[haiku-development] Re: Haiku, Inc. in Contempt of Its Community

  • From: "Chase Rayfield" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "cusbrar2@xxxxxxxxx" for DMARC)
  • To: "haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 23:36:31 +0000 (UTC)

From my point of view. The problem is that non-packaged itself goes against 
what people normally think when viewing files of any kind. You should just be 
able to drop files in THE config folder and it work. because its the config 
folder if they notice they ~/config/packaged folder they'll see that and its 
pretty clear that it comes from the packages and they won't be too surprised 
when they find it to be RO. A config folder with RO files and a single writable 
non-packaged peephole the opposite of intuitive and discoverable.

A ~/config-packaged or better ~/config/packaged folder goes a long way to being 
more intuitive to see that it is packaged files in the config folder and 
understanding that you have to package a file before it to end up there. 

I think something that hasn't been brought up is that naming a folder 
"non-packaged" is a red flag for bad design. Part of being intuitive is that a 
thing should just state what it is... and never state that it is the opposite 
of something via negative prefix. 
By placing the importance of PM stuff above non packaged usage you have shot 
yourself in the foot by making the entire file layout less flexible. The fact 
that is is even problematic to move the location of these folders now is 
evidence of that. If it it were all in a single packaged folder it could just 
be placed practically wherever .... even though ~/config/packaged makes alot of 
sense IMO.
So, No surprises and secondly no negative prefixes things should state what 
they are directly. Also bear in mind that the users are the developers at least 
90% of the time for Haiku so regularity and good design choices are important 
at all levels not just where an "End User" might see it. That view point is 
rather stone age in computing terms. If it can be see someone will see it and 
they will get grumpy about it if it isn't just so ;-) and you'll end up with a 
mostly cordial flame war....... which all things considered is a lot better 
outcome that some other places. In other news I want to burn Yahoo Mail with 
fire!

Chase



   

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