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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!clyde!cbosgd!cblpf!cbstr1!Karl.Kleinpaste
From: Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Here we go again...
Message-ID: <281@cbstr1.att.com>
Date: Tue, 23-Jun-87 13:58:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbstr1.281
Posted: Tue Jun 23 13:58:07 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jun-87 03:56:13 EDT
References: <5840003@wdl1.UUCP> <78@decvax.UUCP> <99@decvax.UUCP>
Sender: karl@cbstr1.att.com
Followup-To: you probably shouldn't
Distribution: world
Lines: 35
In-reply-to: gancarz@decvax.UUCP's message of 19 Jun 87 21:11:00 GMT

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.3 of Sat Jun 20 1987 on cbstr1 (usg-unix-v)


First, I am sorry if I caused a rehash of a rehash of a rehash of an
issue.  That was not my intent, and I hope this doesn't continue it.

Second, the one reason for my posting was in the one quoted line of
its precedent posting, which said
> The other part of the reason [for the existing defaults]
> was to avoid overwhelming the novice user.

My followup article questioned only this one claim: that the current
set of defaults (requiring 2-handed X driving) is optimal for
overwhelm-avoidance in the novice's mind.

I am not arguing against the defaults *in general* because I
understand that [a] uwm just happens to be the existing window manager
and one could write another and [b] uwm is highly configurable and
hence the defaults are not engraved in stone.

My lone, sole, single, isolated complaint is that 2-handed driving for
a window system, particularly on machines where other window systems
exist (such as Suns, of course), is a bad set of defaults to inflict
on the *novice*.

OS experts are expected to get used to the intricacies of kernels and
the more esoteric utilities available (such as, say, awk in UNIX).  X
experts can similarly be expected to manage with bizarre and not
necessarily intuitive arrangements of mouse/keyboard hits.

But you don't hand a UNIX beginner anything tougher than ed(1) for an
editor, and you shouldn't hand an X beginner a mouse that has to be
metafied.

And to think that my followup was written 3 weeks ago, but got stuck
in someone's buggy news system in Columbus...sheesh.

Karl