[Gllug] Voluntary work

[Sean Burlington]

Bernard Peek wrote:
> In message <3FB4D245.3000509 at uncertainty.org.uk>, Sean Burlington 
> <sean at uncertainty.org.uk> writes
> 
>> Bernard Peek wrote:
>>


> Facing the same decision again I might choose a Linux solution or 
> Exchange and Outlook 2003. It's not a clear choice. Exchange and Outlook 
> have fixed most of the problems.

yes but then you have to spen £50 000 worth of time learning how to use 
the new versions (and even at charity rates the licenses for these 
products are not insignificant)

>>
>> I certainly find Word harder to use than Open Office (even though I 
>> have used Word more)
>>
>> FrontPage/IIS are just plain demented
>>
>> and yet these things are still popular
> 
> 
> They are easy to use and get the job done.

In my experience they are hard to use and don't do the job.

>>
>> The really odd thing is that people seem to decide if they find 
>> software easy to use within a few seconds of looking at it (maybe this 
>> means KDE have the right approach)
> 
> 
> That's true. There's enough commonality between Windows programs that 
> experienced users can understand a new program by browsing through the 
> menu options. It's quite reasonable for users to expect to learn a new 
> program in minutes.

Well that depends on what you mean by 'learn' - my  feeling is that 
people judge on the first few minutes - and refuse to re-evaluate later 
whe they may have foung the product be be actually quite hard to use.

> That background learning doesn't help as much when they first look at X 
> applications. But now there are people who are starting with X 
> applications under Linux and they find Windows applications confusing.

I don't think X is so different - most aps have the same options on the 
menu.


>>
>> and in my experience the maintenance of *nix systems is so much less 
>> time consuming it's silly
>>
>> text config files mean the system is almost self documenting (compare 
>> that to trying to keep word docs full of screen grabs)
> 
> 
> I've never felt the need for screen grabs. Given that most Windows 
> programs are themselves self-documenting I would only use a manual as a 
> last resort. My opinion is that if a program can't be used without a 
> manual then it's not good enough. It hasn't reached version 1.0 level.

It's not the program itself I'm refering to here - it's keeping track of 
your own config changes.

and I don't agree with you about the usefulness of manuals.

-- 

Sean




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