti 11y ago
    I know exactly what you're talking about but "broken beyond imagination" is pushing it a bit. I agree it's not obvious how to use that portion of the UI, and the UI is far from ideal, but once you understand how it switches profiles, then you're pretty much set. That issue doesn't occur again anywhere else in the application so it's a rather minor issue if you ask me.
jimmaswell 11y ago
The home page is clearly organized and readable, only having some text and links. What more do you want from a website that only exists to distribute one program? There's a link to the download page right on top. It's more than good enough. Do you need flashy CSS animations and a Konami Code to find a website cool enough for you? There's not a single thing wrong with PuTTY's UX either. The terminal area is just a terminal area that does what it's supposed to and behaves exactly like any other terminal emulator, and the options are clearly organized. There is literally no meaningful change you could make to improve its UX because it's already optimal.
- Aloha 11y ago
  It's a well designed win32 application, designed to the portable as far as windows applications go. I just don't get the hate on PuTTY.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    It's a functional application. It's not well designed. It's not "portable". The hate is because it is so mediocre it's insulting to anyone who uses Windows and has to suffer through it. If you prefer it, that's fine, but some people expect a bit more from their tools than merely being "functional" no matter how ugly.
    - Aloha 11y ago
      It runs on various unixes (without wine), it ran on win32 Alpha (another meaning of the word portable) - I'll give you ugly, but its fully functioned, and arguably much easier to use than the command line openssh-client. Well designed can refer to more than just the interface. It meets historical windows human interface guidelines too. I'd also suggest that its an open source project, and could be forked, with a new UI wrapped around the existing pretty good terminal emulation.
    - jaredsohn 11y ago
      I am pretty sure that putty is portable. I think portable here is referring to being able to run software from a USB drive without running an installer or just being able to download a file into a temporary folder and removing trace of it by deleting the folder when done. I feel a lot of the initial love for putty was the fact that it was portable (and it also helped back in the day that the download was so small, too.) It is possible as far as I know that it doesn't meet the formal definition in some way, but since you used the term in air quotes and didn't qualify it (like 'but it stores settings in the registry' or similar), I think you may be interpreting the term differently (i.e. I don't think the term is being used to suggest that you can use the same executable across operating systems.)
Navarr 11y ago
> What causes you to say that it's awful? > How about the fact that it's awful? Is this really what passes today for a decent reply? It's an atrocity of attempted logic straight of the Windows 95 era. The logic used is also the epitome of not caring about putting up a decent argument even to the slightest degree. Nearly zero effort. I've seen people construct more impressive arguments given only a kindergarten education. I'm not even kidding. I'm not saying everything has to be lengthy and grammatically correct, but there's such a thing called pride in logic, and astrodust has none of that. It's just sad.
- mekael 11y ago
  Best response or bestest response? Me thinks it's the bestest.
rsync 11y ago
"Their home page is also the epitome of not caring about user experience even to the slightest degree. Nearly zero effort" I wish more websites were functional and clean like that.
jaredsohn 11y ago
If somebody wants the website to look better, I recommend hacking on Halibut (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/) which is a document preparation system built by the same author and used to create the site.
Grue3 11y ago
>Can you seriously compare PuTTY with even the most lacklustre terminal available on OS X or Linux? Yes, I can compare. PuTTY is superior than the default xubuntu terminal, whatever it is. 1. I can configure it to connect to specific server automatically, including setting up all required SSH tunnels. On Linux I have to write shell scripts. 2. It allows to automatically set up a SOCKS proxy that sends my traffic through the remote server. 3. Selecting text copies it straight to clipboard. Copying to middle-click buffer is much less convenient, because I often want to replace other selected text with what I selected in terminal.

joshstrange 11y ago

One acronym: PPK Most of the people I know that use putty really use MTPutty [0] nowadays for multiple tabbed terminal windows. I haven't touched windows in years but if I were to go back I would use cygwin or similar before I used putty. [0] http://ttyplus.com/multi-tabbed-putty/ http://ttyplus.com/multi-tabbed-putty/