Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!n8emr!bluemoon!bmb From: bmb@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Bankhead) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: GUI vs Text Message-ID: Date: 12 Jun 91 17:05:25 GMT Sender: bbs@bluemoon.uucp (BBS Login) Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[0][2][4]) Lines: 34 There are a number of things to respond to here - uselton@nas.nasa.gov (Samuel P. Uselton): [...] 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. Har de HAR! Try combining CLI gobbledegook in a new way to produce a new meaning like you can in a NATURAL language and your system will spit back SYNTAX ERROR every time. Human languages are flexible because humans are primarily SEMANTICS precessors. Humans can derive semantic content from the most idiosyncratic or downright mangled syntaxes imaginable. If you depart even the SLIGHTEST from the rules for structure in a CLI it won't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. By the way I have a couple of new myths to debunk here CLI is 'closer' to the machine. This myth is often expressed in a manner to suggest that you will somehow be learning mor about the computer in some way if you use a CLI. Actually the whole idea of CLI was a primitive attempt to separate the user from the machine level operations so non computer engineers could use the machines. Computers don't communicate in AWKS or GREPS any more than they do in mouse movements, they communicate in 101011101's of binary math. If you absolutely must feel those transistors between your toes then get an Altair 8080 and input everything with the front panel! This is from bmb@bluemoon.uucp bmb%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com who doesn't have their own obnoxious signature yet