[Nottingham] April 2nd Meeting at the Navigation

[Bob Marshall]

Hello everyone.  

Martin wrote, among other stuff, in his recent email:

During discussions of the philosophy behind GUIs and human-computer
interaction, there was the question of whether "making things simple"
necessarily means being 'patronising'... Is making something 'simple'
also making that something 'dumbed down'?

A simple question, and like most simple questions, there is no easy answer!  While I accept that philosophy, particularly that of freedom, is inherent to the entire Linux project, and always will be, for many users out there - those who are not even aware of LUGs and philosophical discussions about something they see largely as 'something which does what I want' - this soul-searching and navel-gazing is a rather pointless exercise.

My personal take is that, if you want it to be, Linux has developed to a point at which its users can perhaps best be compared with car users - they know how to drive, but don't get their kicks from being under the bonnet at every opportunity.  I also take on board that there are many Linux users who like nothing more - that playing with their OSs - if I may use an inexact term - is more fun than playing with the things their computer allows them to do.

In a 'church' as broad as ours, with distributions ranging from the arcane, via the specialist and down to that aimed at the 'man on the 25 'bus', perhaps we should spend less time in exploring what is in danger of becoming a 'theology' and more time in helping the less skilful, less involved or merely those with less time on their hands to use this wonderful software to its best advantage.

Just a thought, and not intended to show any 'red rags' to any 'bulls'; I use Linux exclusively, but I use it to do the same things I used Windows for.  It works better and there is a great deal more choice over just what you do want from it; if that is 'dumbing-down', then consider me 'dumbed', but don't be surprised if such an attitude tends to turn away, rather than attract people to Linux.

Happy Easter - I look forward to seeing you all again in May.

Bob.




      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/nottingham/attachments/20090410/634e3b0a/attachment.htm