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From: dave@rocksvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Long names and menus
Message-ID: <1103@rocksvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Dec-83 17:58:58 EST
Article-I.D.: rocksvax.1103
Posted: Tue Dec  6 17:58:58 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Dec-83 06:29:19 EST
References: <19001@wivax.UUCP>
Organization: Xerox, Rochester, N.Y.
Lines: 63

Did it ever occur to anyone that non-expert users might not be typists.
Even if you are a typist think of all the typing you do with short
terse commands.  All that timing takes time.  What about typing
errors?  When you have just invested 10 minutes typing things, ala VMS:

   backup drb0:[dddd.ssss...]*.*;*/before=10-feb-83
   mfa0:[place.fff]/save_set/dens=6250		(On two lines even!!)

hit return and get a message telling you it did not understand 10-feb-83 and
you have to type it all in again, give me a break!  That is helping
your poor [non-]expert user!!

Menus are great for things like that, you can get all the options right the
first time.  But these solutions are always tied to the single process
mentality so common in most "software for the 60's systems".  I can only
do one thing at a time using most of the menus I have used.  I have
used and written a few Xerox Alto menu programs, Interlisp-D, Smalltalk
and the Xerox Pilot/Mesa operating systems. What about trying to do
that backup at 4:35 in the morning, do I have to be there to mouse bug
all the buttons on the screen??  Seems that you would have to anticipate
these things in advance and put it in every program, usually in a different
manner for each case.  Look at VMS, is the option /ALL, /FULL, /EVERYTHING??.
Make a hardcopy: /PRINT, /HARDCOPY, /FILE=ccc; print ccc.  I like kit parts
like unix tools, it even allows people who do not suffer from functional
fix to use a "screwdriver to act as a wire".

Menu/window systems make great typing aids.  I usually type VMS commands in our
mail program.  The mail program allows me to chat on our net to our machine
and I can "type" things into VMS by pointing at it on the screen with the
mouse.  At least I don't have to re-type the whole long line in again.
Except for Smalltalk I have yet to see a menu system that does the
following unix thing:

	bletch | bletch1 | bletch2

Maybe someone will write one that allows you to connect the stdin/out of
the window into another window's stdin/out or something like that.
I have written large systems for testing custom VLSI chips that make heavy
use of that form of "programming".  Seems that typing "test_em" which
expands all the nitty gritty details of the "plumbing" for me is OK.

Most menus I have seen are of the form:

	bletch ; bletch1 ; bletch2

This makes menus losers at are those repetitive tasks that you
sometimes have to perform.  Try using a menu based image manipulation
program to process 15 images all the same way.  Of course you could
write menu program that asks for a set of files to do these things
with, but how many people thought to do that from the start.  The best
thing to do is to have all menu based programs read text commands from
files or allow all menu functions to be run from command lines.

I cherish being able to read news while a compile and a chip is being
tested.  A computer should work for you,  that is how I think of them.
It can wait longer than me if it needs to, I like my results in as
timely manner as possible.

-- 
Dave

Arpa: Sewhuk.HENR@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
uucp: {allegra, rochester, ritcv, ritvp, amd70, sunybcs}!rocksvax!dave