On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 07:23:29PM -0500, Bort, Paul wrote:
>On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 05:00:49PM -0500, Thomas Hu wrote:
>> Gene made some points but not all I agree with.
>> 
>> Friendly user interface (not necessary "fancy" GUI) is a measure of all
>> good quality software products. Amanda is not beyond the scope of this
>> view.
> 
> As always, it's open source. If the lack of a GUI bothers you enough, you
> can write one, or hire someone to write it for you. The software scratches
> the collective itch.

Thomas, Bernd, et al:

1) This discussion probably belongs on amanda-hackers.

2) As I see it, amanda is in no way obligated to be all things to all
people.  In fact, that is a rather stupid way to approach software
design.  Software should be primarily concerned with solving one
specific problem and doing the best job of that as is reasonably
possible.  See UNIX for details.

3) You seem to have a narrow view of the concept of user friendliness.
An easy to use interface which leads the user to take the wrong action
is far less user friendly than an interface with a learning curve which
empowers the user with the knowledge that he is taking the correct
action.  It is my opinion that amanda's current interface is
sufficiently user friendly to enable me as the administrator to do my
job and know that it is being done in a manner which is verifiably
correct.  The data I protect is worth many hundreds of thousands of
dollars in laboratory materials, instrument time and manhours.  It is
far more valuable for me to know that the data was backed up correctly
than to be able to use a mouse to do so.  Where data integrity is
concerned my job is on the line as are the academic careers of many of
my colleagues.  I take that very seriously.  Were I doing this job in a
corporate environment I would take it equally seriously.

4) Code talks.  Amanda is open source.  So far nobody who has complained
about the lack of a GUI has ponied up to write one.  Will you be the
exception?  Experience makes me doubt that you will.  If that offends
you, prove me wrong.

5) As far as I am concerned there is _ONE_ place in the entire amanda
model where a GUI would be useful.  The GUI is not useful for me as the
administrator.  A GUI for amanda could be quite useful however for
enabling individual users to schedule their own restores.  However, in
order for such an application to be possible amanda would need to
overhauled to support some concept of user accounts and permissions so
that individual users could be granted permission to restore their own
data.  That's a lot of work and should probably happen concurrently with
a transition away from rhosts style auth(orization|entication) so that
amanda transitions to a uniform model for such.

Brandon D. Valentine
-- 
Systems Administrator
Center for Structural Biology
Vanderbilt University