[darcs-devel] user experience engineering note

[Nicolas Pouillard]

Excerpts from Alexander Staubo's message of Mon Jan 14 19:24:49 +0100 2008:
> On 1/14/08, zooko <zooko at zooko.com> wrote:
> > So this is a good example of how the problems of user experience are
> > sometimes different (and "simpler") than the problems of engineering
> > the actual core algorithms of your program.  "Responsiveness" is, I
> > think, the most important single factor in user interaction design.
> 
> I agree.

I agree too.

I'm sure that we loose many people due to darcs responsiveness.

In  fact, there is few darcs commands, but they are very powerful, perhaps too
much  powerful  sometimes.  Darcs  accept to start operations that are way too
long  to  complete.  The user can be easily frustrated because he doesn't know
if the command will run forever or complete the next second.

I  concede  that  using  lazy  functional  programming  makes progression more
difficult  than  usual.  It's in fact more challenging but we want to keep the
core code clear and unobstructed.

Best regards,

-- 
Nicolas Pouillard aka Ertai