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The critics are rightThe critics are rightPosted Jul 2, 2008 19:05 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226)Parent article: The critics are wrong: KDE 4 doesn't need a fork (ars technica)
KDE 4 is badly broken but broken software can eventually be fixed. The real problem is that KDE 4 is headed in the wrong direction. Other than Windows 2.0, I can't think of another desktop in the last 25 years - Xerox, Lisp Machine, Sun, Mac, Windows, or Linux - that came anywhere close to being as annoying as KDE 4. KDE seems to have been overrun by Vista-loving "usability" nuts. I just wish they would have started a new project instead of trashing our wonderful KDE.
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The critics are right Posted Jul 2, 2008 20:09 UTC (Wed) by Sutoka (guest, #43890) [Link]
Thats rather vague. What makes you say KDE 4.0 is overrun by "Vista-loving usability nuts"?
The oxygen style theme, maybe? The icons and look/functionality of the applications certainly
wouldn't be. A more realistic complaint would be that KDE 4.0 was gnomified, with lots and
lots of features 'removed'. But even that would be disingenuous because the feature
regressions are mostly/entirely temporary, as the features were only lost to simplify the
porting to Qt/KDE 4.0, or haven't been implemented as it's an entirely new application (like
is the case for Plasma).
KDE 4.0 is definitely not ready for prime time, and many of the developers were trying to
emphasise that prior to the release of 4.0 (though there was some confusion with KDE 4 vs KDE
4.0 and other things that lead to mixed messages and pain). KDE 4.x has already improved in
lots of ways over the 3 series, looking at the KDE Games for a great example of this (I *love*
KSudoku in KDE 4... can't stand any other Sudoku program). It'll take more time for all the
applications to get to the same point as they were in 3 (but mind you, most applications have
already passed where they were in 3 in at least some ways), but they are working on it. 4.1
pre-releases are also a *huge* improvement over 4.0, Plasma has a lot more features
(Folderview is FAR better than the previous plasmoid icon method, and in many use cases far
better than KDesktop's method... in 4.2 it'll fill the last holes as well).
But what in your opinion is the direction in which KDE 4 is headed ('wrong one' isn't a good
answer ;)? Plasma's problems mostly have to do with it still being young (Kicker and KDesktop
used to crash all the time, even several releases into KDE 3 series). Oxygen can be completely
replaced with other themes just like the themes from KDE 3. Or is this all just about the
Cashew?
I've been developing an application using KDElibs 4 and find it to be a VERY nice experience,
far better than using Winforms on .Net (layout was a pita for one), or GTK (the documentation
didn't feel much different than reading a sparsely commented header file), as well as being a
nice improvement over KDE3/Qt3 (lots of little improvements that just helped with the QoL).
The critics are right Posted Jul 2, 2008 20:14 UTC (Wed) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link] are you able to articulate the actual problems that you have with the desktop? then, i may be able to relate your rant to something which exists in the real world.
The critics are right Posted Jul 2, 2008 20:59 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] Sorry. I recently wiped Fedora 9 and Kubuntu. This is Debian Lenny with KDE 3.5. :-) If you need more details Google can find you plenty of information or you could try KDE 4 yourself.
The critics are right Posted Jul 2, 2008 23:29 UTC (Wed) by Sutoka (guest, #43890) [Link] Theres many people using KDE 4 and find no problems with it other than Plasma needing some more time to stabilize and some people that don't think Oxygen is their cup of tea (good thing KDE doesn't force you to have any kind of tea... you can even have coffee if you want!). Actually, most of the complaints I've seen about KDE 4.0 have been mostly just that KDE 4.0 is new, definitely nothing about the actual *direction* it's taking. If KDE 4.0 is really as bad as you claim then you should have no problem at least somewhat remembering some of the issues you have. Telling people to ask someone else when you've already gone out of your way to say it's the worst thing ever might make some think you're simply using hyperbole when it's merely just not your favorite of all time.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 0:02 UTC (Thu) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] KDE 4 is seriously dumbed down by design. Vista already showed that dumbing down is not overall a successful strategy, even if a small number of people prefer it.KDE 4 is unstable. KDE 4 attempted to dictate that everyone should have a magic search plasmoid desktop with no ability to save files there. That doesn't fly where KDE is used by unsophisticated office workers. KDE 4 attempted to dumb down the file manager with Dolphin. KDE 4's new start menu is an insane joke. KDE 4's panel is not yet able to do 10% of what Kicker has been doing for me in KDE 3.5. Now you may say that the KDE team is slowly changing it's mind on a lot of these issues - re-enabling the old KDE menu, restoring parts of Konqueror, telling us that panel may be ready for prime time in 4.3, allowing people to have folder desktops instead of search desktops - and you would be right. You would be wrong, however, if you suppose that the harm was undone due to people like you praising every design flaw in KDE 4. The harm is being undone due to people (including KDE developers) aggressively pointing out just how bad and misguided KDE 4 had become.