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From: vinoski@apollo.HP.COM (Stephen Vinoski)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: shell architecture (to glob or not to glob)
Message-ID: <4f5c65f2.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 22 Jan 91 17:38:00 GMT
References: <360@bria> <1991Jan17.185527.9824@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <365@bria> <4584@lib.tmc.edu>
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Reply-To: vinoski@apollo.HP.COM (Stephen Vinoski)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Apollo Division; Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 25

In article <4584@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <365@bria> mike@bria.UUCP (Michael Stefanik) writes:
>>The real challenge is to provide an end-user interface that is simple to
>>use, and covers most of the bases.  However, a fundamental deviation from
>>the philosphy of "power to the programmer" would be a major mistake, in my
>>mind anyhow.
>
>Unix is at the far end of the scale: it's actively user-hostile. Power to
>the programmer means incomprehensibility to the user. I wouldn't even
>consider handing a user a raw $ or % prompt, X terminal or not. It's simply
>too daunting. Unix' terseness is a win for a programmer, but a major loss
>for a user. It took me two years of running a Unix system at home before I
>got comfortable with it, and I'm a systems programmer by trade. How long
>does it take a user?

Thank you for reinforcing my opinion of those who call themselves "systems
programmers."  Two years?  Sheesh!


-steve


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