On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 13:00:42 -0400, James Holsenback wrote:

>>> On 16/03/2015 11:55 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>>> GNOME3 has plenty of configuration options, set using dconf-editor.
> 
> Yeah it's there you just got to dig a bit ... snipped most of what Jim
> said because I agree and I just wanted to add that Andrew kind of
> reminds me of Sheldon ;-)

LOL



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 19/03/2015 10:41 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 19/03/2015 08:03, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> ... I suspect it's not just me.
>
> I'm with you. When you find a better browser. Let us know.

*shrugs* Opera seems minimally usable after you spend three days 
configuring it... It's not *great*, but it works.

Post a reply to this message

>> Given how excruciatingly hard it is to get access to the OpenSUSE bug
>> tracker... no, I haven't.
>
> 1. Create user ID
> 2. Validate your e-mail address
> 3. Go to bugzilla.opensuse.org and enter a bug
>
> Not terribly difficult, really.

Except that you have to give them your *real* name, who you work for, 
your annual income, your mother's maiden name, and your inside leg 
measurement. No, not hard at all.

>> Besides, they'll just report it upstream and then go back to doing
>> nothing. That's what they did with the Zypper bug I spent ages
>> diagnosing and reporting.
>
> You don't know that unless you file a bug.

Given that the bug is almost 100% certain to be a GNOME bug, they will 
just pass it to the GNOME team and then do nothing.

> File a bug, or don't
> complain.  Seriously, that is probably the most annoying thing you can do
> is bitch about something that's fixable and not report a bug.

Well, maybe they shouldn't actively dissuade people from filing bugs by 
making it so sodding hard to file a bug? :-P

You know what's *really* annoying? Seeing an open bug for THE EXACT 
PROBLEM that our production application has, seeing that upstream has 
fixed it, and yet OpenSUSE refuses to release an RPM for it. *That* is 
annoying! (We're talking about a different bug now. The ticket has been 
open for many months. The fix is literally to build a new RPM. Yet it 
isn't happening...)

>> Perhaps it was the "show task list" option then. I remember spending
>> weeks trying to configure the shell the way we want it, and in the end I
>> couldn't do it.
>
> Not sure what you mean by "show task list option".  What was the specific
> thing you were trying to do?

The option to have an icon for each window that's open, so you can 
instantly switch between windows (or just tell when a hidden window 
closes itself). You know, like the Windows taskbar.

GNOME 2 had it, and there's a dozen different mutually-incompatible 
extensions to add it back to GNOME 3. Because it's a basic feature that 
should have been in the shell to begin with. But hey, it's a tablet. Who 
runs multiple applications on a tablet?

>> I'm not saying it doesn't *work*. I'm saying it's clearly not optimal.
>
> It's optimal for me, and I don't use a tablet.  "Optimal" is clearly a
> matter of personal taste, and I wish people would stop putting forth
> their personal opinion as cold hard fact - it's not.

Well, I don't know man. Version 2 of a product has a heap of features 
which are gone in version 3. To be, that means that version 3 
*objectively* has fewer features. I didn't think there's much to argue 
about that...

>> How you write a minimal Hello World type thing is documented. The vast,
>> sprawling mass of code you need to interact with to do anything
>> nontrivial is utterly undocumented.
>
> Since I don't write extensions, it's kinda pointless for you to
> continue.  However, again, given your track record, I'm not going to take
> it on faith that your assertion that these things aren't documented is
> true.  You'll have to forgive me my cynicism on that point.

Sure, I can understand that.

>>> No.  What you do is you identify what it is you want to do, and you
>>> find that part of the code, if that's the way it's actually done (I
>>> don't for a moment pretend to have written an extension, however given
>>> your track record in overstating things, you don't really think I'm
>>> going to take your word for it, do you? ;) )
>>
>> You realise I got *paid money* to write several shell extensions and
>> modify some existing ones, right?
>
> You realise that that's no guarantee that anyone's an expert at a task,
> right? I know lots of people who get paid to do things who don't take the
> optimal route to doing them.

Your point is valid. My point is that I'm not talking about "oh hey, I 
tried to do this thing, but it was a bit hard so I gave up after five 
minutes". This is something I spent MULTIPLE MONTHS trying to solve.