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 0:47 UTC (Thu) by Sutoka (guest, #43890) [Link] >KDE 4 is seriously dumbed down by design. Vista already >showed that dumbing down is not overall a successful >strategy, even if a small number of people prefer it. Personally, GNOME/GTK already showed me that was a horrible strategy (and Vista really didn't dumb it down anymore than XP). And thats not *by design*, thats *they haven't reimplemented those features yet*. The *only* case I can think of where they've refused to add a configuration option is the whole cashew thing, and thats because the Plasma developers wanted a solution and not what was a work around in their eyes. >KDE 4 is unstable. Hardly a direction, and early KDE 3 releases were unstable as well. Large churn always results in instability. >KDE 4 attempted to dictate that everyone should >have a magic search plasmoid desktop with no >ability to save files there. That doesn't fly where >KDE is used by unsophisticated office workers. Plasma's method of handling icons in 4.0 sucked pretty bad (every icon was a plasmoid), which was quite unfortunate. Plasma in 4.1 includes Folderview, which will give you most everything you had in 3.5 (a place to save files with no fuss). You can even have multiple foldiers on your desktop at once, you can even watch *folders on a remote system, half way across the world with no mount magic*. You'll also be able to use Nepomuk and do very nice things. Folderview will offer you everything you had in 3.5, but FAR more flexible. It'll have it's problems like all new things, but they'll be worked out as the problems are found. >KDE 4 attempted to dumb down the file manager with Dolphin. Konqueror is still there. Dolphin offers most of the *file management* functionality that Konqueror had, and the Dolphin developers have added many new things, but they just want to focus on file management without having to deal with also be a web browser/pdf viewer/movie player/audio player/text viewer/etc. Konqueror had gotten quite hard to maintain due to all the complexities as well, it was pretty much unmaintained for large periods of time AFAIK as well. >KDE 4's new start menu is an insane joke. There were ~3 different menus being developed and only one was near ready for 4.0. They could have delayed the *entire* release until the others were ready... but you can't really claim that the start menu is a show stopper for the entire environment. >KDE 4's panel is not yet able to do 10% of what Kicker has been doing for me in KDE 3.5. Unless theres FAR more functionality in Kicker than I ever used, thats quite the hyperbole. Kicker did have more functionality and configurability, but Kicker was also a nightmare to maintain that NO ONE wanted to touch (the only person maintaining it AFAIK was the person that decided to ditch Kicker and make Plasma...). None of those things you raised were the /direction/ KDE 4 was being taken, but issues with the 4.0 release that were not design decisions but simply you can't have perfection with the first release. >Now you may say that the KDE team is slowly changing it's mind on a lot of these issues I don't think the team decided about 4 series that they wanted it to be lacking features, unstable, no icons, a crappy file manager, a bad start menu, or a crappy panel. And I doubt you could seriously believe that, those were *design decisions*, but problems with the 4.0 /release/ (and remember, 4.0 isn't 4, but just the VERY beginning). >re-enabling the old KDE menu AFAIK, this wasn't ready in time for 4.0.0 and there was no one working on it either. >restoring parts of Konqueror Restoring? Nothing was removed. Hell, new features (re-opening old tabs, better session handling) are being added just for Konqueror (not even counting the extra things it got from Dolphin). >telling us that panel may be ready for prime time in 4.3 I don't remember anyone saying anything about 4.3... some things the Plamsa developers have said won't be ready until 4.2 (background painting for full screen folderviews), but the Plasma developers have also said they're wanting to be able to make releases more often, that in their current state the release model that KDE uses is too long. >allowing people to have folder desktops instead of search desktops Icons were allowed on the desktop since 4.0.0, in fact the icons were based off the Desktop folder. 'Search desktops' are actually a *new* thing that Folderview will be capable of (among many other whiz-bang features). >You would be wrong, however, if you suppose that the >harm was undone due to people like you praising every >design flaw in KDE 4. I don't really think something that has nothing to do with the design could be a design flaw. KDE 4.0.0 being unstable is hardly a design flaw, as are the others. >The harm is being undone due to people (including >KDE developers) aggressively pointing out just how >bad and misguided KDE 4 had become. KDE 4 wasn't misguided from a developer point of view *at all*. We could argue about whether there were marketing/communication issues about what to expect from KDE 4.0 vs a mature KDE 4 desktop, but that'd be completely pointless. Similar things about KDE 4 were said about KDE 2 (which was also a major change), but KDE 2 enabled KDE 3.5.9 to exist, the technologies created then are what powers the best desktop environment out there. Is the KDE 4 series currently better than the KDE 3 series? No, but it has the potential to *greatly* surprass 3 with some time.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 4:26 UTC (Thu) by pynm0001 (guest, #18379) [Link] > KDE 4 is seriously dumbed down by design. Vista already showed that > dumbing down is not overall a successful strategy, even if a small number > of people prefer it. Patches are always accepted if you'd like to port over a 3.5 feature you can't live without. Or you could just accuse us of trying to "dumb down" the desktop, that's cool too I guess... > KDE 4 attempted to dumb down the file manager with Dolphin. That's weird, Konqueror still works for me, hmm. > KDE 4's new start menu is an insane joke. Hey look, another comment which KDE developers can do nothing to fix. How should I submit this to bugs.kde.org? Problem: "kickoff menu is an insane joke." How to reproduce: "...?" Expected behavior: "The jokes should be funny, not insane." I mean wtf? The *real* insane joke was that Alt-F1 didn't work in KDE 4.0.0. Honestly I thought kickoff was one of the much better features about KDE 4. Luckily the old-style menu is still available. > KDE 4's panel is not yet able to do 10% of what Kicker has been doing > for me in KDE 3.5. Any way of mentioning what specifically is in that set of things kicker does that Plasma does not? Or is this just continuing a trend?
