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From: hwe@beta.UUCP (Skip Egdorf)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Large programs
Message-ID: <11050@beta.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Oct-87 18:51:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: beta.11050
Posted: Fri Oct  9 18:51:34 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 16:44:24 EDT
References: <1046@ius1.cs.cmu.edu> <1130@gilsys.UUCP> <10908@beta.UUCP> <7573@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 51
Keywords: UNIX LS
Summary: in context please

In article <7573@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>, stpeters@dawn.steinmetz writes:
> 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.
> ...
> Dick St.Peters                        
> GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
> stpeters@ge-crd.arpa              
> uunet!steinmetz!stpeters

Please re-read my posting. I claimed that the Unix philosophy was to
provide the (few) wizards with the profiling tools and the interface
building tools (e.g. yacc) to provide the user interface required by
the users at a place at a time. This was followed in early Unix. It was
only when the 'time' and 'place' changed without a change in the user
interface to match the new time and place that the image of user hostility
appeared.

The last time that this approach was used was in the mid 70s, and the
same tools that were so far ahead of anything else then (because they
were built with the best tools, and designed with user feedback from the
accounting and profiling) are the same tools we now have. I no longer work
on a silent 700 and neither do most Unix users. The problem is that
the profiling and tool building philosophy has gone away.

If those who had produced the current crop of tools (most of which are
still from version 6 roots) had followed the earlier tool building and
profiling approach, our interface today would be much better.

I believe that this discussion IS relevant to our work today. What is the
most used command on your system this week? What mode was it used in?
what were its command-line arguments by frequency of usage? Does anyone
still have shell accounting??? When was the last time you built a simple
user-friendly interface language in yacc?

There is light on the horizon. Try X Windows on a VAXStation. Try playing
with windows on a Apollo. Play with NeWS or Sunview on a Sun.
I would like to have recorded for history (so I can look back 10 years
from now at the successes and the failures) which new systems use user
profiling to help direct interface design?? Sun Apollo MIT CMU ...
are you listening??

					Thanks for listening
					Skip Egdorf
					hwe@lanl.gov