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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KSysGuard renaming
From:       "Sean O'Brien" <me () seandiggity ! com>
Date:       2006-06-06 17:40:21
Message-ID: 200606061340.21138.me () seandiggity ! com
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I have ksysguard in my KDE panel (along with gnome-system-monitor in my Gnome 
panel, and the Windows Task Manager in my Windows taskbar).  If I want to 
kill a process or see how hard my processor's working, these are useful.

I'd rather use kysysguard than top to view/kill a process.  That said, 
ksysguard does need improvement.  I think gnome-system-monitor is much better 
and more lightweight; I'm glad the ksysguard developers plan to go in a 
similar direction.

As far as naming is concerned, Gnome's scheme is cleaner and easier to figure 
out than KDE's (for its core apps).  Sometimes I do cringe after reading the 
name of a KDE app because of the K prefix/suffix (who the hell wants to 
type "amaroK instead of "amarok"?).  However, the "K" prefix/suffix seems to 
be used more frequently by KDE developers than Gnome developers use a 
prefix "G" or the word "gnome"; I can tell that Kid3 or Kbilliards, for 
example, are written for KDE.

Why not stay consistent and call it "ksysmonitor" or "ksysmon", if the 
word "guard" is a problem?



On Tuesday June 6 2006 12:46 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 June 2006 09:34, Greg Martyn wrote:
> > 3. Think of the packagers!
> > Even if we don't switch all the way over to kde-system-monitor, I
> > think there is a strong argument for switching away from ksysguard.
> > IIRC, 'guard' meant something in a non-English language, but that
> > doesn't make it any less misleading to English speakers. I remember
> > being confused that the "system guard" has nothing to do with backing
> > up my files or protecting me from black hats. Guard -> Monitor is the
> > logical choice. Google tells me that that ksysmon may be in use, but I
> > can't find an actual ksysmon program to download. There is already a
> > kicker applet that goes by "System Monitor", but by the time KDE4
> > comes out, I hope to have ksysguard's applet encapsulate System
> > Monitor's behavior.
> >
> >
> > Personally I think that gnome got it right with their gnome-something
> > names. They are easy to guess (try typing 'gnome-'[tab][tab] for a
> > nice list of the gnome system apps), self explanatory, and anyone
> > without tab completion is used to suffering anyway. Even if you knew
>
> my experience with users on IRC says it gives no real advantage. this
> rename is mostly change for change's sake; one -still- has to know:
>
>  - it's a kde app
>  - it's called "system monitor" (not the first name that springs to my
> mind, btw, it's a learned thing)
>  - that it needs to get started
>
> and ksysguard is pretty easy to arrive from from "kde system guard".
>
> what's bad here is that we now have a new style of names that doesn't mesh
> with anything else.
>
> > that you wanted to open KDE System Guard, would you know to type
> > ksysguard? I think that it's time for a change.
>
> to be perfectly honest, i'm personally highly skeptical of ksysguard in
> general. (that's not the same as saying i'm skeptical of your abilities,
> which i'm not.)
>
> in fact, i really hope this naming thing doesn't end up becoming a big
> discussion that distracts from more important issues. instead of spending
> energy on renaming questions, i'd hope to see the performance[1],
> integration[2] and UI complexity issues of ksysguard be sorted out. once
> it's become all the app it can be ("in the a-a-a-army", sorry couldn't
> resist ;) and we're all fans of it again, -then- perhaps we can visit a
> renaming.
>
> as it is this just becomes one more reason to go "ugh" about ksysguard. my
> first thought when i saw the naming debacle on the commit digest list
> was, "so i wonder how long before ksysguard, er,
> kde-system-guard-with-a-long-name and kde-system-monitor-too, gets punted
> out to KEG?"
>
> so, to completely hijack this thread ;) ....
>
> WHO is the audience for ksysguard these days? because right now i see a
> big-system sys admin's tool that gets shipped with kdebase, and that's not
> what kdebase is for. if it's going to be an app for people who use kde in
> general, then a new UI is in order. i'd go so far as to suggest that the
> system monitor daemon ought to be farmed out to fd.o where everyone can use
> it and hack on it, the UI shipped in kdebase should be a simplified
> not-over-configurable (if at all!) but -very fast- (esp to launch) and
> small app (set of apps?) that simply show the basics of a process table and
> memory / cpu stats. the complex UI can move to kdeadmin for all the
> sysadmins of the world to revel in. the panel applet should also similarly
> be rethough along similar lines.
>
> that's just my 0.02 and perhaps that's already what you are considering
> doing. either way, discussing these issues rather than discussing naming
> would be much more productive at this point.
>
> [1] in particular the kicker applet is just attrocious
> [2] right now the process table takes too long to come up. IMHO it should
> be "always running" and really ought to be integrated with a select
> few 'core' ui pieces such as the 'run command' dialog
 
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