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Path: utzoo!watmath!idallen
From: idallen@watmath.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng,net.nlang
Subject: Re: expert-friendly: are long names a waste of time?
Message-ID: <6206@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Nov-83 18:05:00 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.6206
Posted: Mon Nov 28 18:05:00 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Nov-83 04:51:17 EST
References: <6196@watmath.UUCP>, <507@dciem.UUCP>, <1490@utcsstat.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 67

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    From laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Sun Nov 27 23:53:45 1983

    I have been thinking about those long names. They will be a pain to
    type, right?

Right, but what good is a command name that is easy to type, if you can't
remember it?  Remember the name first, abbreviate it only when you use
it often enough to need an abbreviation.  The abbreviation might even
be a system alias for the long name.  Or, it can be a personal alias
chosen when you find yourself using the command a lot.  I wonder which
is easier to remember, an abbreviation I choose myself, or one someone
else chooses for me?  With long names at least no one is *forcing* me to
remember their abbreviations.  And, if I forget my own abbreviation I
can still use the full name...

    there are people who like Ian Allen, find them aesthetically pleasing.

Wasn't me that said this.  I like them because they are easier to
learn and remember than abbreviations.  Less brain work.

    there are novice users.  They will be experts too quickly and will have
    the same complaints about the long names that the rest of us have --
    they take too long to type.
    
Quickly?  How will nonsense names help them learn?  If you want names that
are easy to type, then do the job properly and assign your favourite 26
commands to letters of the alphabet (very favourite eight to the home
row of the keyboard, of course).  Novice users are either going to
remain novices, in which case you shouldn't expect them to use a
command language at all, or else they are going to become.......
    
    ... casual users. I define casual users to be users that never
    will use the system often enough to become an expert -- or who use
    the system infrequently enough that they have to relearn the system
    every time as if "from scratch".

Every user who has ever forgotten or had to look up the name of a command
is in this category.  There are no "experts"; only experts in some area. 
Even our local UNIX gurus don't know all the INGRES database commands that
are in /usr/bin.  Any time you go scrambling for the name of a command,
you aren't an expert.  You are in need of mnemonic aid for a command name.
You don't need a cryptic abbreviation, you need something you can remember.
Something that works in with all the other command names you know.

    I have come to the astonishing conclusion that THESE FOLK DON'T WANT
    LONG NAMES.
    
Research report number?
    
    These are the people who want menus.  They want a pop-up menu with
    the answer to every possible mess they could get themselves into. 

Hey, you forgot to interview me.  When I need to do something, I don't
want to have to call for a menu of all possible moves (especially at UNIX
shell command level -- at last count WATMATH had 400 command names out there).  
I'd rather that the command names were structured so that I could build
on what I already knew (like deriving debug_pascal from compile_pascal).

    I have just killed the pro-"long command names" group by assuming
    that long commands are menu-replacements that are useful only because
    menus take too long to draw on the screen -- probably that is unfair.

Not unfair, just not true.  You can't replace the mental step between
"compile_pascal" and "debug_pascal" with a menu of 400 commands.
-- 
        -IAN!  (Ian! D. Allen)      University of Waterloo