Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert
From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Re: A/UX window systems, Mac tool...( Hum Interface) (calibration)
Message-ID: <1030@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Apr 88 12:35:42 GMT
References: <6895@drutx.ATT.COM> <10700002@hpfclp.HP.COM>
Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert\ Cockton)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 42

In article <10700002@hpfclp.HP.COM> diamant@hpfclp.HP.COM (John Diamant) writes:
>You need never notice the modes if you use it on the same "language" (including
>text here as a language) in all cases.
>
You need never use Emacs at all and then you also wouldn't see the modes!
All these ifs and buts, the whole point about modelessness is that it vanishes
into a list of exceptions.
>
>Again, you may object that multi-keystroke sequences are modal, but they 
>needn't be viewed that way.
Sorry, but to defend my argument, I really really do have to view
things that way.  My apologies for being so slavishly tied to the semantics
of the English language.  Seriously, I tire of "you don't need to"
style arguments.  I have a lot of free will and don't need to do lots
of things - like turn up for work - Ok so I wouldn't get paid and I'd       :-)
get the sack, but I really really don't NEED to do it unless I want         :-)
to not starve.  Thus the consequences of not needing to see multi-keystroke :-)
sequences as modal are that I end up using the English language with        :-)
the precision of some computer documentation writers.  And of course,       :-)
they honestly truly don't NEED to go using English like that manner.         :-)

SUMMARY: Address the argument, not my personal malleability.
INFO:    What Emacs does is use "Command Heralds" - there are guidelines
         on the use of these going back to the 1970s.  Used well (as
         emacs tends to), they won't cause too many problems. Triple-processed
	 (e.g some nroff macro-buffers), they can be hell as mid-line characters
	 turn into beginning of line heralds.

> Unlike insert mode in vi, the "modes" of multi-keystroke sequences are only
> active for a single keystroke, and so never need to be internalized as a mode 
> by the user.
They are still modes, and some of them involve more than two key presses.
You can delete things in command mode too.  Fortunately, Emacs displays
its command modes quite well, so if you answered the phone after the meta-key
then came back, you could spot you were in command mode, unlike vi where you
have to hit esc and see if the bell rings.  It would be trivial to change vi so
that its mode-state was visible (as it is in ex mode after ':').

Remember, I was objecting to the extreme and naive idea that modes are
invariably evil and avoidable.  My main argument is that it is
impossible to come up with a modeless 'predicate' which can be applied
to a user interface description.  The whole concept is wooly.