[fpc-pascal] SysLocale.PriLangID vs Mac OS X localization

Michael Van Canneyt michael at freepascal.org
Tue Jun 24 13:45:16 CEST 2008



On Tue, 24 Jun 2008, Adriaan van Os wrote:

> Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
> 
> > I invite you to visit ALL our customers. Most of them don't even
> > understand what a folder is. They *really* don't care about the
> > rules you mention. Most of them would even be far more happy with
> > a plain DOS application.
> > 
> > As our support staff says:
> > The best application has just 1 screen and 1 button: 'Click here',
> > which, when clicked, scans the user's brain and does what (s)he wants.
> > Some users will even manage to mess that up.
> 
> This kind of reasoning is really very sad. Bluntly sad, it says: "Our users
> are stupid, so our software can be stupid too". 

Well, 
the logical flaw in the statement aside, I suggest you contact Microsoft:

The support guys were referring to users using Microsoft software when they 
made this particular remark :-)

As for the software I develop: I believe in empowering the user, and
go to great lengths to ensure this by a consistent design, powerful 
tools for the end user, so he can do the task at hand (he has many 
of them) in any way he sees fit.

A comparative study about usability, ergonomics and user-friendlyness
- done by an independent party - between my software package and the 
other existing packages gave us twice as much marks as the first 
runner-up, so I believe I succeeded in my goal. 

We have also become the greatest player in the field, which goes a long 
way to back up this statement, if we can believe the rules said to govern 
the market.

Unfortunately, all this does not automagically improve the level of many
of our users, which happens to be rather low (through historical
circumstances beyond our control). But we try, nevertheless.

Michael.



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