Dear Ian, I really understand your position, because I hated the Squeak UI for almost one year, until I started to read about Color Theory and Cognitive Pshychology and understand some things about it. However, each soul has to convince by himself or do something about it.
Let me put my feelings into the words of Schoenberg, he once said : "Art is not for everyone; and if it is for everyone, it is not Art.". And I believe pretty much the same here : "Smalltalk is not for everyone; and if it is for everyone, then it is not Smalltalk".
Cheers,
Hernán
2009/6/29 Ian Trudel ian.trudel@gmail.com:
2009/6/28 Hernán Morales Durand hernan.morales@gmail.com:
To my view, Squeak doesn't fit very well with the production-line programmer-worker.
Then, my vote is not positive for color uniformity in Squeak :)
Hernán
Hello Hernán!
This is a very passionate text to unveil your opinion. Thank you. Do not get me wrong on my ideas: they are not about striving for conventionalism but rather suggesting an avenue of solution that might eventually be suitable and feasible.
You might well convince me that an ergonomics based on any popular professional tools is not the optimal solution for Squeak. However, don't tell me that the current UI is suitable for grown-up programmers and professionals. It is not. Childish, confusing, undocumented, ugly, outdated and "eccentric". Have better ideas than mine? Be my guest. =)
The issue is important because the growth rate of the community is low and a certain amount of existing members move to other forks. Hernàn, you're using Squeak for some time already. You can customize Squeak UI as you deem necessary. Others might not. Morphic has no viable documentation. We need a standard image with something visually and ergonomically appealing, something approachable.
I have tried to introduce Squeak to acquaintances but it failed in general. One of the common reason is the "weird" interface. What can I do about it? Kick them in the nuts and tell them they don't know what they're talking about? =)
The colour scheme doesn't really matter, does it?
We could be rebel and eccentric on other things than colours. I think...
Then we don't want to change colours because it upsets some in the community. "Everybody can get Squeak with the features he desires, provided it is backward compatible." What will happen when the community desires a feature that will inflect such changes that will not be backward compatible? Well, we do have constraints. Heck, I've been told that we are unlikely to have international keyboard input because its implementation would certainly break the compatibility... oh, gee...
It's not that I want to be controversial... simply, I think, we should not toss away the idea to be appealing to a greater mass, especially if it helps Squeak to survive and move forward. It's not like we need less manpower...
Regards, Ian