Xref: utzoo comp.misc:5765 comp.windows.misc:1105
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ames!lll-winken!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Iconitis
Summary: Programmers are users too.
Message-ID: <3847@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 13 Apr 89 13:27:28 GMT
References: <1930@dataio.Data-IO.COM> <11555@lanl.gov> <17376@cisunx.UUCP> <28836@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Xenix Support
Lines: 62

In article <28836@apple.Apple.COM>, austing@Apple.COM (Glenn L. Austin) writes:
> As a programmer who has worked on the IBM PC, VM/CMS, MVS, UN*X, Mac, ect, I
> have to say that as a programmer, I had more control over what the user could
> do under command line interfaces.

As a user I have more control over what the program will do under command
line interfaces. I can combine commands in ways the programmer never expected.

Because a well-defined and well-implemented command line interface is also a
programming language.

> Now that graphic interfaces (like the Mac, Windows, GEM) are becoming the norm,
> I have to take more care in writing code that doesn't know what order the user
> normally works with.

When writing a graphics-oriented program I really have more control over the
user, because he can't really get to me. I know what sort of environment I'm
going to run in. I don't have to worry about input streams coming from strange
places like pipes or files. I don't have to make sure that I seperate my error
messages from my useful output... it's all going onto the screen anyway.

> The user likes this because they have more control over how they use my
> program.

I, as a user, hate working with a menu-only program that didn't have to be
that way. How the hell do you put MacPaint into a script?

> (flame on)
> I have found that most programmers care only about their programs.  ...
> this "I know better what the user wants than the user does" attitude of
> programming.

This is rubbish. It's the graphic interfaces that force me to live in the
straitjacket world of what this other dopey programmer thought up. What if
I want to do something else while this ultra-cool spellchecker is running
over my design document. On UNIX, no problem... just throw it into the
background. On the Mac you have to sit there and manually intervene for
every damn typo when it discovers it.

Repeat after me... PROGRAMMERS ARE USERS TOO.

Not only that, but they spend MORE time using software tools than any other
class of user. Don't you think they'd have some complaints if your precious
graphics were so superior?

> Since graphic
> interfaces challenge that belief, a lot of programmers are against them.

Graphic interfaces reinforce that belief. The user is tied to the environment
the programmer decides to allow them, instead of being free to build their
own environment using the program as a tool.

I have the best of both worlds at home. An Amiga, with a fancy graphics
interface AND an integrated programming environemnt called AREXX. You can
write scripts that control your fancy menu-driven programs. More and more
people are using AREXX as a common macro/command language that co-exists with
the intuitive menu-oriented one.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.