[OT] Debian mailinglists [was: RE: Debian or Ubuntu?]

[Bart Silverstrim]

Mario Vukelic wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 13:43 -0400, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>> My statement so far appears to still be valid. No one is arguing 
>> anything other than the implementation of tools that currently exist, 
> 
> There is at least one fundamental problem with GUI-only configurations
> that was no addressed: helpdesk. In a Windows office, what do you do if
> a user calls you with what turns out to be a config problem? You do a
> remote connect, investigate and fix it -- via the GUI, which usually
> means that the user cannot do his work in the meantime. With a CLI login
> and configuration, you do not impede him.

Interesting point, but to answer your question, if the system is broken 
and they needed the help desk to begin with, something is already 
impeding them.

I also often look at a problem via remote viewing *and*, if appropriate, 
browsing administrative shares from another system. In addition, you can 
remotely manipulate some things by opening something like "manage" under 
the my computer context menu then "connect to another system" to browse 
it's settings; remote user has no idea you're doing it.

While people often have conniptions when they can't read their email 
24/7, they do often survive without usage of their computer for a period 
of time, especially when they're contacting someone for help during 
their downtime, break, or lunch.

>> and no one has yet to produce a valid argument that wizards, graphical 
>> configurators, and CLI tools cannot coexist depending on the situation 
>> at hand.
> 
> I don't think anyone disagrees that this would be a great solution. For
> one, however, the heated discussion occurs because Derek argues that "in
> an ideal world" the system should not allow text editor configuration
> _at _all. That's a completely different thing from what you say.

If that is truly what he's arguing then I would have to disagree with him...

> In addition, while it would be fantastic if all tools had CLI and
> hand-holding GUI config, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that so
> far there seems to be not a single good example for a sufficiently
> complex application to achieve it. (Does anyone have examples to the
> contrary?)

The NMAP front end?

> In addition, the myriad of options of unix server programs is pretty
> impossible to accommodate in a GUI tool, and therefore either GUI tools
> provide fewer options, or are horrible to use.

I think that while myriad options cause difficulties, they aren't 
impossible to implement in a way that doesn't make your eyes bleed. It 
will most likely still be daunting for beginners or people unfamiliar 
with the application, but again, that depends on implementation.

> Finally, while in theory it may be possible to build systems that are
> correct enough to deal with CLI-produced changes in the GUI, in practice
> it frequently leads to problems when both CLI and GUI edits are used.

Maybe. It depends on the nature of the edits. Otherwise you couldn't 
have commented CPP code that can be opened in your favorite IDE/editor.