December 08, 2003

The Phrase and Who Pays

Felix Salmon has some solid points and wise predictions in: "War": What is it good for?

Which brings us, of course, to the "war on terror". I think that one of the differences between conservatives and liberals is that the former consider the war on terror to be a bit like the trains and the restaurants:not, perhaps, the kind of war you're used to, but a genuine war all the same. Whereas the liberals are more likely to consider it to be a metaphor, and are therefore much more likely to get upset when the US does something like invade a foreign country in its name.

And in fact, I think that many of the disagreements about the Bush administration's foreign policy basically come down to this largely semantic question. The hawks are saying "don't you understand, we're at war here", while the doves are saying "no, the 'war on terror' is a rhetorical device, not a prima facie justification for invading whomever you want".

Of course, we can all agree that the US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were real wars, with real troops losing their lives in battles for the control of foreign countries. But the decision to go to war in those countries is maybe not as difficult to make if you consider yourself to be at war anyway. Looked at from that point of view, Afghanistan and Iraq are important parts of a much bigger war, rather than unprovoked and probably illegal invasions of independent states.

As a general rule, I think it's probably safe to say that how you read the phrase "war on terror" is a very good predictor of how you'll vote. Literalists will vote to re-elect the present administration, while those who consider the phrase to be more metaphorical are likely to vote Democratic.

This is bad news for the Democrats, I think. Whoever ends up running against Bush is going to have a very hard time of things trying to persuade Middle America that the war on terror is a metaphor -- especially when most undecided voters are unlikely to even know what a metaphor is.

Posted by Vanderleun at December 8, 2003 02:28 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Due to the positioning of the Dock, remember that when you build an application, you have to be sure that new document window sizes and positions do not violate the Dock's space. Dock is temperamental and Dock loves his space. If you default to a window size that expands behind the dock, users will have a difficult time reaching the navigation and resize areas at the bottom of the screen. I can personally say that more than once I have been rather peeved that I couldn't get to an area of the window to resize because the default window settings always pop up behind the Dock. In addition, the new Dock in 10.1 will allow users to position their Dock location on either side of the screen as well.

Posted by: Prudence at January 12, 2004 06:29 PM

Adhere to File Locations. Make sure that when your users save documents, your application knows where to put them and also gives users flexibility.

Posted by: Gwenhoivar at January 12, 2004 06:29 PM

Adhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"

Posted by: Barnard at January 12, 2004 06:30 PM

If an application is designed well, the reward for users is that they will learn it faster, accomplish their daily tasks more easily, and have fewer questions for the help desk. As a developer of a well-designed application, your returns on that investment are more upgrade revenue, reduced tech support, better reviews, less documentation, and higher customer satisfaction. The rewards of building a good-looking Aqua application are worth taking the extra time.

Posted by: Ursula at January 12, 2004 06:30 PM

Clicking an application in the dock should always bring forward an active window. If the user clicks on an open app's icon in the Dock, the application is active and all unminimized windows come along with it. I have found a few problems with windows behaving independently of their application.

Posted by: Rawsone at January 12, 2004 06:30 PM

In building your amazing Aqua application, one of the most important things to consider is the Dock. There are three things your app needs to be "Dock Compliant." Now, I write this knowing that the Dock will be going through some major changes soon, but for the most part, these should still hold true.

Posted by: Ninion at January 12, 2004 06:30 PM

So far in these articles, I have only dipped a toe or two into Aqua's pool. I have covered basic aspects of building an Aqua-compliant application, including the building of photo-illustrative/3D application icons. Now it's time to address other components of our Mac OS X application.

Posted by: Ninion at January 12, 2004 06:31 PM

Adhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"

Posted by: Amie at January 12, 2004 06:31 PM

Okay, I just told you what Apple wants you to look out for with window positions, but in the real world, not everyone uses the hiding feature of the Dock, and it is unrealistic to be able to predict where each user will place their Dock at any given day or how large they will have it. However, you can build a feature into your application that allows spacing for the Finder. You can give users the option of where to position their windows and what area of the screen not to cross. I know that BBEdit provides me with this feature, and I wish more developers gave me more control over my windows.

Posted by: Rawsone at January 12, 2004 06:31 PM

User Assistance. This is helping the user with the proper "next step" when performing a task. Less guesswork for the user on what to do next makes for a better experience.

Posted by: Richard at January 12, 2004 06:31 PM
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