[Pidgin] #562: case for old icons: Advantagous heuristics of differentiated protocol icons

[Pidgin]

#562: case for old icons: Advantagous heuristics of differentiated protocol icons
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  Reporter:  Ash           |       Owner:                
      Type:  defect        |      Status:  closed        
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:                
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |     Version:  2.0           
Resolution:  duplicate     |    Keywords:  icons protocol
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by merwin):

 Replying to [comment:11 elb]:
 > I see.  As we have said repeatedly, it ''is'' quite trivial -- but that
 does not mean it is something we choose to spend our time on.
 > Any programmer with more than a few thousand lines of real code under
 his/her belt could do it in an afternoon.  I assume, since your employer
 has been paying you to program for many years (or whatever), that you
 qualify.
 And the experience in GTK and the knowledge of Pidgin's code and plugin
 architecture would just poof out of nowhere? And if it would take "any
 developer with more than a few thousand lines of real code under his belt"
 an afternoon, it would stand to reason that one of the experienced Pidgin
 developers could do it in an hour or so.
 > The average user doesn't want protocol icons back.  A few noisy users
 do, usually for ill-conceived reasons (as yours turned out to be, of
 course).  If we were writing Pidgin for maximum profitability, you are
 completely right, we would have re-added this feature and continued to
 charge the same price for the software, raking in extra profit from that
 small minority of users who cannot stop and think about whether or not
 they ''really'' need protocol icons.  Fortunately, Pidgin is free, and we
 write it in our spare time on a volunteer basis, and as such we can
 concentrate on writing the best software we know how, optimizing for
 ''our'' needs without having to compromise for that last tiny fraction of
 users, no matter what unfounded  assertions about software design and
 usability are made.
 I am stopping and thinking about it. And after using it for the entire
 time that it's been put in the software, it still bugs the hell out of me
 not to have them there.
 > I think we can chalk this subthread up as one more "need" for protocol
 icons which was not a need at all, and move on.
 I'd just like to say that I used to believe was the superior IM client.
 However, the condescending attitude of developers such as yourself, who
 act like we are just ignorant idiots who can't wrap our heads around the
 concept of the new way, has somewhat soured my experience. Instead of just
 offering a plugin (which would have taken far less time than the back and
 forth with these "noisy users"), you get very abrasive with users who ask
 why it was removed.
 I hope that someone writes a plugin to show the icons again, so I can get
 back to using Pidgin again. Until then, I'm off to Trillian again

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Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/562#comment:12>
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