Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!cap From: cap+@cs.cmu.edu (Chris Paris) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NOT (click to type) in NeXTStep? Message-ID: <1990Nov7.104603.7453@cs.cmu.edu> Date: 7 Nov 90 10:46:03 GMT References: Sender: netnews@cs.cmu.edu (USENET News Group Software) Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Lines: 43 In article <1990Nov7.005656.26478@Neon.Stanford.EDU> philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) writes: >If you want one more, it forces all users to either become designers or >make do with whatever suboptimal setup they inherit from however they got >their initial setup from. Look at it this way: a BMW or a Honda has a >professionally designed interior. The placing of controls may be a bit >different but, because the design is good, you get used to it quickly. >Imagine if the switches and controls came packed in a separate box and >you had to figure out how to position them optimally. Ergonomics is a >difficult subject in car design; it is no easier in human-computer >interaction. I'd rather have mildly inconsistent interfaces designed by >professionals than be forced to design my own. "Professionals" don't >always get these things right of course; that's why there are certain >makes of car I wouldn't drive. But this is no argument for demanding total >customization. > No. The ability to customize allows users to become designers, or make do with whatever setup they inherit from the manufacturer. In NeXTStep today, the above disjunction is missing. We are forced to make do with whatever (hard-coded) setup the manufacturer has provided. Allowing customization doesn't create problems for those who don't want it. It simply allows solutions for those who do. I agree that new users of X often inherit some pretty lousy setups. I also agree that X is far from turnkey. This is not a problem with X, but rather a problem with X support. When a commercial organization such as DEC (or NeXT) decides to supply X as a standard on its machines, there is an obligation to provide a reasonable set of defaults, just as NeXT was obligated to supply a "reasonable" set of defaults for its NeXTStep. In NeXTStep, these defaults were provided by means of hard-coding them into the program. In X, they would be provided by a set of configuration files, which users could change at will, or ignore if they didn't want to become "designers." Some things in NeXTStep work differently than some users would like, but provide the same functionality. Click to type is such a thing. However, other aspects of NeXTStep are simply restrictive, such as not being able to type in a window that is not on top (I'm talking about 1.0 here, I'll believe claims about 2.0 when I see it). This limitation will make it more difficult for me to get my work done, and this is just one reason why I plan to run X when I get my machine. Chris Paris cap@cs.cmu.edu