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From: gilbert@aimmi.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: NeWS and X
Message-ID: <24@aimmi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-May-87 07:14:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: aimmi.24
Posted: Thu May 21 07:14:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 08:33:10 EDT
References: <8705151216.AA00774@maximo.uucp>
Reply-To: gilbert@aimmi.UUCP (Gilbert Cockton)
Distribution: world
Organization: Heriot-Watt/Strathclyde Alvey MMI Unit, Scotland
Lines: 28

In article <8705151216.AA00774@maximo.uucp> version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site aimmi.UUCP aimmi!hwcs!its63b!ukc!mcvax!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!maximo.UUCP!mo mo@maximo.UUCP writes:
>Why is it that anyone who thinks they understand 
>TECO and/or EMACS can build a user interface???
>I got big news for them.  If X becomes the
>defacto window standard for window systems
>you can completely kiss-off the real
>commercial marketplace.  It completely
>fulfills everyone's worst fears and nightmares
>about UNIX.  
>
>The simple fact is that designing REALLY GOOD
>user interfaces is astonishingly hard ... and simply being
>able to hack your favorite programming language
>is neither necessary nor sufficient.  

Hear, hear - I go along with much of your flaming, but from past
experience of the USENET milieu, I think your comments will fall on
stoney ground. Despair not, most commercial users don't get UNIX systems.
Those who do are increasingly getting a cleaned up proprietry shell thrown
in by the suppliers. Cleaning up hackers' user interfaces is a profitable
sideline for some firms, so don't make too much noise about the
ergonomic incompetence of the average unwashed UNIX guru - you could
wipe out a tidy little market if they got wise :-)

-- 
   Gilbert Cockton, Scottish HCI Centre, Ben Line Building, Edinburgh, EH1 1TN
   JANET:  gilbert@uk.ac.hw.aimmi    ARPA:   gilbert%aimmi.hw.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk
		UUCP:	..!{backbone}!aimmi.hw.ac.uk!gilbert