history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 7:48 UTC (Wed) by johannbg (guest, #65743)
In reply to: history of CADT by louie
Parent article: Devuan Jessie beta released

"600+ extensions in extensions.gnome.org"

Does windows have "extensions"
Does MacOS X have "extensions"
Does Android have "extensions"

It goes without saying desktop environment should be growing application not extension to workaround it's poor design.

+If memory serves me correct then extensions were never planned to be part of Gnome but grew out of necessity to their keep end user base.

Now the fundamental problem with Gnome is the instability of it's UI design and always has been ( 1.x, 2.x 3.x does not matter ).

That was the thing novices end users complained most to me about when I was Fedora Ambassador.

Those end user did not what shiny new things with "effects" and gazillion default applications to be confusion about.

They wanted a boring stable UI with the exact same applications in the exact same place as before so they did not have re-learn where applications and system configuration was placed or start using new applications they where entirely unfamiliar with.

And that was why novice end users did not use Fedora which ironically is to many ( Red Hat ) people it's "target audience" and why the Red Hat desktop team is forcing Fedora's release cycle in sync with the Gnome one again ( despite 10 years of history telling them not to but hey let's tear the community a new one with now with no mass rebuilds to achieve that impossible goal! Fracking idiots )

to post comments

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 10:53 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (8 responses)

> Does windows have "extensions"
> Does MacOS X have "extensions"
> Does Android have "extensions"

FYI -- Yes, Yes, and Yes.

> +If memory serves me correct then extensions were never planned to be part of Gnome but grew out of necessity to their keep end user base.

Extensions were *always* part of the plan and were a core feature of Gnome-Shell. Specific extensions, on the other hand, may not have been. Which leads me to...

> It goes without saying desktop environment should be growing application not extension to workaround it's poor design.

No, it's called designing sufficient flexibility so that functionality use cases not part of the core design can be added by those who want or need said functionality. There's quite a lot of stuff that doesn't rise to the level of an "application" or by necessity needs information only known to the shell itself.

> They wanted a boring stable UI with the exact same applications in the exact same place as before so they did not have re-learn where applications and system configuration was placed or start using new applications they where entirely unfamiliar with.

Users want nothing to change except for the things they want to change, then loudly complain when the changes they want require changes elsewhere.

Meanwhile, if you wanted a "Boring stable UI" then we'd all still be using CDE. Heck, one of the "enterprise" applications I have to use would look right at home on that platform. It's also a festering pile of swill.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 11:09 UTC (Wed) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (7 responses)

> Does windows have "extensions"
> Does MacOS X have "extensions"
> Does Android have "extensions"

"FYI -- Yes, Yes, and Yes."

Please provide me with links to documentation to the extension framework those other OS provide.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 11:24 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (6 responses)

> Please provide me with links to documentation to the extension framework those other OS provide.

Okay, I'll do this, even though what you're asking is literally as simple as plugging "X shell extensions" into google and pressing "I'm feeling lucky".

"windows shell extensions" returns: "creating shell extension handlers" on MSDN:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/...

"Finder shell extensions" returns "App extension programming guidelines" on Apple's developer site:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Gen...

Now Android's a little more complicated; "extensions" in the classical sense are really a per-application thing, and there are many applications which implement their own extension mechanism. However, the Android core is built around the concept of "intents" which allow arbitrary code to implement various activities. For example, every application in the "Send to..." list is there because it's registered an intent that can be used by anyone). Here's the "I'm feeling lucky" link returned from searching for "android intents", called "Intents and Intent filters" on the android developer site:

http://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-fil...

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 14:10 UTC (Wed) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (4 responses)

"Okay, I'll do this, even though what you're asking is literally as simple as plugging "X shell extensions" into google and pressing "I'm feeling lucky"."

You where the one that was claiming that the other OS had extensions and it's framework and their implementation was comparable with Gnome so it goes without saying you refer to what exactly you yourself are referring to so one can make the same comparison and reach the same or different conclusion as you did.

I view extension or "plugins" as highlighting underlying design deficiency ( the more extension people install or the higher usage of specific extension indicate something that should be the part of the default design since from my point of view people should not have to install extension or plugins to get the functionality they require from the desktop environment but providing the framework to overcome limitation of the desktop environment is not something I'm against ) so our opinion on that topic differ.

And the boring stable UI conclusion comes from being Fedora Ambassador for 8 years installing Fedora on those novice end users hardware and helping them with problems they experienced running and using Fedora as their day to day desktop in the process. These where regular technology challenged individual not tech savy people who know or want spending hours setting up, tweak (or otherwise fight the desktop environment to be able to use it.

In the end of the day what matters the most is what works for the end users, ( them, they are the ones who will be using that computer on a day to day bases not me, not you or anyone else which often seems to be forgotten ) and makes their life easier and helps them get their work done and is least in their way in doing that.

