Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help us defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <21211@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 5 Apr 88 00:26:29 GMT
References: <2814@enea.se> <20597@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <341@wsccs.UUCP>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 45
In-reply-to: val@wsccs.UUCP's message of 21 Mar 88 19:25:05 GMT



From: val@wsccs.UUCP (Val Kartchner)
>In article <20597@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>> >And this brings us on to another issue which Barry does not mention:
>> >Unix may have some clever tricks, but it's user interface is really
>> >arcane. One-letter options is certainly not state-of-the-art.
>> 
>> I don't mention it because I believe it's a chocolate/vanilla issue I
>> specifically said I would avoid. Or would you like to give us all a
>> good definition "arcane", with units preferably, perhaps something
>> like measured learning curves etc. Can you spell bullshit, I knew you
>> could.
>
>    Any Eunuchs programmer could easily: bllsht.  Anyone else could spell it
>    correctly.
>
>    Shall we compare learning curves?  A new user on VMS can learn more in
>    less time because the options make sense.  For instance, what does "-s"
>    mean as opposed to "-S" as opposed to "/system" or "/security"?  Which
>    would make more sense to a new user?

Uh, no Val, you miss the whole point. Learning curves aren't something
you speculate on, it's something you can measure, numbers, plots,
statistical analysis etc.

For example, you take two groups of people of roughly equivalent
whatever (education, job status etc, whatever your design goal is) and
one uses one system while the other uses a different system, then you
measure how long it takes them to do some relevant tasks, probably
with weighting for errors. Then you compare the numbers and see if
there is a real difference. Studies like this I have heard of rarely
find any much difference. Obviously one can devise better methods.

Not intuitive? Gee, science isn't always intuitive.

Think of it this way:

Look at your telephone, does it look "user-friendly" to you? Do you
see your friend's full names on it anywhere? Or do you have to punch
in lots of long strings of digits to find them? Can your average 7
year old use the telephone?

Anything else you'd like to tell AT&T they've missed the boat on?

	-Barry Shein, Boston University