> How many questions did you ask on, oh, I don't know, the GNOME mailing
> lists?

Yes, because I *want* to sign up to yet *another* mailing list just to 
get basic developer information that should already be written down 
somewhere. :-P

In seriousness: I asked on Stack Overflow. The question was upvoted 
several times, and many other people lamented the utter lack of any 
documentation. But nobody actually answered the question. Which is what 
happens when nobody knows the answer!

>> (How THE HELL these other people wrote this stuff utterly baffles me...
>> I guess one or two people might have too much free time, but given the
>> vast number of extensions available [most of which add back
>> functionality that GNOME 2 had built-in], it screams that somebody
>> somewhere must have some real documentation...)
>
> Bingo!  Just because you didn't happen to look in the right place doesn't
> mean that the documentation doesn't exist.

As I said, I find it really baffling. The extensions I've looked at 
aren't exactly trivial or simple. And yet, I can't find any 
documentation, and nobody I asked about it can find any either. Not even 
so much as a blog entry or an auto-generated object list...

>> In an OO language, you don't generally modify a huge, complex framework
>> by deleting code from the running system and replacing it with your own.
>
> Of course not.
>
>> Then again, JavaScript isn't completely OO, so...
>
> And "deleting code from the running system" isn't the same as extending
> it.

 From what I've seen, you write extensions by deleting existing objects 
and replacing them with new ones. (Or maybe just replacing a method or 
two.) You'd think it works by creating a new object that exposes a 
defined set of operations, and passing that to the framework. But no, it 
seems you just put your hands in the framework, rip out the bits you 
don't want, and then replace them.

And then watch it all break horrifyingly in the next minor-release of 
the shell. >_<

Still, IMHO, I think most of this brokenness goes back to "we decided to 
build a huge, complex application in a scripting language". All problems 
flow from there.

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On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 18:38:59 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Given how excruciatingly hard it is to get access to the OpenSUSE bug
>>> tracker... no, I haven't.
>>
>> 1. Create user ID 2. Validate your e-mail address 3. Go to
>> bugzilla.opensuse.org and enter a bug
>>
>> Not terribly difficult, really.
> 
> Except that you have to give them your *real* name, who you work for,
> your annual income, your mother's maiden name, and your inside leg
> measurement. No, not hard at all.

No, you actually don't.  They ask, but (a) you don't need to fill in all 
the fields, and (b) even if you DO have to fill in all the fields, you 
don't need to provide real information.

So no, it actually *isn't* that difficult.  Remember that you're talking 
with one of the admins of the openSUSE forums, so I'm not just some yahoo 
out there who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about when it comes 
to this.

> Given that the bug is almost 100% certain to be a GNOME bug, they will
> just pass it to the GNOME team and then do nothing.

Well, fine, then Andy, screw it and report the bug upstream then, if 
you're so damned sure of yourself.  Again, that's not terribly difficult.

>> File a bug, or don't complain.  Seriously, that is probably the most
>> annoying thing you can do is bitch about something that's fixable and
>> not report a bug.
> 
> Well, maybe they shouldn't actively dissuade people from filing bugs by
> making it so sodding hard to file a bug? :-P

It *isn't* hard.  I've filed many bugs over the years, and it isn't the 
oh-so-difficult process you seem to think it is - based on exactly ZERO 
experience doing so.

> You know what's *really* annoying? Seeing an open bug for THE EXACT
> PROBLEM that our production application has, seeing that upstream has
> fixed it, and yet OpenSUSE refuses to release an RPM for it. *That* is
> annoying! (We're talking about a different bug now. The ticket has been
> open for many months. The fix is literally to build a new RPM. Yet it
> isn't happening...)

Example?  Because for that bug, I'd like to nudge someone, or at least 
find out why.

>>> Perhaps it was the "show task list" option then. I remember spending
>>> weeks trying to configure the shell the way we want it, and in the end
>>> I couldn't do it.
>>
>> Not sure what you mean by "show task list option".  What was the
>> specific thing you were trying to do?
> 
> The option to have an icon for each window that's open, so you can
> instantly switch between windows (or just tell when a hidden window
> closes itself). You know, like the Windows taskbar.