If Microsoft Windows works for them good, if OS X works for them great, if Linux works for them fantastic but in reality Linux on desktop is failing to work for 98.35% [1] people using computers as their desktop on the planet that's undisputed fact otherwise it would be more popular and would be more widely used.

1. https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-sh...

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 15:14 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

I view extension or "plugins" as highlighting underlying design deficiency ( the more extension people install or the higher usage of specific extension indicate something that should be the part of the default design since from my point of view people should not have to install extension or plugins to get the functionality they require from the desktop environment but providing the framework to overcome limitation of the desktop environment is not something I'm against ) so our opinion on that topic differ.

Sometimes it is difficult to figure out before the fact what functionality people would actually like to have. In that sense, providing an extension framework is like sowing a huge lawn in the town square and then later paving over those paths where people have been walking a lot, rather than paving a bunch of footpaths first and hoping that people will follow them and not walk on the grass. Similarly, the most popular extensions can then be made part of the core product.

It would be great if a large and complex piece of software like GNOME could be all things to all people from the get-go, but that's not what usually happens. In view of this, an extension framework is the next-best thing because it lets users scratch their itches in all the places that the original designers didn't foresee or didn't consider important. On the other hand, deliberately omitting basic functionality that is obviously desirable to a large proportion of known users, and relying on extension developers to put it back (which I hear is something the GNOME developers subscribe to – I'm not a GNOME user myself so don't have first-hand experience) is probably not the wisest approach.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 17:49 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

> Sometimes it is difficult to figure out before the fact what functionality people would actually like to have

It also makes niche but very useful extensions possible. The existence of extension frameworks is a good thing.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 15:34 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

but in reality Linux on desktop is failing to work for 98.35% people using computers as their desktop on the planet that's undisputed fact

I don't think it is quite correct to say that desktop Linux is “failing to work” for all those people when the reasonable assumption is that the vast majority of them has never actually tried a Linux system in the first place. Something “failing to work”, in my opinion, implies a reasonable attempt to make that something work to begin with. (Incidentally, arguably there are many people whose entire computer needs could be adequately covered by Firefox and LibreOffice, and it would probably not matter in the least to them whether these run on Windows or Linux.)

As long as virtually all desktop PCs come with a pre-installed operating system that isn't Linux, and only comparatively few people actually care enough to install Linux, talking about Linux “failing to work” for everyone who stays with their factory-provided (non-Linux) default operating system is unreasonable. In any real sense, Linux has only “failed to work” for those people who actively installed it, gave it a try, and then went back to whatever they used before, and that will be considerably fewer than 98.35% of all desktop PC users.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 15:51 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> In the end of the day what matters the most is what works for the end users, ( them, they are the ones who will be using that computer on a day to day bases not me, not you or anyone else which often seems to be forgotten ) and makes their life easier and helps them get their work done and is least in their way in doing that.

End-users want absolutely nothing to change. Except for the things they want changed. And then it needs to be exactly the same, only different.

...Yes, I've been through this quite a few times. Suffice it to say that I have very strong feelings on the subject.

> If Microsoft Windows works for them good, if OS X works for them great, if Linux works for them fantastic but in reality Linux on desktop is failing to work for 98.35% [1] people using computers as their desktop on the planet that's undisputed fact otherwise it would be more popular and would be more widely used.

I don't doubt that Desktop Linux is insignificant (Steam claims ~1% of their users do so on Linux, for example) but that Netmarketshare.com's claim that *Windows 3.1* comprises of 0.45% of the installed base makes me distrustful of the quality of their other figures.

I also wonder where they're slotting in Chromebooks, which on their own would account for more than Linux's total reported share.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 17:28 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> "windows shell extensions" returns: "creating shell extension handlers" on MSDN
Shell extensions are not really comparable with GNOME plugins. They were used to do stuff like virtual filesystems in Explorer or additional toolbars, not to change the way Windows looked.

Now, since Windows tried to preserve binary compatibility, lots of products hooked into the deep levels of system and provided lots of customizations.

Mac OS X had even less customizability.

history of CADT

Posted May 4, 2016 11:49 UTC (Wed) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link]

>Does windows have "extensions"

Yes, in unimaginable numbers. First literally - shell extensions are extremely common, and a great many applications come with them.

Also less literally there are a huge number of utilities which aren't technically 'shell extensions' but which are functionally the moral equivalent in that they are programs that adjust the behaviour or functionality of bits of Windows. For example, simple utilities like 7+ Taskbar Tweaker do the kind of thing that might be done by a Gnome extension, and you might also consider larger scale things like Classic Start Menu or DisplayFusion to be comparable.