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Path: utzoo!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: expert-friendly: are long names a waste of time?
Message-ID: <1518@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Dec-83 18:36:32 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1518
Posted: Mon Dec  5 18:36:32 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Dec-83 19:07:18 EST
References: <4171@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 19

I think that what umcp!koved wants is Software Tools. You can port the
Software tools editor to a dead whale and it will run, which will give
you the same editor everywhere. For those of you who *don't* like
line editors, I was told at Toronto USENIX that somebody was working
on a Software Tools vi.

I think that you missed my point again, though. I am not saying that
menus are good because they have one letter abbreviations. All the
menu systems that i have seen so far are too slow, so they lose no
matter how long the abbreviations. What I think is that long names are
an attempt to address the same user group that menus adress *faster*
than the menus can. Thus they are a good idea given the currently availaible
hardware. But that means that the next innovation should not be software,
since we have already beaten that horse for a long while, but real
fast menu hardware. 


laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura