One button
From a comment by Aslam on Jono’s site:
I even heard someone say “GNOME devs will be truely happy on the day when GNOME reduces to a single button. Great usability and simplicity. No confusion. Grandpa and Grandma can use it. Functionality? How does it matter? Usability is the king”
If someone can deliver me a computer which has one button, “Do What I Mean”, and that one button works, that’s fine with me. If that’s Gnome’s goal, more power to them. Why would it possibly be a bad thing to have a single button that does what you want?
Unless of course you use computers for the sake of it rather than to actually get things done, in which case, well, good luck with that.
The reason it’s wrong is because it’s a pipe dream, and it’s a pipe dream for the very reason that user interfaces and programming languages that ‘just do what we want’ are pipe dreams. Apple has led people astray: the only solution Apple has ever had to complexity is to throw functionality out with the bathwater and then add a coat of gloss.
5 weeks later
Apantomimehorse: I agree that it’s not possible to reduce everything to one DWIM button. However, the whole point of a goal is that it’s something to shoot for. If we fold under right now and say “well, it’s impossible”, we’ll never make any progress. Don’t go gently into that black night.
6 weeks later