Oh, like the dash-to-dock extension gives you.  Yeah, that extension is 
one that I use, and it works great.

>>> I'm not saying it doesn't *work*. I'm saying it's clearly not optimal.
>>
>> It's optimal for me, and I don't use a tablet.  "Optimal" is clearly a
>> matter of personal taste, and I wish people would stop putting forth
>> their personal opinion as cold hard fact - it's not.
> 
> Well, I don't know man. Version 2 of a product has a heap of features
> which are gone in version 3. To be, that means that version 3
> *objectively* has fewer features. I didn't think there's much to argue
> about that...

I used GNOME2, and I use GNOME3.  Both did the job I needed, so I don't 
really care if there are "fewer features", because features I don't use 
are unimportant to me.  Hence, personal preference.

>>>> No.  What you do is you identify what it is you want to do, and you
>>>> find that part of the code, if that's the way it's actually done (I
>>>> don't for a moment pretend to have written an extension, however
>>>> given your track record in overstating things, you don't really think
>>>> I'm going to take your word for it, do you? ;) )
>>>
>>> You realise I got *paid money* to write several shell extensions and
>>> modify some existing ones, right?
>>
>> You realise that that's no guarantee that anyone's an expert at a task,
>> right? I know lots of people who get paid to do things who don't take
>> the optimal route to doing them.
> 
> Your point is valid. My point is that I'm not talking about "oh hey, I
> tried to do this thing, but it was a bit hard so I gave up after five
> minutes". This is something I spent MULTIPLE MONTHS trying to solve.

And did you ask for help?  Or did you spend months beating your head 
against the wall in solitude and then declare it impossible?  Again, past 
performance is my indicator here, so again, you'll have to forgive my 
cynicism about your approach to solving what you see as an "impossible" 
task.

>> How many questions did you ask on, oh, I don't know, the GNOME mailing
>> lists?
> 
> Yes, because I *want* to sign up to yet *another* mailing list just to
> get basic developer information that should already be written down
> somewhere. :-P

So no, you didn't ask for help, yet you complain about not being able to 
get help.  That's telling.

> In seriousness: I asked on Stack Overflow. The question was upvoted
> several times, and many other people lamented the utter lack of any
> documentation. But nobody actually answered the question. Which is what
> happens when nobody knows the answer!

One venue, where GNOME development isn't a primary discussion topic, does 
not mean "nobody knows the answer".  Except in your world, it would seem.

>>> (How THE HELL these other people wrote this stuff utterly baffles
>>> me... I guess one or two people might have too much free time, but
>>> given the vast number of extensions available [most of which add back
>>> functionality that GNOME 2 had built-in], it screams that somebody
>>> somewhere must have some real documentation...)
>>
>> Bingo!  Just because you didn't happen to look in the right place
>> doesn't mean that the documentation doesn't exist.
> 
> As I said, I find it really baffling. The extensions I've looked at
> aren't exactly trivial or simple. And yet, I can't find any
> documentation, and nobody I asked about it can find any either. Not even
> so much as a blog entry or an auto-generated object list...
> 
>>> In an OO language, you don't generally modify a huge, complex
>>> framework by deleting code from the running system and replacing it
>>> with your own.
>>
>> Of course not.
>>
>>> Then again, JavaScript isn't completely OO, so...
>>
>> And "deleting code from the running system" isn't the same as extending
>> it.
> 
>  From what I've seen, you write extensions by deleting existing objects
> and replacing them with new ones. (Or maybe just replacing a method or
> two.) You'd think it works by creating a new object that exposes a
> defined set of operations, and passing that to the framework. But no, it
> seems you just put your hands in the framework, rip out the bits you
> don't want, and then replace them.

Overriding is not the same as "ripping out the bits you don't want and 
replacing them".  You should know that from your study of OOP methods.

> And then watch it all break horrifyingly in the next minor-release of
> the shell. >_<

If you refuse to find the right venue to ask for help, then you kinda get 
what you deserve there.  I am not saying that it's a perfect environment 
to develop in, but jesus, Andy, if you aren't going to ask people who 
know what they're doing for help when you get stuck, what exactly do you 
think people are going to think or say?

