Code review comment for lp:~albertomilone/gnome-control-center/randr-virtual

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Rick Spencer
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Alberto Milone wrote:
>> On Thursday 29 January 2009 17:48:37 Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
>>> Alberto Milone wrote:
>>>> Alberto Milone has proposed merging
>>>> lp:~albertomilone/gnome-control-center/randr-virtual into
>>>> lp:~ubuntu-core-dev/gnome-control-center/ubuntu.
>>>>
>>>> Requested reviews:
>>>> VCS imports (vcs-imports)
>>>>
>>>> With xserver 1.6, the ctrl-alt-backspace shortcut for killing X has been
>>>> defaulted to off.
>>>>
>>>> At UDS it was decided for Ubuntu to accept this upstream change, but to
>>>> provide GUI mechanisms for GNOME allowing the user to switch it on or
>>>> off.
>>>>
>>>> This branch implements this mechanism.
>>> I very much appreciate Alberto's work in implementing this, but would
>>> like to test the decision against our commitment to ease of use. I think
>>> enabling or disabling this feature in X is an expert option. I think we
>>> can choose to enable it, or disable it, and of course we can allow
>>> experts to change that through a config file or through a rebuild, but
>>> this capability *should not* be exposed to end-users as a GUI option. It
>>> will create more confusion than it will solve.
>>>
>>> Mark
>>
>> Dear Mark,
>>
>> I see your concern but the option which my patch adds is very simple, see the
>> following screenshot:
>> http://albertomilone.com/ubuntu/gnome/gnome3.png
>>
>> It says "Ctrl+Alt+Backspace restarts the xserver" and doesn't even mention the
>> word "DontZap".
> Alberto,
>
> While setting the option is simple:
> 1. It does make it too easy for novice users to inadvertently set up
> their machines to do something that is potentially undesirable.

This doesn't make any sense at all. What is unclear about
"Ctrl+Alt+Backspace restarts the xserver" ? What is undesirable is for
users to have a frozen X and have to hard reboot their machine.

> 2. Every option that we add to Ubuntu diminishes the value of every
> other option. I think this is an important point to consider. Is this
> option important enough to add to the cognitive effort that Ubuntu users
> must invest?

That's a nice platitude but I don't see how allowing an option for a
frequently used feature that has been removed is going to make the
100s of other options in the user desktop any less valuable.

> Users have to stop and consider if they should use the option. What is
> it? Should I care? At that point they have already paid a price.

Good grief, it's a checkbox, not an entrance exam or something.
According to Alberto's screenshot there is all of 3 checkboxes. If
we're going to be that strict on UI choices then how about I trade you
a checkbox for the refresh rate drop-down? Users have to think about
what the heck a refresh rate is, what numerical value works for them.
There's no indication of what a refresh rate is, etc.

> Therefore, we should be absolutely certain that the benefit to users is
> worth it. In this case, I wonder if the option really gives us an out
> with the vocal users who don't want to see the option changed, and there
> fore is meant to benefit us, not the users.

More often than not, what benefits users benefits us. We're already
turning off the option by default, why is it so hard to think that
giving users an option to return a behavior that has been around for
years is good for the users? Why is it hard to think that users just
might want to be able to get out of a sticky situation without playing
CLI tricks.

One more point. This is *so* not the place nor time to have a
conversation like this. This change was already discussed at UDS and
is ready for prime time. If you have a problem with it, use the
ubuntu-devel mailing list.

-Jordan