I’ve used mainstream image editors like Photoshop, Paint.NET and Gimp; some of my best friends are mainstream image editors. And when I saw Gimp I almost went blind. Children were weeping; fruit was bruising. The UI could kill small animals.
Really? Did you really have to say it that way? I use the Gimp every day, and it's quite good in my opinion. It does what I tell it to, and not what I "mean". Photoshop does what you "mean", as defined by Adobe. As an example why that's wrong, something like "I'll interpolate this scaled bitmap linearly, thanks" is frequently the wrong solution, but happens anyway when you scale a section of an image.
Now I know this article isn't about the Gimp, but when someone wants to spark a flamewar by claiming the user interface to the Gimp causes him "to go blind", it really discredits his other claims nearly instantly.
Why would an irrelevant over-statement discredit the other points? It's a literary device. I'm sure you could mentally replace comments about going blind with "I do not like the user interface of Gimp".
I mean is it really necessary to take it quite so literally? Jumping up and down about deliberate hyperbole and then arguing that it invalidates anything else written in close proximity makes it seem like you probably just stopped reading at that point and didn't evaluate the actual claims made.
> Why would an irrelevant over-statement discredit the other points? It's a literary device.
As someone who doesn't use Photoshop or Gimp, I can't comment directly on how hyperbolic the comment is. That said, overblown hyperbole sometimes indicates the writer is willing to take liberties when writing about more substantive things. The validity of this here depends on how much blindness you think Gimp actually induces.
(Soccer is so boring! It's like watching a slower version of paint drying! Cricket is the sport of kings! <- Here, the hyperbole may indicate that this is argument from [rationalized] fanboyism, as opposed to argument from a more reasoned opinion.)
Interesting. All I get from that statement is that you enjoy cricket more than soccer. By over-stating the point, you've just shown that you emphatically hold that view. It conveys nothing about why you hold that opinion. Also, the fact that it is so obviously over-stated makes it reasonably clear that your tongue is most likely in your cheek, and you don't actually believe soccer to be more boring than paint drying slowly.
Perhaps I'm just defending the original post because I personally am inclined towards hyperbole as a literary device, just like everybody else in the entire universe is.
I think I view the emphasis as a substitute for reason. I (perhaps unnecessarily) reason that a reasoned opinion would substitute that reason for the emphasis, e.g., "soccer is boring because of [example of slow play], although [concession to artistry], [example of cricket's intriguing batplay in relation to soccer] makes cricket a more interesting game". In the article, hyperbole (and presumed common experience with the presumed bad Gimp UI) was a substitute for reason.
In your final line, your hyperbole supplements your reasoning without supplanting it.
(If I were to call a 'confirm password' dialog an onerous, Herculean task before talking about an otherwise unrelated part of the user experience you might expect I am poorly calibrated with the real world.)
> The validity of this here depends on how much blindness you think Gimp actually induces.
Perhaps you've mistyped, but how much blindness do you actually think it may induce? Perhaps you could specify a range of blindness which you find plausible.
If you disagree with the basis of the hyperbole (i.e., that Gimp's UI is bad), the rest of the conversation derails, as seen with a few comments posted here. If you agree, then it fits and nothing goes wrong.
If you recommended listening to new band A instead of my preferred band B, I might listen to new band A. If you recommend new band A after saying my preferred band B sounds worse than a dying giraffe, I will probably be okay presuming I wouldn't enjoy new band A.
(I would, however, say that band C sounds like two dying giraffes, band D like a sick weasel, and band E like a happy songbird with bronchitis.)
Ah, OK. I do see what you're saying. At the same time, it's not really possible to come with an example that everyone's going to agree with. The author's point should still stand - regardless of how you feel about GIMP specifically, surely you've felt the same about some other app before.
Hyperbole, like exaggeration, is a euphemism for a lie; it is a common and socially accepted lie, but it is still a lie. If you catch someone lying about something, wouldn't you worry about whether he was lying about something else that you were less informed about? I admit neurotypicals don't seem to care much about lying, probably because you can't seem to help yourselves, but some of us do care.
So if I said to you that my laptop "weighs a ton", it will diminish my credibility with you simply because its mass is not literally 2000 pounds? That seems rather cynical, or at least uncharitable.
Deliberate hyperbole is not a "lie" in any sense of the word I understand, because it is not designed to deceive anyone. It's generally done as an expression of hand waving. You are being deliberately imprecise, either because you genuinely don't know the real value (in which case "guessing" would be presenting a deceptive level of precision which you do not actually have), or for humorous effect - to make a point more emphatically.
The laptop example used below is good. Saying "this weighs a ton!" is much less deceptive than if I took a guess and said "this weighs 2 kilograms". It obviously doesn't weigh a ton, because its density would probably exceed that of all known elements. Saying it weighs a ton has two connotations: 1) That I don't know how much it weighs (or it is irrelevant to the conversation) and 2) I am finding it difficulty to carry because its weight is beyond that which I can carry comfortably. Saying "this weighs 2 kilograms" does not convey the same information.
Similarly, making an overstatement like "Gimp's UI makes me go blind" is clearly not designed to deceive anyone. It is physically impossible that Gimp's UI would have made a person go blind. The person saying this is not asking you to believe it, instead, he is saying "I find Gimp's UI very visually unappealing, and the reasons for this are not important right now).
So, in summary, hyperbole is not the same as lying. Lying is not "anything that is untrue", lying is deception, and the suggestion of deliberate deception where none exists is quite offense to most people!
It seems like there are two conditions that must be met for something to be a lie: there must be a falsehood and that falsehood must be presented with the intent to deceive. Hyperbole, exaggeration and sarcasm may, strictly speaking, be falsehoods, but the intent is clearly not to deceive.
I used to despise the GIMP because of its interface. All those clunky windows... Yes, I'm aware that there are forks which add MDI support, but meh, I want to use the official version..
Then I switched to a tiling window manager and now those horid multi-window layouts are... the greatest thing ever. To me, its as if they have a single window layout, but with a huge amount of flexibility in how I want the layout. Now I like the GIMP and its multi window system and dislike MDI/single layout programs :D
So.. an interface is the best thing ever to one person and it turns another person "blind".
Really? Did you really have to say it that way? I use the Gimp every day, and it's quite good in my opinion. It does what I tell it to, and not what I "mean". Photoshop does what you "mean", as defined by Adobe. As an example why that's wrong, something like "I'll interpolate this scaled bitmap linearly, thanks" is frequently the wrong solution, but happens anyway when you scale a section of an image.
Now I know this article isn't about the Gimp, but when someone wants to spark a flamewar by claiming the user interface to the Gimp causes him "to go blind", it really discredits his other claims nearly instantly.