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 6:28 UTC (Thu) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] Again, what we have here is a bunch of complaints about KDE4, when in reality they should be about KDE4.0. "KDE 4 is seriously dumbed down by design." 4.0 might be, because they didn't have the time or the manpower to re-implement all the features and create GUI's for the options. In 4.1, those features are starting to make their comeback. "KDE 4 is unstable." Correction: KDE4.0 is unstable. "KDE 4 attempted to dumb down the file manager with Dolphin. " You still have Konqueror.... "KDE 4's new start menu is an insane joke. " It can be replaced with the classic menu in about 5 seconds.... "KDE 4's panel is not yet able to do 10% of what Kicker has been doing for me in KDE 3.5. " In 4.0, yes. In 4.1 things are considerably better already. "Now you may say that the KDE team is slowly changing it's mind on a lot of these issues " Not really. They are just implementing stuff that they didn't have time to implement for the 4.0-release. "You would be wrong, however, if you suppose that the harm was undone due to people like you praising every design flaw in KDE 4." There are flaws in KDE4.0, can you honestly say that there are flaws in KDE4? Do you base your opinion of KDE3 (which inludes KDE3.5.9) on KDE3.0?
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 10:28 UTC (Thu) by quintesse (subscriber, #14569) [Link] "You still have Konqueror...." Well, actually you don't, because Dolphin and Konquerer share the same file manager code. But it seems the Dolphin developers are busy getting most/all of the features of the old code back, so I'm hopeful. It just takes time.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 11:39 UTC (Thu) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] "Well, actually you don't, because Dolphin and Konquerer share the same file manager code." Well, actually, you do. Konqueror the app is still there, and it still caters to the powerusers.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 11:52 UTC (Thu) by quintesse (subscriber, #14569) [Link] Well actually, no, because the file manager part is now the same as Dolphin, which (at this moment) is less functional. So you're definitely not going to get the same experience with the 4.x Konquerer as with the 3.x So yes, Konquerer itself has improved (if we look only at the "framework") and the KHTML part as well, but for those "power users", that like Konquerer so much, the file manager part has definitely been "dumbed down". But in the end it's only temporary. A lot of work is still being done.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 13:49 UTC (Thu) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] "So yes, Konquerer itself has improved (if we look only at the "framework") and the KHTML part as well, but for those "power users", that like Konquerer so much, the file manager part has definitely been "dumbed down"" "Dumbed down" implies that features were intentionally removed. And that is not the case. Those lost features are coming back as we speak.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 16:36 UTC (Thu) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] Many features were deliberately removed and are only now returning thanks to overwhelming pressure from KDE users. IIRC a lot of the justifications for the initial KDE 4 direction (now slowly reversed) were made on Aaron's blog. I have to rely on my memory because Aaron's blog was recently made invitation only (not read only).
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 16:43 UTC (Thu) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link] You're taking too much credit if you think that features deliberately removed and are implemented only because of overwhelming pressure of users. I have an archive of all of aaron's blog entries since january 2007 and there's nothing that bears out your delusion.
The critics are right Posted Jul 3, 2008 23:24 UTC (Thu) by quintesse (subscriber, #14569) [Link] "Dumbed down implies that features were intentionally removed" You're right, that was not my intention. I want to state that personally I'm perfectly happy with KDE 4, even with 4.0. I've been using it since Fedora 9 came out (compiled from source and played around with it before, but not as my main DE) and am eager to know where it will all take us. What I don't care about is the tone discussions in "the community" (if such a singular beast exists) are taking as of late. Pity.
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