[PD] PD usability

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On 12 Feb 2003, Marc Lavallée wrote:

> I had a strange conversation yesterday with a teacher who basically
> said that free software sucks because of usability issues, and that
> he'll refuse to teach Pure Data because Max is vastly superior at the
> cognitive level. The segmented patch cord functionnality seems to be
> of major importance to him. He also seemed quite revolted by the
> installation process of the OSX version. So to him, the whole idea of
> free software is simply irrelevent. This man (who call himself an
> anarchist, go figure) is telling all those young people that they must
> pay a fortune to get a fancy Mac and a Max/MSP/Jitter licence.

You know what? He's right! PureData's GUI sucks compared to
MAX's! Moreover, jMax's GUI sucks compared to MAX's, and PureData's GUI
sucks compared to jMax's (except for speed)!

The logistic problems of Free Software (in general...) look like this:

 * free software is designed and written by programmers (which is not a
   problem by itself, it's only a fact of life that appears when
   analysing the problems);

 * programmers are not assigned to particular projects, except
   out of their own interest, or because of a friend wanting a bug
   fix, or because of paid contracts (usually about specific
   additions);

 * programmers are attracted to software that already meet
   certain criteria of usefulness and adequacy;

 * externally contributing programmers make source code modifications
   that often get refused by the maintainers, because: the maintainers
   don't need the feature and/or don't understand the need for the
   feature and/or would like the code meet certain additional criteria
   and/or would like to test the code themselves and/or don't have
   the time and/or don't have the interest. (usually a combination of
   several of the above);

 * programmers often add features for specific situations, by their own
   initiative, or on behalf of someone else, and in any case, the
   interested person is enough interested in the feature to be much
   more tolerant with usability/consistency problems;

 * users of a piece of software develop a "culture" and/or "language" 
   centered around the software's features and quirks, and are often
   oblivious to the problems and concerns outsiders have getting into
   that. (idiosyncrasy)

 * etc...

(note: Not all free software suffers from the same problems, nor suffer
from them in the same ways...)

In any case, the "convenience" aspect often outweighs the "Freedom"
aspect, mostly because "Freedom of programming is limited to those who
know how to code"... Reminescent of the old saying about owning printing
presses, but now more centered on the availability of know-how...



> How could we make PD better so these people would agree using free
> software? I stopped using Max because of its restrictive license, and
> I prefer PD to jMax because it's lighter and faster.

I prefer jMax because the GUI is less ugly.



> Most of us don't need fancy segmented patch cords

I don't need them, and have been able to survive without them, but it
doesn't mean i don't want them!!

> but can we focus a little bit on the graphical interface issues?

YES!!!

> I need those Mac addicts to use PD.

I need *myself* to use PD as well !



________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju