[OSM-talk] will we be nuked from orbit?

[Immanuel Scholz]

Hi,

> JOSM installation and usage is still much more difficult than it 
> could/should be. For example, I've implemented a Win32 JOSM installer
> and asked how to integrate it into an automated build process but
> got no response, so I've stalled this for now.

Oh.. If you wrote me, than I am sorry, I cannot remember to read a mail
about that. It probably got spam filtered :-O.

I was happy that someone started providing a windows installer for JOSM,
but after it became outdated, I thought he/she just lost interest. I
have to admit I didn't asked further who did it..


> It seems that the potential 90% user base of windows users is just 
> not interesting for our developers ...

Well, the reason is a different one: I haven't got a Windows-Box
regulary online to run InnoSetup regulary and I don't know a linux way
to build a windows installer.

And every "Java installer" I found wasn't less complicated than "place a
jar anywhere and double click it". Maybe except of Webstart, but even
then you have to have already Java5 installed.


> The spirit in the OSM developer community unfortunately still seems 
> to be: I'll do the cool new stuff and someone else probably will take
> it and make it easy and shiny.

No. I think I did many thinks to make JOSM more easily used by beginners
since it got used more and more by non-experts. Keep in mind that it was
not designed in the first place to be a newbie-Tool (or else it would be
a JavaScript Application running in IE and Firefox).

And I think sites like http://www.informationfreeway.org/ and
http://www.openstreetmap.org/ are very shiny and easy to use.


> P.S: BTW: Easy to use doesn't mean advanced features are not 
> available. It does mean that even advanced features can be used 
> intuitive, e.g. without experimenting an hour or reading the manual 
> three times!

There are people swearing that the HCI of GIMP is the world's best.
There are people swearing that GIMP is the worst piece of GUI disaster
ever coded.
I guess there are as many "GUI-experts" as there are Applications.


Ciao, Imi.

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