[long] Re: Legal traps in open source *WAY* OT.

Sam Couter sam at couter.dropbear.id.au
Thu Oct 31 13:11:27 EST 2002


Doug.Palmer at csiro.au <Doug.Palmer at csiro.au> wrote:
> I would expect any piece of software which caused potentially disasterous
> results to have a 'do you really want to do this?' question as a default

So every time I hit 'd' to delete an email, I also have to hit 'y' three
times to tell mutt that I really, really, really want to delete the
message? And I have to do that 250 times a day?

You must be insane.

> (and a -f option). If you don't modify your software to handle known
> usability (and other) problems, then you're a pretty piss-poor programmer.
> And I'm not likely to let the 'rm * .c' problem off the hook, either. It's
> elementary software engineering.

Elementary software engineering includes such concepts as making it
quick and easy to complete tasks, not annoying. Confirmation dialogs are
the most annoying thing I've ever had to deal with while computing. A
well designed interface doesn't require confirmation dialogs, because
the "close" button won't be right next to the "maximise" button, so you
won't *ever* hit it by mistake.

If you ask rm to nuke everything in the current directory, you should
expect it to nuke everything in the current directory. If you can't
trust yourself to handle the rm command correctly, don't use it. There
are plenty of experts you can pay to come and remove your files for you
until you can gain the required expertise.

Does you car ask "Are you sure?" when you turn the key to "start"? Or
when you pull the bonnet release lever? Why not? I know at least two
people who've lost parts of their fingers to running engines. And
thousands of people are killed or injured by cars every year... Maybe
the throttle should also have a confirmation dialog! And the gear lever,
just in case you said 'Yes' to the throttle but didn't really mean it!

The fact that so many people think confirmation dialogs are needed is
just another indication that people are obviously using the wrong
interface.

Or perhaps they just don't have their driving shoes on.
-- 
Sam "Eddie" Couter  |  mailto:sam at couter.dropbear.id.au
Debian Developer    |  mailto:eddie at debian.org
                    |  jabber:sam at jabber.topic.com.au
OpenPGP fingerprint:  A46B 9BB5 3148 7BEA 1F05  5BD5 8530 03AE DE89 C75C
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.samba.org/archive/linux/attachments/20021031/6592a091/attachment.bin


More information about the linux mailing list