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From: stpeters@dawn.steinmetz
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Large programs
Message-ID: <7573@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Oct-87 17:29:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: steinmet.7573
Posted: Wed Oct  7 17:29:46 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Oct-87 10:29:31 EDT
References: <1046@ius1.cs.cmu.edu> <1130@gilsys.UUCP> <10908@beta.UUCP>
Sender: root@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: dawn!stpeters@steinmetz.UUCP (Dick St.Peters)
Distribution: na
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 27
Keywords: UNIX LS

In article <10908@beta.UUCP> hwe@beta.UUCP (Skip Egdorf) writes:
>The often quoted lack of Unix "User Friendly"ness comes from ignoring
>the Unix philosophy ...

Hardly.  It comes from having a basic user interface designed for
experts.  Our site has some 2000+ users, gurus to secretaries, maybe
85% of them non-programmers.  Discussions of the UNIX philosophy of 20
years ago is about as relevant as discussions of original intent in
constitutional-law arguments about women's rights.

A more reasonable philosophy would be that features that someone,
*anyone*, wants and that do no harm are ok.  'ls' is the perfect
example: sit a user down at a SYSV UNIX console, tell him (or her)
that 'ls' is the command to list a diretory, watch him type it and see
the single-column list scroll off the screen, and you've lost one to
VMS.  He'll leave the room, shaking his head.  I've seen it happen.

When they invented UNIX, they didn't have screens.  When a directory
listing came out, it was on paper, and anyway it went by slowly enough
so you could memorize it.

(Why do these 'ls' discussions keep popping up year after year?  And
especially why this time when the subject is "large programs"?)
Dick St.Peters                        
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
stpeters@ge-crd.arpa              
uunet!steinmetz!stpeters