Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eagle!data.nas.nasa.gov!wk207!uselton From: uselton@nas.nasa.gov (Samuel P. Uselton) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: GUI vs Text (was Re: Virtual Manipulation) Summary: Take BOTH! Message-ID: <1991Jun5.181727.17833@nas.nasa.gov> Date: 5 Jun 91 18:17:27 GMT References: <6gH233w164w@bluemoon.uucp> Sender: Sam Uselton Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Lines: 186 In article <6gH233w164w@bluemoon.uucp> bmb@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Bankhead) writes: >There are a few myths I would like to adress, ^^^^^ I assume you mean that the numbered statements are FALSE. There are some I take issue with. > >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. Because SOME peoples' experiences include using GUI's in which things they were accustommed to doing were left out by the GUI designer. AND they could ONLY combine things in the way the GUI designer had planned. This is BOTH a strength AND a WEAKNESS. It prevents novice users from doing incredibly bad things to themselves, limits the choices of what to do next and provides memory jogging. It also means that anything the designer didn't explicitly plan, is unavailable. > Text is not flexible. >PEOPLE primarily communicate in text and PEOPLE are flexible. People can >extract meaning from the most mangled syntax. Language is incredibly flexible. (So are people - we created language.) Text is a fairly complete method for transcribing language. >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. It is true that the (mechanical) parsing of a CLI requires a rigid syntax, making certain trivial errors occur with annoying frequency. However, the COMPLEXITY of the syntax is directly proportional to the number of ways the elements can be arranged MEANINGFULLY. It is this LARGE set of potentially available meanings that embody the POWER of a CLI. You could make a GUI with a similar level of complexity, but you would be defeating the purpose. > >2. Xwindows is a GUI >Sorry dudes but opening a window to type in unix file trash is NOT a GUI. I agree, so far as you go. >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) > Xwindows has the potential to SUPPORT GUI's built ON TOP of it. MOTIF is supposed to be a toolkit for building such GUI's. >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. I would agree that this one is a myth. Probably arising from people's complaints that they can't do it in the GUI that they HAVE. >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. A slight aside here.... This comment leads me to believe you are mainly interested in beginners, small system users and in general the population for which GUI's are a big win. There are others in the world, however... Also, with more experience, one typically encounters more complex things so the things "to be figured out" continue to increase in complexity. >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.) Good. > >4. GUI's are for dummies That's not how *I* would say it. *I* say "GUI's are particularly good for novices, people who use systems infrequently, and people who may use the computer repeatedly and often, but always for the same basic operations." >A GUI can be built to do anything, If you know ahead what the things are going to be.... >and allow the learning of complex >operations more quickly. But once you have learned the operations, it is often faster and more convenient to perform them from a CLI! >There are several TOTALLY GRAPHIC developement >languages available that generate code in MPW code blocks (Mac >Programmer's Workshop) But do they PREVENT those who want to from using text? >Anything from a children's control interface to >developement at the machince cod level can be done using the scripting >paradigms on a GUI > ok. >A GUI can incorporate all manner of complex an subtle relationships in a Again, IF the designer provides for it ahead. >way for mor understandable to a user than CLI's. With a CLI there is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (far more, I assume) SOMETIMES! Maybe even usually. Definitely NOT always. More often more understandable for a novice computer user. >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. > Having used computers as a big part of my daily life for more than 15 years, even when approaching a completely new system, I have large knowledge of things the system CAN do. It becomes a different problem. What do I do to it to get it to do the particular thing I have in mind? Whether this takes the form of "Use mouse to move cursor to position...and click twice then,..." or "type these 4 letters followed by the filename..." becomes fairly trivial. I rapidly (after a few days on a new system) become interested in "what is the most convenient way to...." Often, it is using the CLI! >5. We're all going to learn 1 CLI Depends a lot on who "WE" is. >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. Lots of people do, I that's fine with me. >Do you really expect the world of computing will >become a one interface world. Never. Every application has to have its own. (Even if they follow style rules so they look similar, they are not quite the same because they have to do different things.) Some applications have more than one, or even (!!!) user customizable interfaces! Operating systems are the number one candidate for this customization. >Unix people in 1980 claimed 40% of high end *SOME* (please, not all of us are so silly.) >micros would use the system by 1990. The actual figure is closer to 5%!! Depends on how you define "high end". (And "micro" too. Are workstations that have microprocessors "micros"?) >I think smalltalk is a more likely base for a future GUI, it was designed >for this from the ground up. I doubt it will catch on, but it will be interesting to see. My bet is something that sits on top of Unix (or a variant) similar to Sun's Open Look. > How many network protocols are there? I Not too relevant. >there ONE STANDARD for ANYTHING in the compute world. Havew we moved ONRE >STEP that way in the last 190 years? Are you starting to smolder here? We have certainly moved MUCH closer to having one standard for a few things. Everyone except IBM uses the ASCII character set, and even they use it in the micros. The number of operating systems has decreased DRASTICALLY. The idea that you *could* run the same operating system on machines from different vendors was heretical only 10 or 15 years ago. Why 190 years?? Software for computing was just natural language instructions to the people doing the computing only 50 years ago. > > This is from > bmb@bluemoon.uucp > bmb%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com >who doesn't have their own obnoxious signature yet Sam Uselton uselton@nas.nasa.gov employed by CSC working for NASA (Ames) speaking for myself