"My first 48 hours enduring Ubuntu"

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

Matthew S-H wrote:

*snip*

> Use "Apple - tilde"    (Apple + "~")

>> which is my point, the application interface guidelines are the computing
> 
>> equivalent of housing associations that tell you what color you can paint
> 
>> your house, how often you have to water your lawn, and that you can't
> 
>> have signs on your yard or whatever...
> 
> Umm...these /do/ exist.  They are called zoning laws, and they are extremely
> common in most well-populated areas.  In order to get around them you
> have to get a variance permit.

Er, some of it falls into zoning laws, some of it falls into nefarious
housing association agreements - but I'm well aware that they exist,
that's why I brought them up...

> PERFECT ANALOGY TIME!!!  These zoning laws are to make houses look
> at least a little bit consistent.  You don't want your neighbor to have
> a house
> that is shaped wierd, colored tie die, has unkempt grass, and extremely
> opinionated signs on his/her lawn.  This would bring down the value of
> /your/
> property.  He/she /could/ always find a way around this by getting a
> variance
> permit or fighting a lawsuit on the grounds of freedom of speech.

Actually, I really don't care if my neighbor does a Jackson Pollack on
their house (I actually like the idea) and I care little for
consistency. The unkempt lawn, I don't care about unless we're talking
foot-tall grass and dangerous critters.

I'm less concerned with the price of property than allowing freedom of
expression.

> In the world of Macs, it brings down the general quality of apps to have
> totally
> wayward /neighbors/.  The consistency on a Mac is very nice.  It increases
> productivity because you usually know where to find things, and there isn't
> much difference between each app's interface.  It would be like having a
> "-v"
> parameter on a command line app that automatically changes permissions
> of your home directory.  It would just be so inconsistent.  Anyway, the
> restrictions are meant to be a sort of "quality control".  There are
> definitely
> exceptions, but for the most part they help.  If you want to get a
> "variance"
> you can always just not use Apple's interface creation apps.  Consider this
> to be a sort of "variance".  Like a real-world "variance", it takes a
> little bit of
> extra work to get things done.  But in the end, it makes for a nicer
> desktop/community.

As I said, I understand the desire for consistency, and consistency is
often a good thing - but rigid enforcement of it kind of rubs me the
wrong way. Maybe some developer has thought up a better interface than
Apple, or maybe the Apple interface guidelines aren't appropriate for
their application.

Best,

Zonker