> Still, IMHO, I think most of this brokenness goes back to "we decided to
> build a huge, complex application in a scripting language". All problems
> flow from there.

Now there's something I might be able to get behind.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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>> Well, maybe they shouldn't actively dissuade people from filing bugs by
>> making it so sodding hard to file a bug? :-P
>
> It *isn't* hard.  I've filed many bugs over the years, and it isn't the
> oh-so-difficult process you seem to think it is -

The account setup process seemed tortuously difficult to me. I spent a 
full two weeks trying to work around the problem before I finally gave 
up and tried to file a ticket.

> based on exactly ZERO experience doing so.

Zero experience?

Perhaps you're missing the part where I actually *did* all this to file 
a bug (which, last I checked, is still open). Basically Zypper gives you 
an incorrect error message - but apparently Zypper just tells you what 
Curl tells it. So until Curl gets fixed...

>> You know what's *really* annoying? Seeing an open bug for THE EXACT
>> PROBLEM that our production application has, seeing that upstream has
>> fixed it, and yet OpenSUSE refuses to release an RPM for it. *That* is
>> annoying! (We're talking about a different bug now. The ticket has been
>> open for many months. The fix is literally to build a new RPM. Yet it
>> isn't happening...)
>
> Example?  Because for that bug, I'd like to nudge someone, or at least
> find out why.

In OpenSUSE 13.1, systemd hangs for 60 seconds on shutdown. It's waiting 
for... I forget what it is now, but after 60 seconds it gives up and 
shuts down anyway. It just means every time you want to shut your PC 
down, you have to needlessly wait 60 seconds before it does it.

The bug is fixed in systemd 209 (?), but the latest official RPM from 
OpenSUSE is 208, which doesn't contain the fix. (There was some talk 
about the upstream "fix" being a bit of a kludge... I'm not sure exactly 
how true that is. I just want the bug to go away.)

Somebody filed a ticket. Somebody else said "here, try this RPM and let 
me know if that fixes it". The original poster never let anybody know if 
it worked. Ticket is currently set to "waiting for information" or similar.

>>> Not sure what you mean by "show task list option".  What was the
>>> specific thing you were trying to do?
>>
>> The option to have an icon for each window that's open, so you can
>> instantly switch between windows (or just tell when a hidden window
>> closes itself). You know, like the Windows taskbar.
>
> Oh, like the dash-to-dock extension gives you.  Yeah, that extension is
> one that I use, and it works great.

I, too, eventually found an extension that could be configured to behave 
in a suitable manner. It just annoyed me that this is some unsupported 
3rd-party hack, rather than part of the basic functionality of the shell.

>> Well, I don't know man. Version 2 of a product has a heap of features
>> which are gone in version 3. To be, that means that version 3
>> *objectively* has fewer features. I didn't think there's much to argue
>> about that...
>
> I used GNOME2, and I use GNOME3.  Both did the job I needed, so I don't
> really care if there are "fewer features", because features I don't use
> are unimportant to me.  Hence, personal preference.

I would have thought "seeing what windows are open and moving windows 
around" is a pretty core functionality to a window manager. But 
apparently your mileage is different...

> So no, you didn't ask for help, yet you complain about not being able to
> get help.  That's telling.
>
>> In seriousness: I asked on Stack Overflow. The question was upvoted
>> several times, and many other people lamented the utter lack of any
>> documentation. But nobody actually answered the question. Which is what
>> happens when nobody knows the answer!
>
> One venue, where GNOME development isn't a primary discussion topic, does
> not mean "nobody knows the answer".  Except in your world, it would seem.

Stack Overflow is only the single largest place to get help about any 
programming problem you might have. If not one single person who 
happened upon a GNOME question explicitly flagged with the GNOME tag 
knows how to do a thing, it can't be that well-known. (And if it *was* 
well-known, surely there wouldn't be so many people up-voting the 
question. Rather, they'd be saying "dude, read the manual, it's right 
here!")

>>> And "deleting code from the running system" isn't the same as extending
>>> it.
>>
>>    From what I've seen, you write extensions by deleting existing objects
>> and replacing them with new ones. (Or maybe just replacing a method or
>> two.) You'd think it works by creating a new object that exposes a
>> defined set of operations, and passing that to the framework. But no, it
>> seems you just put your hands in the framework, rip out the bits you
>> don't want, and then replace them.
>
> Overriding is not the same as "ripping out the bits you don't want and
> replacing them".  You should know that from your study of OOP methods.

