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Path: utzoo!watmath!idallen
From: idallen@watmath.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: expert-friendly: are long names a waste of time?
Message-ID: <6083@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Nov-83 16:14:57 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.6083
Posted: Mon Nov  7 16:14:57 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Nov-83 05:57:35 EST
References: <1367@utcsstat.UUCP>, <465@dciem.UUCP> <6072@watmath.UUCP>, <3609@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 23

I, too, don't care about CPU power needed to parse something; but,
I don't want to mislead people into thinking the command interpreter
understands English.  Too much flexibility and the use of English
connectives might do this.  If you make the interpreter respond to
some English syntax, but not all, you may not be able to tell your
users precisely what your command interpreter can understand.

Even the simple "chmod x to y" could read "chmod of x to y", and
perhaps "ch_the_mode of x to y" or "Change the mode of file x to mode y.".
In settling on "chmod x to y", you have already dropped many of the
components of the English sentence; how does the user know which words
to drop?  Many people have implicitly dropped the "of" when they say
"chmod mode file"; on the other hand, some people think they drop the
"to", and mistakenly say "chmod file mode".

English is not a concise command language, even between people.  I
don't think you can keep the English connectives without misleading
people about the power of the command interface.

Have you seen the October SIGCHI Bulletin, "Constrained Languages Need
not Constrain Person/Computer Interaction"?  A real study of people.
-- 
        -IAN!  (Ian! D. Allen)      University of Waterloo