Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 21:57:57 +0100 (CET) From: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl> To: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: desktop stupidity Message-ID: <XFMail.990202215757.asmodai@wxs.nl> In-Reply-To: <19990202185713.43112@welearn.com.au>
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Don't take anything written below as a personal attack or an attack upon people, that isn't like me... I am told I just have a tendency to write `sharp' On 02-Feb-99 Sue Blake wrote: > Now wait a minute! Most of you people don't know what newbies need, you Hmm, since I added a bunch of e-mails to the whole desktop piece I do have to voice my opinion on this one. I don't know what newbies need? Hmm, funny to hear such an argument from a person which I think has worked longer with FreeBSD than I do... > haven't asked them, won't listen or believe or sit down with them to > help them work it out for themselves, you're so set with your > comfortable little stereotypes that you really think you know the Great > Truth and have all the solutions and nobody can tell you different, > least of all a loathsome newbie. You think you can just dish something > up and they'll love it. What if you're wrong? Oh, yes, newbies fault. Again, we never proclaimed we know the Great Truth, in fact, at my work and in the IRC channel on/in which I give my meager knowledge as advice to others (whom for the majority of them are indeed newbies) I think that I pretty well know what newbie users appreciate. But I also try to see further down the road as to what steps to take not to obstruct/madden more experience users. > As a group you show very little respect for newbies, yet you think you > can get your jollies off by patronising the types of lazy wimps that no > self-respecting FreeBSD newbie would want to be associated with. With > luck you might even trap some newbies into perpetual helplessness and > some of you might raise your status as helpers by so doing. Ugh, now ye are generalising as well Sue. How much I can often agree with ye, I do have to say I disagree with ye on this one... In fact, compared to the Linux community I have to say that the help and kindness we get from the lists and IRC channels surpasses the Linux ones (I know). > You're mad, the lot of you. Stop and learn (remember that?), or go back > to your kernel entrails. I did learn else I wouldn't have come this far as I am now. And the stupidity that Mike, Jordan, Eivind, Terry or what other programmers there are out there proclaim to have when saying they fixed a `stupid bug introduced by themselves' is the stupidity most of us can only aspire to... > We have a few hundred newbies here who constantly try to do the right > thing, who want to learn, and are largely ignored because, not fitting > the stereotype, they're not fun to pick on or you can't get warm > fuzzies and the occasional sucked toe from having fun "helping" them > the way you see fit. Throwing GUI at them is like telling them to eat > cake. All they want is the bloody recipe and a bit of human respect. OK, might we care to rebalance the whole situation? When I started using Unix (back when I was at school in '97-'98) I started using Solaris 2.5. This one starts with a XDM/X session with some xterms. I then used Unix for the first time. About 6-8 months ago I started using FreeBSD. I hit the wall of not knowing where to go. I went and checked out the internetsite, ordered the 2.2.6 CD-ROMs and looked and read the install instructions carefully (which is something I normally don't do). I also went through the FAQ and Handbook and tried to install it. I failed horrendously. But I didn't give up and tried again and again until I understood what went wrong. This is the true essence that marks progress, trial and error. One can explain time and again, but without proper understanding of the how and why it works or fails is fundamental to the whole process... FAQs, How-to's or handbooks never did solve stubborness, stupidity or outright idiocy. (Please do note that I am not saying every newbie is stupid or an idiot, heck there were times when I was making stupid comments, only to go out and try to uncover _why_ I was making everyone laugh =) > The newbies I see are put off or held back by: > - lack of reliable advice as to what to do/learn first, second, third #1 as what my mentor (our Unix guru at work) said: man everything, man is Unix' greatest command. Which I think is true. `man' has solved a lot of things which otherwise would have made me go `d'oh'. > - lack of suitable documentation at the right pace and starting point www.freebsd.org has links to the FAQ, Handbook, and a lot more other resources towards documentation. Sorry but I cannot see in which way the Project has failed to provide support for that. And what is exactly the right place in your opinion? I assumed ye were referring to www.freebsd.org. Mayhaps ye care to tell me/us? > - misunderstanding of their learning needs by others This is something that varies from individual to individual. All my highschool teachers sucked at this point except my chemisty, maths and physics teachers which knew how to make the matter interesting, which was a combination of learning one way of doing it and then introducing a