Thing is, when you override a method, you're not destroying the old 
implementation. You're creating a new class that works differently. 
Anybody using the old class still gets the old behaviour. This is 
different; you're dynamically deleting the code from the system while 
it's still running - potentially even while somebody is trying to *call* 
that code!

I mean, it *works* and all... It just seems like a pretty scary design.

>> And then watch it all break horrifyingly in the next minor-release of
>> the shell.>_<
>
> If you refuse to find the right venue to ask for help, then you kinda get
> what you deserve there.

I'm talking about all the extensions that *other* people wrote which 
break on later versions of the shell. (My own extension actually 
survived - mostly because it barely does anything.)

>> Still, IMHO, I think most of this brokenness goes back to "we decided to
>> build a huge, complex application in a scripting language". All problems
>> flow from there.
>
> Now there's something I might be able to get behind.

Somehow I doubt the GNOME foundation are going to change it tho. ;-)

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> GNOME 2 had it, and there's a dozen different mutually-incompatible
> extensions to add it back to GNOME 3. Because it's a basic feature that
> should have been in the shell to begin with. But hey, it's a tablet. Who
> runs multiple applications on a tablet?

You are aware that on one of the most popular tablet (and phone) OS's 
there's a dedicated button on every screen (one of only 3, the other two 
are home and back) that allows you switch between applications? I'm 
pretty sure they didn't decide to put it there just because it looked nice.

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Am 19.03.2015 um 21:45 schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:
>>> Well, maybe they shouldn't actively dissuade people from filing bugs by
>>> making it so sodding hard to file a bug? :-P
>>
>> It *isn't* hard.  I've filed many bugs over the years, and it isn't the
>> oh-so-difficult process you seem to think it is -
>
> The account setup process seemed tortuously difficult to me. I spent a
> full two weeks trying to work around the problem before I finally gave
> up and tried to file a ticket.

Maybe rather than calling it "tortuously difficult", a better 
terminology would be to say that it scares people off.

I'd totally agree with that, and maybe it might help Jim understand your 
point.

A signup process asking for more than absolutely necessary (i.e. a valid 
e-mail address, an alias and a password) /is/ scary for some people - 
and yes, dealing with scary things /is/ difficult for some people. 
Sometimes to the extent that they rather suffer two more weeks of trying 
alone.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2015-03-19 16:45, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> Perhaps you're missing the part where I actually *did* all this to file
> a bug (which, last I checked, is still open). Basically Zypper gives you
> an incorrect error message - but apparently Zypper just tells you what
> Curl tells it. So until Curl gets fixed...
>

Have you contacted the curl maintainers?

>>> You know what's *really* annoying? Seeing an open bug for THE EXACT
>>> PROBLEM that our production application has, seeing that upstream has
>>> fixed it, and yet OpenSUSE refuses to release an RPM for it. *That* is
>>> annoying! (We're talking about a different bug now. The ticket has been
>>> open for many months. The fix is literally to build a new RPM. Yet it
>>> isn't happening...)
>>
>> Example?  Because for that bug, I'd like to nudge someone, or at least
>> find out why.
>
> In OpenSUSE 13.1, systemd hangs for 60 seconds on shutdown. It's waiting
> for... I forget what it is now, but after 60 seconds it gives up and
> shuts down anyway. It just means every time you want to shut your PC
> down, you have to needlessly wait 60 seconds before it does it.
>
> The bug is fixed in systemd 209 (?), but the latest official RPM from
> OpenSUSE is 208, which doesn't contain the fix. (There was some talk
> about the upstream "fix" being a bit of a kludge... I'm not sure exactly
> how true that is. I just want the bug to go away.)
>
> Somebody filed a ticket. Somebody else said "here, try this RPM and let
> me know if that fixes it". The original poster never let anybody know if
> it worked. Ticket is currently set to "waiting for information" or similar.
>

Maybe the proposed fix make his pc open a gate the to eight dimension, 
and the person was never seen again?  If I was in charge of QA, I'd be 
reluctant to release said RPM lest I be sure that it won't make dameons 
fly out of someone's nose.

