Re: Re: Bug: Current CVS in Playlist.pm

On Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 06:36:48PM +0100, Richard Smith wrote:
> The attitude that the SliMP3 is a hardcore hacker geek's playground (whether
> that is true or not) is exactly the reason why every Linux GUI sucks the poo
> from the poo poo tree. It's as if no KDE or Gnome programmer knows how to
> design a UI. By simply giving up on the normal end-user and deciding it's
> not worth dealing with them by distributing the required modules - you're
> cutting down your potential audience for the player. Including them, even if
> we do end up with a big old half of CPAN distribution, isn't difficult to
> do, and makes a hell of a difference (especially to Windows users, where
> installing Perl modules isn't as easy as it is for *nix people).
> 
> I disagree that the system is an end-user nightmare too. A Windows user
> (since they're the majority of users) can easily install ActivePerl, unzip a
> file and run the server.pl within. That's the only three steps required to
> get the server of this thing running. I'm sure we could even make the unit
> configure itself by searching the network for the server.
> 
> Ease of use and install isn't an afterthought, it's something that has to be
> in your mind every step along the way, even if it means you need to take a
> few extra steps to get there.
> 
> Design and Program for the end-user, not the hardcode hacker geek that
> happens to be using the system at the moment.

Apparently I did not make my point well, because that was the one
I was trying to make.

GUIs:  I only suggested the GUI for the Windows/Mac users.

End-user ease of use:  I think you have a highly inflated opinion of
  the typical Windows end-user's skills.  As the software now stands,
  it's unusable by anyone but a programmer on the Windows platform.

I was not suggesting that the SliMP3 SHOULD be user-hostile.  I was
merely stating that, as it stands now, it IS user-hostile.  I then
went on to suggest ways in which that user-hostility could be reduced,
and a potential solution to the "let's carry everything in our own
@INC" problem in the process.

However, until the SliMP3 product is point-and-click for non-*nix
users, with a simple, single download and auto-install of EVERYTHING
needed to get up and running, the actual market will remain
vanishingly small.

(Case in point: A friend of mine purchased one.  He used to be a
professional programmer.  Hasn't coded in about 20 years.  He's what I
would consider "above-average" in his understanding of how computers
work in general, and how to use Windows in particular.  He's spent a
good portion of his personal time over 3 weekends trying to get the
SliMP3 code running.  In the end, he had to upgrade his machine from
NT4 to Win2k just to get the code to work.  ...and he had no trouble
whatsoever understanding and installing the ActiveState Perl package.)

  Imagine a user who doesn't grok Perl, command-line arguments,
command-line ANYTHING, trying to use his new SliMP3: You have to
download two separate software bundles from two separate sources, make
sure you have the appropriate MS Windows Installer, check your SP
levels, possibly download DCOM, unpack the SliMP3 code (and if you're
on XP, go download a 3rd-party unpacker since XP doesn't do gzip'd
tarballs native), and then do two very unnatrual things for a Windows
user: Open up a DOS shell and figure out how to run setup.pl and
server.pl.  And if he wants it to load at boot, he's SOL unless he
understands quite a bit more about Windows than the typical Windows
user.

I posit that the people currently subscribed to this list are in a
large part blind to these issues in the same way I'm blind to perl
module dependencies: We've moved so far beyond that point in our
experience (and have developed tools to deal with these issues for
us) we just assume everyone can do these sorts of things as
second nature.

The "average" end-user doesn't want to have to deal with the process
I described above.  They just want to click the mouse a few times,
plug in the SliMP3, and enjoy their music.  Currently, that's not
possible for them.

-- 
Mark C. Langston
[email protected]
Systems & Network Admin
http://www.bitshift.org

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