Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!micor!isishq!testsys!doug From: doug@testsys.uucp (Doug Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Virtual Manipulation Message-ID: <777060869DN5.52@testsys.uucp> Date: Sat, 01 Jun 91 02:05:46 EDT References: Reply-To: doug@isishq.fidonet.org Distribution: na Organization: SKAN Communications Inc. - Ottawa, Canada Lines: 163 In article (Bryan Bankhead) writes: > I know the coming supremacy of GUI's and VR's is causing stress among unix > freaks, and will gradually invalidate all the time and effort they spent > learning it. But in the world of the future there will just be too much > going on in dataland and it will changing to fast to fit through the > needle (and learning curve) of command line interfaces. GUI's ARE the > future It should be remembered that some of the most advanced GUIs are running on unix boxes. Unix is not an antonymn for GUI. And a GUI access to commands does not in any way invalidate having learned what the command is about. No one can argue against the fact that GUI helps the novice get some functional handle on a new application. Many people will argue that GUI tends to confine the educated user of a familiar application within a restrictive set of limitations. And the user that never learns there is any other way but GUI often ends up spending much longer in repetitive keystrokes/clicks that could be eliminated with a little batch file/shell script. I am not opposed to GUI - though I have seen some implementations that take very simple tasks and make them very tedious - though probably easier to understand the *frist* time one encounters them. I *love* having a GUI on a new application. Makes it easier to learn. I despise not being able to automate specific processes by calling them from a command line in a shell script/batch file. > Doug Thompson's post on virtual manipulation seems to suggest 'why doesn't > everybody just use unix?' It seems to me he has been stuck too long in a > mini-mainframe environment. My perspective on computer use is 180 degrees > from his. I am an inverterate micro user and welcome the comins supremacy > of the GUI. Well you're rather wrong there - I have a lot of DOS experience and a modicum of unix experience, most all of it on micros. Like ever heard of Xenix 286? Or SCO Unix on a 386? I don't think the size of the computer, once you're at the XT with a hard disk level, matters much in terms of how a user interface and operating system should be shaped to do two things: a) make it easy for the user to get at the system with a handful of simple commands and b) make it easy for the user to get at the functionality of all applications and link them in new and novel ways that the programmers might never have thought of. Whether your interface is command line or GUI, UNIX does the latter well. I think my real concern is that users are prevented from understanding and taking control of their computers by some GUI designs. This is not inherent in GUI, it is just a common limitation. These limitations in understanding and barriers to taking control box users in, prevent them from learning (which is different from reducing the learning curve to make use of an application) and leave them in a position of feeling like the helpless victims of the interface designer. Unix may have 400 commands and DOS maybe 50, but the typical user can accomplish a tremendous amount with a dozen and the ability to write simple batch files/shell scripts. For an administrator, the manuals you have to deal with are numerous, yea. For the users, this is not the case in unix. A rather modest amount of documentation is all that is required In DOS, if you know DIR, COPY, TYPE, CHDIR, MKDIR, RMDIR, ERASE, TREE PRINT and MORE with a little about redirection and piping you have the tools to explore and manipulate a DOS file system pretty effectively. Anyone can be taught mastery of these commands in an hour or two. I despair when I encounter users who can't get out of their wordstar menus to the operating system to see what's really there. Menus are extremely handy and I'm *not* knocking their value. I am just trying to point out the fact that the failure to understand or teach the fundamentals of the OS ends up crippling users. And what needs to be learned to give a user a good deal more control over the system is not immense or even difficult. I'm all for user-friendly software. What I'm against is expert-hostile software that assumes the user is an ignorant child and makes sure the user stays that way. But you're right - I think everyone should use unix, and there is good reason to believe that most people will be before too many more years have passed. The NeXt, the ultimate in GUI and networking environments, is a unix shop. Unix unleashes the power of 286, 386 and 486 machines a lot better than DOS or MS-Windows. And hey, I'm not even using vi - or unix - to post this. I'm using MicroEMACS on a DOS 286 laptop running DistNet (UUCP for DOS) software. This message will be shipped out over the modem to another DOS 286 system (running waffle UUCP for DOS) which in turn will link to a 386 running Xenix which will call a SUN running SUNOS (unix), etc. So yes, I live in a world of micros. BIG, MEAN, POWERFUL micros :-). I think the real issue I'm getting at is user education. It is not my desire to make things unnecessarily difficult for beginners, rather it is my question as to whether we programmers sometimes make life harder by trying to make it easier, and in the end *prevent* people from gaining a better understanding of what is really going on, and prevent them from being able to take control of their processes. What you are talking about I think is the value of standardized interfaces between applications so that editing a line of text is editing a line of text - same commands no matter what application you're using. YES I agree wholeheartedly! And when there are a finite number of choices available to you, optionally list those in a menu for the user to select. YES, I agree with you. BUT, when I know exactly what I want to do, which menu options I want to pick, let me write my command line into a command file and execute it with a single keystroke, *please*. And let me automate that with cron functions so that it happens every day by itself from then on without my having to use any interface at all. *PLEASE*. And as for command lines being gobbledygook as you state, or illogical, as others have stated, well they are no more gobbledygook or illogical than Greek or Latin. They are just unfamiliar. And they are *not* that hard to learn for most users, given that very few commands need to be memorized. If you think about the specialized jargon associated with automobiles that all motorists learn, you will find it is a good deal more complex and takes people longer to learn than the minimum necessary set of commands for a user of unix or DOS to gain a great deal of control over the system. I still think our expectations of computers - that they will not just work for us, but that they will alleviate the need for thinking - are dangerous and unrealistic - and in the end destructive. I understand the desire for simiplification - but some things just are not amenable to simplification. I.E. some things really are complex and convoluted and if you are going to deal with them effectively and sensitively you have to have some understanding of the complexities. The average grade four student in Canada has a vocabulary of 6000 words. And there are real limits to what you can do with only 6000 words. A unix sysadmin needs a vocabulary of 400 more. A mere users needs only a couple of dozen for most things. And of course English *is* illogical and it sure looks like gobbledygook to the average Somalian. But if you want to get control and mastery of communication, you need to learn a natural language and you need to learn it well, and you need a lot more than 6000 words! Once again, I'm not knocking GUI as a tutorial device, nor standardization of interfaces. I'm knocking the idea that you can ever reduce complexity and subtlety to a few icons without losing something very important - like the power that is really there. =Doug --- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP: isishq!testsys!doug DNS: doug@isishq.fidonet.org Voice: 613-722-4724 Fido: Doug Thompson on 1:163/162 POST: P.0. Box 3041, Stn C., Ottawa, K1Y 4J3, CANADA ----------------------------------------------------------------------