[Gambas-user] Packager appears broken in Gambas 2.0.0 under Ubuntu Hardy

[Bob Warren]

Interesting input. Points taken. Thanks guys.

The only thing that frightens me about geeks is the fact that they often 
prefer innovation to the proper presentation of what they have already 
produced. So here we have a case of a broken program (Gambas 2.0.0) 
being offered through a standard channel for software that is supposedly 
stable. People try it out, get disappointed, and forget all about Gambas.

And then follows the suggestion that if said potential user has real 
programming ambitions, and is worth his salt, then he sorts it out, 
because it is not really that difficult. The "out-of-the-box" experience 
shouldn't matter.

I am no marketing expert, since all my professional/computer experience 
since the early 1960s has involved training and education. However, I 
definitely think there is something wrong here somewhere. I just think 
that Gambas is good enough to succeed, that's all, and it would be a 
pity to see it marginalize a great number of potential non-geeky users 
(or people like me who get impatient with what I regard as typically 
geeky presentation).

Whatever, the community has promptly solved my problem, which reflects 
its quality, and I am happy.

Best,

Bob

P.S. On the theme of presentation, perhaps I should have mentioned one 
other aspect of the packaging wizard that bothers me a bit, and perhaps 
needs sorting out as far as possible. I am presented with two 
tree-views: "Package group" and "Menu entry". No doubt I can elucidate 
myself about what the meaning of these two views is, or was originally. 
What I know is that I have to decide where to put my program on the HD, 
and where the launcher should be placed within the Ubuntu menus. 
Whatever I choose among these 2 trees - that seem to bear little 
relationship with the distro I am using, the launcher always seems to 
end up in the "Other" category. Rather than presenting the user with 2 
sets of generic categories that are perhaps inappropriate, would it be 
very difficult (or even advisable) to make them correspond more closely 
to the distro being used to produce the package? Or could these 2 
destinations even be cited rather than chosen? [I am, of course, aware 
that this little request touches on stuff that goes into deep technical 
waters. Nevertheless, it is perhaps worth evaluating what, if anything, 
can be done to improve the situation.]