Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven!decuac!hussar.dco.dec.com!mjr
From: mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: readline bashing (was POSIX bashing)
Message-ID: <1991Apr04.025733.18462@decuac.dec.com>
Date: 4 Apr 91 02:57:33 GMT
References: <70319@brunix.UUCP> <27F43DE6.4B53@wilbur.coyote.trw.com> <564@bria>
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Washington Ultrix Resource Center
Lines: 33

In article <564@bria> uunet!bria!mike writes:

>Robert is quite right.  Quite often, the overhead incurred (memory usage,
>CPU hogging, and frustrated users) is not worth the minimal advantage of
>having 1001 inline editing capabilties, most of which go unused.

	This is something that's always amazed me - I'm suspect that if
format studies were done, we'd find that only a minor amount of the
"nifty functionality" that gets added to applications is ever used. Does
anyone have pointers to any real research in this area? Has anyone done
any studies about, say, what amount of the average editor's command
set is used (10%? 15%?) or - the average window manager's? How much
useless code is actually out there - has anyone even tried to measure
it?

	I seem to recall reading someplace that the original UNIX
accounting utilities were also used as a tool to feed back what
commands were consuming how many resources, versus how much they
were being used, etc. Does anyone still do this? Does anyone *DARE*!?

	A good friend of mine has this theory that computers today
are really no more useful than the woefully "obsolete" ones we see
in the computer museum - by the time you factor in the amount of
sheer gunk they're wasting their time doing (painting nifty-keen 3-d
widgets, etc, etc, etc) and the sheer human cost of *understanding*
all that gunk, they are no faster, no more cost effective, and no
more capable at doing "real work" than they used to be. Of course,
that's an utterly insane argument, isn't it?

mjr.

--
the preceeding was personal opinion of the author only.