I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.

I far prefer netpbm, where each program did one thing well, read stdin and 
wrote stdout, and didn't reuse the same command-line arguments for a bunch 
of different meanings and have all kinds of bizarre option-order conditions.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Darren New wrote:
> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.

Patches welcome. :-)



Oh, wait - I didn't write imagemagick, did I?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.

  I know this is getting really old, but it's just too perfect to let pass:
If you are not happy with it, you can always demand your money back. ;)

  Besides, it's open source, so if you want to fix it, go ahead. :P

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.
> 
>   I know this is getting really old, but it's just too perfect to let pass:
> If you are not happy with it, you can always demand your money back. ;)

What's the problem here? I can't talk about UI features of a free program 
without getting crap?  How the heck does any program improve if everybody 
who doesn't like it just shuts the fuck up and goes away?

It's exactly this "we don't want to even discuss the possibility that our 
program isn't perfect, because it's free and you're an ungrateful ass for 
thinking a new user's perspective might be an interesting input to the 
design process" that keeps me from contributing more to open source.

>   Besides, it's open source, so if you want to fix it, go ahead. :P

It's not really a question of "fixing" it. It's the whole design philosophy. 
  I would have expected, for example, to use the "montage" program to tile 
some images together rather than the "convert" program.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Warp escreveu:
>   Besides, it's open source, so if you want to fix it, go ahead. :P

or fork it or ignore it if the original developers are not amused by 
your changes.  Checkout the latest Gnome vs Canonical flames...

well, at least this isn't a flame about ugly choice of colors, fonts, 
lack of wizards or tabbed interface vs MDI or whatever GUI flames come 
up... :P

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.
> > 
> >   I know this is getting really old, but it's just too perfect to let pass:
> > If you are not happy with it, you can always demand your money back. ;)

> What's the problem here? I can't talk about UI features of a free program 
> without getting crap?  How the heck does any program improve if everybody 
> who doesn't like it just shuts the fuck up and goes away?

  This must be a bizarro world.

  When I don't use smilies, people complain that it's hard to understand
the tone in which I'm writing my replies.

  When I *do* use the smilies, people get confused anyways.

  The smiley was supposed to denote that I wrote my reply in jest.
Even though I'm not a big fan of using smilies (because I feel they are
akin to explaining the joke), I thought that in this case it would be
warranted. However, seemingly it didn't help.

  So if smilies don't help clear up things, then what would?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   The smiley was supposed to denote that I wrote my reply in jest.

Sorry. It's probably just me. Work is being bonehead, and it's cheesing me 
off a bit.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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On Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:08:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.

I would agree.  I never use the GUI for the collection, and when using 
the CLI, I always have to refer back to the docs for the program I'm 
using.  It's kinda a pain.

Jim

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On 2010-08-03 14:16, Warp wrote:
> Even though I'm not a big fan of using smilies (because I feel they are
> akin to explaining the joke), I thought that in this case it would be

obligatory: 
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle0t9r68ih?from=Main.DontExplainTheJoke

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 2010-08-03 14:16, Warp wrote:
> > Even though I'm not a big fan of using smilies (because I feel they are
> > akin to explaining the joke), I thought that in this case it would be
>
> obligatory:
>
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle0t9r68ih?from=Main.DontExplainTheJoke

two relevant quotes:

"   6.  The joke is German, where a lot of jokes are explained in the end, for
some reason."

zat's for Warp and clipka... LOL

"Wikipedia is currently the world's largest collection of explained jokes."

I don't get it... LOL

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:08:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.
> 
> I would agree.  I never use the GUI for the collection, 

I didn't even know there *was* a GUI/



-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> It's exactly this "we don't want to even discuss the possibility that
> our program isn't perfect, because it's free and you're an ungrateful
> ass for thinking a new user's perspective might be an interesting input
> to the design process" that keeps me from contributing more to open
> source.

Heh Heh. I was just browsing the web site for pyjamas - a Python to
JavaScript compiler. The guy running the project is incredibly
guberdefensive about all the design decisions. Any possible criticism
is responded to with something along the lines of:

"Yes? And where's your bug report? Where's your patch? You want better
support? Pay someone!"

(Even to simple comments like "Output did not work on Opera").

Now if he'd clearly just said that the goal of the software is X, and it
is not suitable for using it for Y, then he wouldn't get half of the
questions/complaints he gets. And when people have legitimate
complaints, if he instead used one of the numerous means of trying to
get volunteers to work on it, rather than demanding that the complainant
works on it, the project would get more love.

To be fair, he does state explicitly that the goal is to serve the
individual developers' needs, and not the users. At least he is honest.

I'm betting he'll come here to respond ;-)

But yeah, even though you misread what Warp was saying, I agree with
you. When a lead developer has that attitude, he/she might as well say:
"Look, if you want to help, understand that you'll be dealing with
jerks. You've got to really *want* to help us!"

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:08:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.
>>
>> I would agree.  I never use the GUI for the collection, 
>
> I didn't even know there *was* a GUI/

You're better off not knowing.<G>

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On Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:40:13 -0700, Neeum Zawan wrote:

> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:08:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>>
>>>> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.
>>>
>>> I would agree.  I never use the GUI for the collection,
>>
>> I didn't even know there *was* a GUI/
> 
> You're better off not knowing.<G>

I agree.  When I found it, I thought "why?", and then I tried to use it, 
and my thought turned to "What?!?!"

Jim

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Darren New wrote:
 > I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.

