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From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: R5 wish list
Message-ID: <9007290907.AA22747@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 29 Jul 90 09:07:27 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 49

> The R5 Xtoolkit should give warnings when an invalid resource is
> accessed.

> From an END-USER[']S PERSPECTIVE, it is unreasonable for no errors to
> be reported when a user sets the wrong resource in an .Xdefaults,
> app-default or xrdb file.

Unfortunately for your position, it is impossible to fix.  Your
argument actually supports a different interface for end-users to use
for customizing programs.

The major problem with this sort of reporting is that *the widget
doesn't know* what resources are valid.  A window manager may well look
for resources that the widget has never heard of, to pick one simple
example.

(I do agree that a different interface is needed.  Editing .Xdefaults
files is an inappropriate way for computer-naive users to customize
programs, fine though it may be for programmer types.)

(I can't comment about your PROGRAMMERS[sic] PERSPECTIVE, because I
don't know the semantics of the routines you name, so I can't guess
whether similar problems apply.)

>	User: "there's a problem with ... the patient died"
>	Programmer: "bla bla constraint resource bla [...]..."

Try instead

	Programmer: "You used a tool without understanding it, and you
		accidentally misused it.  What's the problem?"

I'm entirely serious.  Nobody should use a tool without understanding
it unless they are prepared to accept the results of its malfunctioning
due to that lack of understanding.  (This applies to power saws, cars,
and scalpels just as much as computers.)  In most circumstances, the
potential results of possible misuse of computers are limited to things
like loss of time and waste of paper.

Cars, for example.  People are killed by the thousands on the highways
due to lack of understanding of their cars.  But nobody considers this
as due to a lack of user-friendliness by the cars.  Instead, those who
drive consider the risk acceptable (or I assume they do; with the news
of accidents always present, they can hardly be unaware of the risk.)

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu