[arch-projects] Keeping the list alive!

[Andy Roberts]

On Monday 01 Aug 2005 13:59, Rasatmakananda wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 15:27 +0300, z4ziggy wrote:
> > i still think Arch can use a good pacman-frontend, but i would prefer
> > seeing a pygtk wrapper (as i think xerxes2 is trying todo with lazypac,
> > and as the Frugalware guys are aiming for the same goal) will be more
> > Arch oriented (KISS). with that said, im still sure many users will
> > appreciate your work and wont mind using a java frontend :)
>
> The "magic" word is KISS that touches Archers' interest. It doesn't mean
> it cannot be GUI, its something else what users consider as "simple". In
> Arch "simple" is different what other distros are considering. Not easy
> to grasp. The "the Arch way" is good to read before starting a project
> for Arch.
> http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
>

I had studied the Arch Way for a while. I couldn't decide whether my app 
contradicted TAW. In someways, it obviously has because you can't get to the 
full pacman functionality via the GUI. However, I felt I had achieved the 
majority without dumbing down and losing usability. It's a tricky balance. 
There just seemed to be a need for a frontend. I wasn't personally convinced 
that it was essential. My original motivation for Jacman was to show just how 
much more efficient one could be with pacman via the command-line as opposed 
to a GUI! However, some people are comfortable with GUIs. Just think how 
synaptic has helped make Debian (and its derivatives) more attractive to 
average users rather than using apt. Horses for courses. I still use pacman, 
of course :)

> What I didn't know, only recently, not confirmed, the selection of
> language is also part of Arch's concept of KISS.
> http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=13576
>

This is surely from a programmers perspective, i.e., languages that make 
programming easy. I really don't think that language choice was part of 
Judd's vision, since he's a C programmer.

Andy