Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 21:50:43 +1000 From: Jonathan Michaels <jon@welearn.com.au> To: Andre Albsmeier <andre.albsmeier@mchp.siemens.de> Cc: Jonathan Michaels <jon@welearn.com.au>, Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>, Doug Barton <Doug@gorean.org>, Tim Vanderhoek <vanderh@ecf.utoronto.ca>, freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG, brian@hak.lan.Awfulhak.org Subject: Re: bin/18900: patch to add colorizing feature to /bin/ls Message-ID: <20000531215041.A48599@phoenix.welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20000531100543.B80830@curry.mchp.siemens.de>; from Andre Albsmeier on Wed, May 31, 2000 at 10:05:43AM %2B0200 References: <Doug@gorean.org> <200005310105.CAA44640@hak.lan.Awfulhak.org> <20000531120640.A46527@phoenix.welearn.com.au> <20000531100543.B80830@curry.mchp.siemens.de>
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On Wed, May 31, 2000 at 10:05:43AM +0200, Andre Albsmeier wrote: > On Wed, 31-May-2000 at 12:06:42 +1000, Jonathan Michaels wrote: > > On Wed, May 31, 2000 at 02:05:54AM +0100, Brian Somers wrote: > > > > I don't see anyone asking for 'ls' to wash their breakfast dishes > > > > for them. The facts remain: > > > > > > > > 1. People _do_ want this. It gets asked often on -questions. > > > > 2. The code is already written. > > > > 3. It adds almost no bloat. > > > > 4. It's totally, completely optional. > > > > > > > > The only possible change I'd consider is making the colors the > > > > same as gnuls' defaults. That'd flatten out the learning curve for people > > > > coming over from linux, and those who like the traditional colors could > > > > use the environment variable to set them. > > > > > > > > So, other than on "purist" grounds, are there any other > > > > objections? > > > > > > Yes, but I can't think of any at the moment !!! <grumble!> > > > > i can think of several, but as freebsd is getting to be as user > > hostile as microsoft windows is to disabled people, so then whats > > one more nail in teh coffin ??? > > > > roll on the eventual microsoftisation of freebsd, as some have > > already said "the sooner the better as far as i'm concerned", > > but, as far as i (personally) am concerned i'd like to see the > > tide if not reversed at least stemed so that this usless > > 'gui-ification' of freebsd (et al) is at least stoped if it > > cannot be totally obliterated.. > > Well, I assume you don't run X11 or similar. But, it appears you thats correct, i still use the old text console. why because its the only thing that i can still see reasonably well enough to read for long enough to make it a reasonable session at the keyboard. i've got concave'd conreas that cannot focus prperly and extremely light sensative retinas ... etc etc so much so that nearly all gui-ified screen consoles nealy blind me with the bright light and cause so much muscle stiffness that after about 30 minutes i cannot focus at all and as such all becomes badly blurred. this is an extreme case but most people don't know hoe much damage (longterm) theyare doing with badly setup gui consoles with any colour other than black or a particular shade of blue that actually helps teh eye cope witht he stresses imposed by using computer screens for more than about 20 minutes at a strech or more than about an hour a day. > are using Mutt 0.95.4i. Why not use /usr/bin/mail? :-) mutt, is /usr/bin/mail enough for me to have made the transiton without too much relearning .. i'm not that much of a luddite (grin .. sort off). actually i prefer elm. > Seriously, nobody want's to microsofticate FreeBSD (btw, M$ does that is correct, but want to or not it is happening each day it gets closer and each day it become more and more prevalent, all you have to do is to look. > not have a colored dir command unless you use 4DOS). But obviously i did use 4DOS in ms dos and when i migrated to ibm os/2, it (4DOS) came as well, eventually. as an aside i turned off the colouring. > there are more people who would like an optionally colored /bin/ls. i'm not objecting to a coloured /bin/ls, rather to the making of tools and fucntionalities within freebsd harder and harder for disabled people to use .. and for waht reason, so some person can have an interesting screen to look at for the 5 or ten minutes they play at being a systems administrator. before i became a part time vegetable i used to be a systems analyst and worked with banyan vines netowrking in a tandem mainframe environment .. we were so busy doing our jobs thier was no time to futsicate the dir colours or set up ansi niceties that really only just got in the way. for people who spend time playing witht hier computers a coloured bin/ls might be a nice sexy thing to have and to fiddle with when they have nothing better to do, but for people whose day is centered around fixing problems a coloured /bin/ls, big deal. in conclusion, i'd prefer to not have a coloured ls, but if the game players win the day, hopefully, the sane ones will set the defaults to no colour .. if teh game players want colour let them read the manpage and setup teh colours better still let them install gnuls and set up coloured output. its supposed to be so easy. thier is no need to make changes fro the sake of change itself because at the end of the day adding colour to ls is just that .. change just for the sake of change absloutely noting less. one more thing when the colours are chossen .. how about using colours that colour blind (i'm one) people can "see". yes ther are many many issues that need to be plummed when one moves away from the standard white on black background text console. for me and many peple i know its not a matter of pretty colours making for a more enjoyable user experience, it boils down to wether or not the tools are usable and how much effort needs to be expended to amke the out of teh box setup usable by the particular person sitting at the desk. another thng to think about, its another thing that can go wrong, another weakness in teh chain, anotehr place the chain can break, these sorts of thing we certainly don't need .. we have enough things that are becoming more and more fragile everytime the revision number gets incremented. thank you for yor reply, it is much apreciated. with warm regards jonathan ps, the easier we make freebsd for disabled people to use the better more fnctional and easy to configure it will become for the not so disabled people. this is a point that most (if not all) non significantly disabled people seem to be completely ignorant off, or just disregard, to theri own cost. one other thing, most people in teh community are disabled to some degree for significant proportions of thier working lives, you don't have to be a physical wreck to be able to apreciate most of teh simple changes (at the base of the code structures and design philosophies) that actually make operating systems "freindly" and more usable to teh small but ever growing group of teh severly physically crippled, mangled, disabled, broken, spastic, pick a name .. we are still people no matter what stigmatising name, lable gets attached. -- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
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