Boy who cried wolf in reverse? [LWN.net]

Boy who cried wolf in reverse?

Posted Jun 13, 2025 17:21 UTC (Fri) by hmh (subscriber, #3838)
In reply to: Boy who cried wolf in reverse? by dskoll
Parent article: Ubuntu 25.10 to drop support for GNOME on Xorg

There is a whole bogon source/sink pseudo-quantum-mechanics joke theory around this.

But I don't think anyone did a double-blind mass experiment to search for individuals that really experience significant more issues (or significant less issues) than the median... And I struggle to even come up with a remotely serious attempt at how would one even design such an experiment.

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Boy who cried wolf in reverse?

Posted Jun 14, 2025 10:32 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

I think this is partly to do with brain wiring.

If the programmer thinks one way, and the user thinks another, then the default expectations won't match. The user won't use the program the way the programmer thought they would. So the user is much more likely to tickle bugs. Throw in the sort of user who also thinks "what happens if I try THIS?" and they can be a nightmare for programmers as they break everything left right and centre.

As a textual person, not a visual, I don't like wysiwyg, and you've heard me wax lyrical about WP's "reveal codes". I hate Word (and by extension lowriter, sorry), because I simply cannot get my head round how it works, so as a result "nothing works" for me ...

Cheers,
Wol