(oh, and either switch newsreaders, or stop deleting the "XXX wrote:" 
lines at the top.  It makes it difficult to follow who said what)
-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 20:45:35 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Well, maybe they shouldn't actively dissuade people from filing bugs
>>> by making it so sodding hard to file a bug? :-P
>>
>> It *isn't* hard.  I've filed many bugs over the years, and it isn't the
>> oh-so-difficult process you seem to think it is -
> 
> The account setup process seemed tortuously difficult to me. I spent a
> full two weeks trying to work around the problem before I finally gave
> up and tried to file a ticket.

*headdesk*

It seriously is not that difficult.  You go to the site.  You create an 
account, provide information (true or fake information, doesn't matter), 
validate e-mail address, authenticate to Bugzilla, and enter your bug.

It ain't rocket science.

>> based on exactly ZERO experience doing so.
> 
> Zero experience?
> 
> Perhaps you're missing the part where I actually *did* all this to file
> a bug (which, last I checked, is still open). Basically Zypper gives you
> an incorrect error message - but apparently Zypper just tells you what
> Curl tells it. So until Curl gets fixed...

Bug number?

>>> You know what's *really* annoying? Seeing an open bug for THE EXACT
>>> PROBLEM that our production application has, seeing that upstream has
>>> fixed it, and yet OpenSUSE refuses to release an RPM for it. *That* is
>>> annoying! (We're talking about a different bug now. The ticket has
>>> been open for many months. The fix is literally to build a new RPM.
>>> Yet it isn't happening...)
>>
>> Example?  Because for that bug, I'd like to nudge someone, or at least
>> find out why.
> 
> In OpenSUSE 13.1, systemd hangs for 60 seconds on shutdown. It's waiting
> for... I forget what it is now, but after 60 seconds it gives up and
> shuts down anyway. It just means every time you want to shut your PC
> down, you have to needlessly wait 60 seconds before it does it.
> 
> The bug is fixed in systemd 209 (?), but the latest official RPM from
> OpenSUSE is 208, which doesn't contain the fix. (There was some talk
> about the upstream "fix" being a bit of a kludge... I'm not sure exactly
> how true that is. I just want the bug to go away.)
> 
> Somebody filed a ticket. Somebody else said "here, try this RPM and let
> me know if that fixes it". The original poster never let anybody know if
> it worked. Ticket is currently set to "waiting for information" or
> similar.

I didn't see that issue on my 13.1 systems, but now run 13.2, however, if 
the fix is a bit of a kludge, then I can see why the devs wanted to wait 
for a real fix from upstream.

>>>> Not sure what you mean by "show task list option".  What was the
>>>> specific thing you were trying to do?
>>>
>>> The option to have an icon for each window that's open, so you can
>>> instantly switch between windows (or just tell when a hidden window
>>> closes itself). You know, like the Windows taskbar.
>>
>> Oh, like the dash-to-dock extension gives you.  Yeah, that extension is
>> one that I use, and it works great.
> 
> I, too, eventually found an extension that could be configured to behave
> in a suitable manner. It just annoyed me that this is some unsupported
> 3rd-party hack, rather than part of the basic functionality of the
> shell.

Submit an enhancement request, then.  Unless you find logging into a 
website to be a bit too difficult to manage.  The proper place would be 
the GNOME3 bug tracking system (or enhancement request system).

> 
>>> Well, I don't know man. Version 2 of a product has a heap of features
>>> which are gone in version 3. To be, that means that version 3
>>> *objectively* has fewer features. I didn't think there's much to argue
>>> about that...
>>
>> I used GNOME2, and I use GNOME3.  Both did the job I needed, so I don't
>> really care if there are "fewer features", because features I don't use
>> are unimportant to me.  Hence, personal preference.
> 
> I would have thought "seeing what windows are open and moving windows
> around" is a pretty core functionality to a window manager. But
> apparently your mileage is different...

I can see what windows are open, and I can move windows around.  I do 
that every day, so I don't know what you're on about here.