few problems which were akin, but required insight to see in what way they differed. > - inaccessibility of many of the tools they need to use during the > first few hours, before being able to execute a learning plan > - misguided attempts to "help" them which only hold them back > - a constant trickle of put-downs and resultant lack of confidence > - inability to create what they need for themselves or communicate > needs to developers Hmm... Call most of us apathic towards the needs of newbies. What ye are saying yerself is mayhaps even more dangerous: patronising newbies. It might mean one never gets rid of them (as in getting rid of them to explore on themselves). > They might have only had some GUI background, but that does not mean > they want to stay that way. Why the hell do you think they're running > FreeBSD, because they're too stupid to know what it is? Come on! Lack > of knowledge does not indicate stupidity. I'll challenge any of you to > a test of crochet knowledge or skill and see how you fare! Ehm, ye'd be surprised towards the number of people mailing -questions with questions as to what FreeBSD is, whether it resembles Windows 95, whether it is some form of Linux. As far as I see they do have to pass the www.freebsd.org/index.html on their way to the mailinglist addresses. > As I see it, *the* problem that faces new users is that their learning > involves too many other struggles in addition to the learning process, > as outlined above. Yet despite these glaring needs, you're all crapping > on about how much fun you would have getting together some GUI > environment and/or tools that would > - attract people who have no intention of learning anything new Aren't ye contradicting yerself now? Not all newbies which we currently get to join the flock are the great new newbies which will want to learn all and everything. > - make it extremely difficult for our current type of newbies to > get inside and find out how things work. How is this being done? Whenever I have some spare time I try to help out some people on -questions, in the IRC channel, provide some opinions on matters all to help the Project as a whole to make it more enjoyable for the majority. > - provide time-wasting support fodder to reinforce the stereotype Sorry, I don't get this one... Where is this being done then? > Now you want to add one more problem: an environmental prison that at > first makes learning seem unnecessary, and later on makes it much more > inaccessible than what we have now. What on earth makes you think > newbies want such a mindless and limiting GUI? They want a basic plain > but non-hostile interface that is easy for them to work with initially > and easy to learn to control themselves. For those who most deserve > help, KDE just doesn't cut it. Nor does any other window manager > without a lot more easy guides for inquisitive non-programmers and > suitably annotated configuration files (yes I said files, NOT tools). OK, question back at ye: what makes ye so sure they _don't_ want one? > I keep saying this and the time has come round again: > > Newbies will adapt to become whatever you expect of them. Scratch newbies and replace with people. This is a human trait, not one exclusive to newbies. > Think carefully before you act; you might just get whatever you expect. Again, human trait, and goes as well for newbies as well as those of us who have worked a `little' longer with FreeBSD/Unix. > KDE is nice for what it is and should be provided with FreeBSD and made > easy to install. There's nothing wrong with KDE for those who prefer it > to the alternatives, or those who have a paid administrator at their > elbow. It's just not *the* answer, even if you were asking the right > questions. We don't have the resources to deal with attracting people > who can't survive without something like KDE. We can't even cope with > the beginner linux refugees and wannabe developers who are working > through their newbie phase right now, and that's a more urgent priority > as I see it. Newbies have contributed a huge amount during the last 12 > months, and are a growing resource we can't afford to chase away or > restrict to an environment of learned helplessness. I do hope ye read the other mail I sended Sue titled 'Desktops and Defaults'. Basically what I said there was that we should never fall into the mistake of making one thing the default for every user thus forcing it down their throat (and I still feel the same about it on the SendMail/Postfix issue). > What's that I hear down the back? diffs? Yeah they're coming. Don't > hold your breath too hard though. It takes me a hundred times as long > as it'd take someone who knows what they're doing, but it's still > quicker than knocking sense into some of your collectively patronising > heads, and far less humiliating. Sue, ye remind me of someone. Read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and pay attention to Nynaeve... =) --- Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven It's a Dance of Energy, asmodai(at)wxs.nl when the Mind goes Binary... Network/Security Specialist <http://home.wxs.nl/~asmodai>; *BSD: Powered by Knowledge & Know-how <http://www.freebsd.org>; To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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