On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 21:04:53 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
news
Have you tried Xnews at all? I'm not a geek, so I don't really get
into tweaking news readers, but my two youngest love it and can make
it do some fancy tricks.

We shouldn't have to fiddle that much to make software work correctly.
Proper requirements gathering and design are supposed to take care of these
things, but that process is sadly lacking from most open source projects, as
well as quite a few shareware/commercial products. Say what you will about
Microsoft, but in terms of what they do BEFORE the coding begins, their
process is almost perfect.

I sort of agree with you on that. However, what techheads might think
of as being a good idea, isn't always a good idea. What techheads
might think of as perfectly comprehensible and/or intuitive is
gibberish to a user. And that is the real problem with open source
because you have the same technoids messing around with what should be
a simple concept and all have differing ideas about how stuff should
work.

It's also a somewhat concept becuase it is "open source" only to those
who understand the coding structure - thus the end results will be the
same.

I don't know if you enjoy computer books or not, but the bible of user
interface design is quite fascinating. It's called "About Face 2.0: The
Essentials of Interaction Design", by Alan Cooper. When you're done with it,
you'll know exactly which software authors belong in hell for all eternity.

I'll look it up - thanks for the tip.

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------

"To the fisherman born there is nothing
so provoking of curiosity as a fishing rod
in a case."

Roland Pertwee, "The River God" (1928)