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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Request for human interface design anecdotes
Message-ID: <6713@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 21-Nov-87 20:21:45 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6713
Posted: Sat Nov 21 20:21:45 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Nov-87 05:43:38 EST
References: <1721@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM> <1621@megatest.UUCP> <101@ateng.UUCP> <1402@cuuxb.ATT.COM> <407@minya.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 33

In article <407@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>My claim is that Unix in fact has a good design for user-friendliness;
>the problem is vendors and system developers that violate the design by
>using low-level tools like rm at a higher (user) level.

More precisely, it's making these part of a naive-user interface
that is at fault.

Just linking /bin/cat to /bin/type isn't the right kind of solution;
for one thing, it adds commands into the system name space (incorrectly
in this case; "type" is already a command with a different meaning).
Non-expert users need an interface that doesn't require them to type
> or * or | or other mystical symbols.  There are examples of better
interfaces for the non-expert in widespread use, for example on the
Macintosh; there is no excuse for vendors neglecting this aspect of
their systems if they see what they provide as being something for
the end user.  On the other hand, it is not that hard for someone with
the proper training to learn how to exploit the usual UNIX tools
effectively, but too often users are just dumped into a UNIX shell
environment with inadequate guidance and reference and tutorial
material.  If they expect (by analogy with more end-user oriented
interfaces) to simply "learn by doing", they get into trouble or at
the very least never learn how to use the tools in an efficient way.

It is really fairly easy to whip up a naive-user interface to UNIX;
one evening I did one as a shell script (the "adventure shell") and
was amazed to find that some users actually preferred it to a normal
UNIX (Bourne or C) shell environment.  By the way, it arranged for
destroyed objects (files) to be reincarnatable.

Of course, for my own use I prefer flexible power to safety, so I
would object to the removal of an expert-user interface; but I do
think a naive-user interface is also needed.