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From: stpeters@dawn.steinmetz (Dick St.Peters)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: User interfaces (was: Large programs)
Message-ID: <7607@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Oct-87 14:59:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: steinmet.7607
Posted: Mon Oct 12 14:59:28 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Oct-87 00:37:38 EDT
References: <1046@ius1.cs.cmu.edu> <1130@gilsys.UUCP> <10908@beta.UUCP> <7573@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <11050@beta.UUCP>
Sender: root@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: dawn!stpeters@steinmetz.UUCP (Dick St.Peters)
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Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 49
Keywords: UNIX LS

In article <11050@beta.UUCP> hwe@beta.UUCP (Skip Egdorf) writes:
>Please re-read my posting. I claimed that the Unix philosophy was to
>provide the (few) wizards with the profiling tools and the interface ...

My apologies if I've misread you.  Perhaps I've seen too many others
lambasting what you describe, calling it "creaping featurism".
(Which, incidently, is a real disease, but not as prevalent as some
would have us believe.)

However, I'm not at all convinced that profiling usage is a good guide
to user-interface evolution.  Unless it heavily weights usage by naive
and infrequent users, it will cause an interface tuned for experts.
If it does give naive user usage more weight, it could drive out those
things that make a good interface for experts.

What I want to see is interfaces that are, most of all, *flexible*,
with the versatility and power needed by wizards and which, if not
intrinsically simple, can be adapted (by experts) for novices.
Fortunately, this is exactly what I see happening.

What I don't like to see is having this evolution denounced by purists
as violating the original spirit of a lean (and mean) interface.  The
people denouncing multi-column 'ls' are those most able, by dint of
expertise, to surmount a behavior they find intrusive.  The novice has
no idea what to do when his listing scrolls offf the screen.

Even worse is when 'man' is not piped to 'more' automatically.

>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.

Sounds like you think I must be a novice because I stood up in their
defense.  To set the record straight: I ran SunWindows on the first
Sun 1 (SunOS 1.0) I installed here, in Jan '83 I think, and nowadays I
routinely run NeWS and suntools on the two 'sides' of my Sun 3/110.
My substitute for 'shelltool' is a SunView program that maps mouse
events to editing commands.  (I wrote it before GNUemacs V18 had mouse
support.)

I don't have a VAXStation or Apollo to play with, but I am roughly
familiar with each.

I agree the horizon looks dazzling.  I didn't choose "dawn" as my
hostname for nothing.
--
Dick St.Peters                        
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
stpeters@ge-crd.arpa              
uunet!steinmetz!stpeters