Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!sys-uea!jrk
From: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: The best interface is no interface
Message-ID: <1257@sys.uea.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Jun 91 11:25:54 GMT
References: <55306@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991Jun3.150453.1287@husc3.harvard.edu>
Sender: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk
Lines: 39

In <1991Jun3.150453.1287@husc3.harvard.edu> khoo@husc9.harvard.edu (Oonchye Khoo) writes:
>Let me second the motion for Downline.  It's terrific.  It can automatically,
>in the background, process any .hqx, .sit or .pit file that comes your way.
>You don't even need to strip of the stuff preceding the real hqx stuff.  Just
>designate a folder for Downline and direct anything you want processed into it.

>Ken Kreshtool
>kik@wjh12.harvard.edu (my real e-mail address; this post is from elsewhere)

DownLine is wonderful.  I haven't saved so much time since I gave up reading
Sunday newspapers!  Drop input files here, output files appear there.  No
moronic dialogs asking you which files you want to extract, where you want
to put them, whether to delete the input, what you want for breakfast, blah
blah blah.  A refreshing change from programs which ask the user for advice
every time they want to blow their nose.

True, if you want to do something more selective with archives, you need
a more complex program.  Personally, I don't recall ever wanting to do
anything with an archive but decode the whole thing and chuck the original.
DownLine does that task better than any other decoding program I've seen.

Let's hear it for minimal interfaces.  "The best interface is no interface."

"Number of features, number of options, thickness of manual, size of program:
 measures of demerit, not of merit."

"Don't ask the user anything you can guess the answer to."

"If it needs explained, it's a bad idea."

"Is your program really necessary?"

--
Richard Kennaway          SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.
Internet:  jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk		uucp:  ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk

Had we but world enough and time
But we don't
So let's get on with it.		-- Marvell "To His Coy Mistress"