RE: [platform-releng-dev] Contributing to the rebuild

["Walter Harley" <eclipse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Will we have to do a last minute polish request to 
> move everything from the package explorers 'Build path'
> menu to the new 'Configure' menu? 

I sure hope that existing menu items, at least the ones that I care
about :-) , do not change.  At this point, there are plenty of users out
there trained to the current UI, as well as books, technical articles,
technical support scripts, automated test scripts, and possibly Help
entries that reference it.  I think UI is like API: even if it's not
ideal in retrospect, changing it once it's established has a cost. 

I'm feeling touchy about things like that right now, because my new job
has required me to switch from Windows XP to Vista, and Vista is full of
little changes in the names of properties, locations of menus, and so
forth.  I feel like it's really severely hurt my productivity over the
last month - I no longer instinctively know where to look on a screen,
where to reach with the mouse, what applet to launch to get something
done.  I'm sure someone thinks the Vista way is better, but this is a
case where stability would have helped me more than someone's abstract
ideas about UI perfection.

Just as with API, there are always arguments both ways, and it's never
an easy decision.  I don't claim to know what's right in all cases.  But
I do think it would be wrong for downstream teams to rearrange their
existing menu structures in RC2 without serious case-by-case
consideration of who will be disrupted by the change.

 -walter