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From: crl@pur-phy.UUCP (Charles LaBrec)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: expert-friendly: are long names a waste of time?
Message-ID: <1100@pur-phy.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Nov-83 15:49:04 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-phy.1100
Posted: Sun Nov  6 15:49:04 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Nov-83 07:09:09 EST
References: <1367@utcsstat.UUCP>, <465@dciem.UUCP> <6072@watmath.UUCP> <3609@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Physics Dept.
Lines: 28

It seems to me that what a lot of people are talking about has already
been implemented on TOPS-20 (yes, another former DECsystem-20 user speaks
up).  I will use as an example the TOPS-20 equivalent of chmod.  The
full verbose syntax was:

@SET FILE PROTECTION (OF FILES) FILE.EXT (TO) 777752

However, the guide words (in parentheses) were not necessary to type
in, and command completion and least ambiguous recognition were done
on each field.  So the expert would learn to say:

@set fil prot foo.bar 777752

For the novice, typing a '?' at various points would tell him/her what
was expected next--after 'set' would say what keywords were valid, after
the 'f' of 'file' would say what keywords began with 'f', after 'prot'
it would say "FILE NAME", and after the file, "Octal number protection
value" (or some such).  If an escape was typed in the middle of any
keyword/file name, it would complete it, if not ambiguous, and print
the guide words that followed.  

I've always liked the user interface on TOPS-20.  Not as concise as UNIX,
but verbose enough for novices.  If it only had pipes, redirection,
C, and more UNIX tools . . .

Charles LaBrec
UUCP:		pur-ee!Physics:crl, purdue!Physics:crl
INTERNET:	crl @ pur-phy.UUCP