Ah, I think this pretty much sums it up:

The following commands are the two direct image 'composite' methods 
available in ImageMagick...

   composite {overlay} {background} [-compose {method}]   {result}

   convert  {background} {overlay} [-compose {method}] -composite   {result}

They're obviously the same. Except, of course, if the result file already 
exists, then you are doing some other operation. And it's yet again a 
completely different syntax if you actually want to stack up *three* images.

Well, of course, how intuitive!  Move over PHP!



For the record, I still haven't figured out how "-write" is supposed to work.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> "   6.  The joke is German, where a lot of jokes are explained in the end, for
> some reason."

> zat's for Warp and clipka... LOL

  I don't get it. I'm not German.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   When I *do* use the smilies, people get confused anyways.

Actually, thinking on it, I think it's more that you made the exact same 
response in all seriousness to the exact same sort of complaint that I've 
made before. And lots of other people would make this exact same response to 
lots of people making similar complaints.  So even with a smiley, it wasn't 
obvious that *this* time you were joking.

Sorry I missed it, tho.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > "   6.  The joke is German, where a lot of jokes are explained in the end, for
> > some reason."
>
> > zat's for Warp and clipka... LOL
>
>   I don't get it. I'm not German.

close enough... :p

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Am 03.08.2010 22:47, schrieb nemesis:

> "   6.  The joke is German, where a lot of jokes are explained in the end, for
> some reason."
>
> zat's for Warp and clipka... LOL

There are a few Germans in the POV-Ray community, but Warp's not one of 
them - he's Finnish.

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Am 03.08.2010 22:47, schrieb nemesis:

> > "   6.  The joke is German, where a lot of jokes are explained in the end, for
> > some reason."
> >
> > zat's for Warp and clipka... LOL

> There are a few Germans in the POV-Ray community, but Warp's not one of 
> them - he's Finnish.

  Maybe in the country he lives in it's all the same... Germany, Finland...
what's the difference? Crazy Europeans all of them. ;)

  (Well, not that I can blame anybody. For example to me places like
Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana are all the same. South
United States. Aren't they all the same? To locals this might be a
sacrilege for all I know... :P )

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4c5ad1ac@news.povray.org...
>
>> There are a few Germans in the POV-Ray community, but Warp's not one of
>> them - he's Finnish.
>
>  Maybe in the country he lives in it's all the same... Germany, Finland...
> what's the difference? Crazy Europeans all of them. ;)
>
>  (Well, not that I can blame anybody. For example to me places like
> Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana are all the same. South
> United States. Aren't they all the same? To locals this might be a
> sacrilege for all I know... :P )
>
Let's call it "perspective" :)

Marc

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> > Am 03.08.2010 22:47, schrieb nemesis:
>
> > > "   6.  The joke is German, where a lot of jokes are explained in the end, for
> > > some reason."
> > >
> > > zat's for Warp and clipka... LOL
>
> > There are a few Germans in the POV-Ray community, but Warp's not one of
> > them - he's Finnish.
>
>   Maybe in the country he lives in it's all the same... Germany, Finland...
> what's the difference? Crazy Europeans all of them. ;)

Germany gave us Bach and Beethoven.  Finland gave us ice and Linux. :)

no, I knew you were finn, just forgot it while writing...

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On 8/3/2010 1:08 PM, Darren New wrote:
> I must say, the UI to this set of programs really, really sucks.
>
> I far prefer netpbm, where each program did one thing well, read stdin
> and wrote stdout, and didn't reuse the same command-line arguments for a
> bunch of different meanings and have all kinds of bizarre option-order
> conditions.
>

They have an awesome set of tutorials that kind of make up for it. I 
would much rather use a scripting language (or less preferably XML) 
instead of tacking on an endless series of command-line arguments, though.


-- 
http://isometricland.com

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On 8/5/2010 10:35 PM, SharkD wrote:
> They have an awesome set of tutorials that kind of make up for it. I
> would much rather use a scripting language (or less preferably XML)
> instead of tacking on an endless series of command-line arguments, though.

Also, ImageMagick's command-line syntax still makes 10x more sense than 
SQL. For example:

  INSERT INTO clients
  (client_id, client_name, client_type)
  SELECT supplier_id, supplier_name, 'advertising'
  FROM suppliers
  where clients.client_id = suppliers.supplier_id);

The first set of column names is contained in parentheses, the second 
set isn't.

When creating filegroups you don't use quotes:

   ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks ADD FILEGROUP MyFileGroup

When adding files to them you do use them:

   ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks
   ADD FILE
   (NAME = N'MyFileGroup',
   FILENAME = N'C:\AdventureWorks\MyFileGroup.ndf',
   SIZE = 5MB,
   MAXSIZE = 100MB,
   FILEGROWTH = 5MB)
   TO FILEGROUP MyFileGroup

Conditional IF statements don't use brackets or a keyword to close the 
block (though I just learned that you can optionally surround the block 
with BEGIN and END).



-- 
http://isometricland.com

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SharkD wrote:
> They have an awesome set of tutorials that kind of make up for it.

If you can find what you're looking for, yeah.

I still prefer the netpbm technique of actually making several dozen 
programs that actually work in a pipeline, so you can just find the program 
you want rather than having to try to guess at syntax for arguments.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Germany gave us Bach and Beethoven.  Finland gave us ice and Linux. :)

  Don't forget Nokia.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Germany gave us Bach and Beethoven.  Finland gave us ice and Linux. :)
> 
>  Don't forget Nokia.

Yes I was thinking that, and the Molotov cocktail :-)

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