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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KSysGuard renaming
From:       Greg Martyn <greg.martyn () gmail ! com>
Date:       2006-06-07 3:29:43
Message-ID: 200606062329.44372.greg () localhost ! localdomain
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Hi Aaron,
First thing I'd like to say is that I'm not as passionate about changing the 
name as my tone would suggest; either way is okay with me. I want to change 
the name enough to go through all the work of changing it, but I certainly 
don't want to upset anyone in doing so. With that said:

On Tuesday 06 June 2006 12:46 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> 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

What is the first thing that you think of?

> and ksysguard is pretty easy to arrive from from "kde system guard".

You don't think of ksystemguard? I know I've typed that a couple times. You're 
right though -- it's not that difficult. Nonetheless, there is something 
about it that just drives me nuts. Come to think of it, it's more of a 
problem when going in the reverse direction. It isn't trivial to parse 
ksysguard into KDE System Guard. You have to look at it for a little if you 
want to uncompress it into words. You have to make guesses about where the 
spaces go; about what abbreviation is what.

You know what? It's just a pet peeve. stringsoflowercaselettersarejustugly. I 
know you would hate it if this entire email was written that way. That's all 
there is too it. It was just exacerbated for me because while I'm working on 
ksysguard, I always have to keep an eye out for ksysguardd. It's long, but 
kde-system-monitor and kde-system-monitor-daemon are so much easier to read. 
Get a shell and an editor that can complete things like that for you, and 
thoseold conventions lookarchaic.

Other than inertia, why not change it? We have tab completion and we're not 
wasting valuable storage by being more verbose. We can use hyphens to 
separate words so that everything is more readable. If we're going to be 
renaming ksysguard anyway, (ksysmon?) we may as well throw off the shackles 
of the past and make the name as userfriendly as possible. After all, if a 
developer is willing to do it, why not let them make it as easy as possible 
for the user?

> what's bad here is that we now have a new style of names that doesn't mesh 
> with anything else.

It meshes very will with that other desktop environment that 1-2 (maybe 
more? :) people have installed on their computers. Type gnome-[tab][tab] in 
your shell. Then type k[tab][tab]. One of those looks a lot more 
professional. If it's just a matter of flipping some names, then I don't mind 
doing it. I've learned a thing or two from this debacle, and think that if 
done right, it could be done by one motivated person.

> 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.) 

Me too. I'm working on it simply because I hate so much about it. Well, let me 
put that differently: I see so much potential for it. It is a fantastic 
foundation to build on, but it was abandoned before it was done. It has a ton 
of problems that have just been languishing until John, and later I, started 
hacking on it.

> 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

Funny that you listed it that way.

Step #1 was recently completed. John Tapsell brought ksysguard load time down 
from 4 sec -> 1.5 sec and I brought ksysguardd load time down from 1.16 sec 
-> 0.19 sec. Combine those two patches, and you have what feels like a new 
program. These changes should have affected the applet as well, but I'll 
check to see if there is anything specific I can do to speed that up.

John and I are like starved dogs ready to take on UI complexity. We're 
bouncing ideas around, and will definitely be pushing some big improvements 
forward this summer. You don't have to worry about that.

>-then- perhaps we can visit a renaming.

The problem I see with waiting is that people will become more and more 
resistant to change as time passes. When things break completely right now, 
it's just business as usual; the dust settles and we move on. Hell, this is 
KDE 4. This is our chance to change whatever we feel needs fixing. This 
window is only open for so long though. Is it already closed?

> 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 

That reminds me of this thread: 
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=113597034719632&w=2

ksysguardd and libstatgrab were both considered, but I think this is a job for 
Solid. Integration with solid was going to be my SoC, but it looks like I'll 
be doing it for free :)


Anyway, it looks like a decision has already been made, and that is fine with 
me. I won't do anything to get in the way. I just wanted to voice my opinion 
on the subject.

Cheers,
Greg
 
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