Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!n8emr!bluemoon!bmb
From: bmb@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Bankhead)
Subject: Virtual Manipulation
Message-ID: <6gH233w164w@bluemoon.uucp>
Sender: bbs@bluemoon.uucp (BBS Login)
Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[0][2][4])
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 91 18:54:16 EDT

There are a few myths I would like to adress,

1.  Text is Flexible
When debating the subject of GI's I constantly come upon the idea that 
something is going to be lost in the capacity to do things with the system 
because it misses the 'flexibility' of text.  Text is not flexible.  
PEOPLE primarily communicate in text and PEOPLE are flexible.  People can 
extract meaning from the most mangled syntax.  CLI's cannot.  The syntax 
use in a complex command line interface requires VERY rigid use. sometimes 
subtle errors can derail the whole thing.  A lot more is require to use 
unix than just the 400 commands mentioned above.  It requires mastering a 
variable yet quit rigid syntax.

2. Xwindows is a GUI
Sorry dudes but opening a window to type in unix file trash is NOT a GUI.
X windows has the potential to become a GUI but I haven
t seen it happen yet. (maybe it has something to do with the 1000 
primitives)

3. You can't automate processes on a GUI
I am using a macintosh program called Microphone which has an advanced 
scripting capacity that can be built using a point and shoot GUI method 
that is quit elegant.  anyone who has so much a programmed in basic can do 
the most complex things with it and even if you've never programmed you 
can figure it out easily. Designers didn't put this capacity in early 
GUI's howver more and more it
s starting to appear.  (Mac sys 7.0 has an advanced capability in this 
area.)

4. GUI's are for dummies
A GUI can be built to do anything, and allow the learning of complex 
operations more quickly.  There are several TOTALLY GRAPHIC developement 
languages available that generate code in MPW code blocks (Mac 
Programmer's Workshop)  Anything from a children's control interface to 
developement at the machince cod level can be done using the scripting 
paradigms on a GUI

A GUI can incorporate all manner of complex an subtle relationships in a 
way for mor understandable to a user than CLI's.  With  a CLI there is 
learing in two steps.  First learn the language, and then learn what the 
language REALLY DOES when you type it in (two different things)  With a 
GUI you just do something and learn what is does while you do it. Big 
difference.

5. We're all going to learn 1 CLI
Fat chance.  I was converted to macintosh once and for all when I wanted a 
full scale DTP word processor and acquired Wordperfect.  When I saw the 
HUNDREDS of commands I would have to learn I move to the mac world and 
never looked back.  Do you really expect the world of computing will 
become a one interface world.  Unix people in 1980 claimed 40% of high end 
micros would use the system by 1990.  The actual figure is closer to 5%!!
I think smalltalk is a more likely base for a future GUI, it was designed 
for this from the ground up.  How many network protocols are there?  I 
there ONE STANDARD for ANYTHING in the compute world.  Havew we moved ONRE 
STEP that way in the last 190 years?

 This is from
     bmb@bluemoon.uucp
     bmb%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com
who doesn't have their own obnoxious signature yet