Examination of a Linux Gui, w/color commentary

[brian]

On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 10:53, travis at scootz.net wrote:
> > However his "idea" that the whole thing
> > should just discover your network and list for you only the available
> > options is tad bit off as well.
> 
> Why is making networks easier to use a bad idea?

It is not, when done right.  But it's a 0 or 1 thing... If you can't do
it all the way, then you should attempt to best-effort a half-ass guess,
which in most cases is just as bad, or worse.

> 
> > How would it know that you had
> > permissions to actually print to each printer?
> 
> It should be able to check that you have permissions and not add it to
> your list of printers if you can't print to it.

What does it use to "check permissions"?  You current login?  Every
possible uid/passwd on the box (keep in mind, you're usually running the
setup as root).  What if the printer just has a generic
username/password associated with it (ie: a high-end color printer in
the marketing department)?  How will the program know about that?

> > What if it "recommends"
> > the wrong or sub-optimal printer?
> 
> You go into your list of printers and change the default.

But, the program just *told* you what the "Recommended" printer is/was. 
If it is so smart, why should you be expected to know that you might
have to go change it?

> 
> > What if it finds 2 identical printers
> > in two distant areas of the building and confuses the user about which
> > one should be used?
> 
> While the printer models could be the same they should have some kind of
> name.

Yes, they should.  But what if they don't?  The user thinks their print
install completed successfully, but nothing comes out of the Laserjet
1200 next to their cube (of course, someone at the other end of the
building is wondering who keeps printing "test pages" on their envelopes
in the Laserjet 1200 by *their* cube.)

>  It's up to whoever set up the network to name the printer's properly
> (3rd floor Deskjet whatever, Joe's LaserJet II, etc)

Quite often the printers may be setup by the same folk trying to now use
them from the desktops.  They may not be labelled properly...

I know a lot of these may seem to be silly arguments, it's just the
other end of ESR's rant about how all this should be so simple to
implement.  In real life, it's not so simple because there are far too
many variables you (you being the programmer, not you being you) simply
cannot know.  Trying to code for every possible iteration becomes far
too much overhead...