>> So no, you didn't ask for help, yet you complain about not being able
>> to get help.  That's telling.
>>
>>> In seriousness: I asked on Stack Overflow. The question was upvoted
>>> several times, and many other people lamented the utter lack of any
>>> documentation. But nobody actually answered the question. Which is
>>> what happens when nobody knows the answer!
>>
>> One venue, where GNOME development isn't a primary discussion topic,
>> does not mean "nobody knows the answer".  Except in your world, it
>> would seem.
> 
> Stack Overflow is only the single largest place to get help about any
> programming problem you might have. If not one single person who
> happened upon a GNOME question explicitly flagged with the GNOME tag
> knows how to do a thing, it can't be that well-known. (And if it *was*
> well-known, surely there wouldn't be so many people up-voting the
> question. Rather, they'd be saying "dude, read the manual, it's right
> here!")

I'll let you in on a little secret:  Not everyone with expertise has time 
to read a million different forums.  When a project has its own forums, 
use those rather than third party forums.  Choosing an appropriate venue 
is important.

See http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html for why that's 
important.

>>>> And "deleting code from the running system" isn't the same as
>>>> extending it.
>>>
>>>    From what I've seen, you write extensions by deleting existing
>>>    objects
>>> and replacing them with new ones. (Or maybe just replacing a method or
>>> two.) You'd think it works by creating a new object that exposes a
>>> defined set of operations, and passing that to the framework. But no,
>>> it seems you just put your hands in the framework, rip out the bits
>>> you don't want, and then replace them.
>>
>> Overriding is not the same as "ripping out the bits you don't want and
>> replacing them".  You should know that from your study of OOP methods.
> 
> Thing is, when you override a method, you're not destroying the old
> implementation. You're creating a new class that works differently.
> Anybody using the old class still gets the old behaviour. This is
> different; you're dynamically deleting the code from the system while
> it's still running - potentially even while somebody is trying to *call*
> that code!
> 
> I mean, it *works* and all... It just seems like a pretty scary design.

I don't know for sure, but I think you'll find the underlying code is 
actually still there when an extension is installed - you're just hooking 
around it.

>>> And then watch it all break horrifyingly in the next minor-release of
>>> the shell.>_<
>>
>> If you refuse to find the right venue to ask for help, then you kinda
>> get what you deserve there.
> 
> I'm talking about all the extensions that *other* people wrote which
> break on later versions of the shell. (My own extension actually
> survived - mostly because it barely does anything.)

Well, here's a shock - when you upgrade a piece of software, stuff that 
depends on the software you upgraded might not work properly.  That's 
only the way things are with *every single piece of software used as a 
foundation for some other piece of software on the planet*.

>>> Still, IMHO, I think most of this brokenness goes back to "we decided
>>> to build a huge, complex application in a scripting language". All
>>> problems flow from there.
>>
>> Now there's something I might be able to get behind.
> 
> Somehow I doubt the GNOME foundation are going to change it tho. ;-)

So then the alternative is to deal with it, if you have to, or don't, if 
you don't.
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 20 Mar 2015 09:23:27 +0100, clipka wrote:

> Am 19.03.2015 um 21:45 schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:
>>>> Well, maybe they shouldn't actively dissuade people from filing bugs
>>>> by making it so sodding hard to file a bug? :-P
>>>
>>> It *isn't* hard.  I've filed many bugs over the years, and it isn't
>>> the oh-so-difficult process you seem to think it is -
>>
>> The account setup process seemed tortuously difficult to me. I spent a
>> full two weeks trying to work around the problem before I finally gave
>> up and tried to file a ticket.
> 
> Maybe rather than calling it "tortuously difficult", a better
> terminology would be to say that it scares people off.
> 
> I'd totally agree with that, and maybe it might help Jim understand your
> point.
> 
> A signup process asking for more than absolutely necessary (i.e. a valid
> e-mail address, an alias and a password) /is/ scary for some people -
> and yes, dealing with scary things /is/ difficult for some people.
> Sometimes to the extent that they rather suffer two more weeks of trying
> alone.

I understand his point completely.  His point just isn't valid - it's not 
tortuously difficult to create an account.  You fill in information, 
submit the form, get an account.  Nobody says the information has to be 
valid (other than the e-mail address, which is sensible).

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message