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From: magnus%thep.lu.se@Urd.lth.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.112723.15274@lth.se>
Date: 28 Jan 91 11:27:23 GMT
References: <6388@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1991Jan23.003505.21615@dsd.es.com> <1991Jan24.222501.7054@research.canon.oz.au> <4488@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Sender: newsuser@lth.se (LTH network news server)
Reply-To: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund university, Sweden
Lines: 45

In article <4488@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <1991Jan24.222501.7054@research.canon.oz.au>, andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman) writes:
>> Give (non-programmer) ``users'' some credit ... a user who understands that
>> they can construct their own applications by plugging together some tools
>> in the correct order would want some easy mechanism to construct pipelines
>> (and pipelines aren't the only model).
>
>There are, unfortunately, some who want the software to do all their thinking
>for them.  It is only those who can be called non-programmers.  Anyone who has
>to put things together is already doing programming.

There will always be some people who (for various reasons) refuse to learn
*anything* about the systems they're using (not only computers). There'll
always be the kind of computer "user" who doesn't know what to do when their
computer asks them to "press any key".

However, the majority of users *are* prepared to learn how to use for example
a computer program *provided it's not too difficult*. The reason most users
don't know how to put applications together with pipes is perhaps that it's
perceived as too difficult? Maybe they *would* use pipes if their computer
presented them with an intuitively clear user interface? Like, many PC users
don't even know how to delete files - they've never bothered to learn, because
it's too difficult to remember all those cryptic three-letter commands in
MS-DOS. However, I've never met a single Macintosh user who didn't know that
you delete a file by dragging the icon to the trashcan.

One argument presented against a simple model for pipes (like the trashcan
model for file deletion) is that "users don't want to use pipes anyway".
I believe that if we make it easy enough fo them to use pipes, then they
wil use them! Herman Rubin means that a user who knows how to use pipes isn't
a user, he/she's a programmer. That's of course a matter of definition - but in
that case, let's give the users an opportunity to become "programmers" (in Mr.
Rubin's sense) without having to read thick books about Unix.

Users aren't stupid (at least, not most of them). However, most of them lack
the energy and motivation to think like programmers. Instead of forcing people
to adapt to computers, wouldn't it be much nicer if we adapted computers to 
people? 


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