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From: bruceb@microsoft.UUCP (Bruce Burger)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Iconitis
Message-ID: <5518@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 17 Apr 89 17:47:42 GMT
References: <1930@dataio.Data-IO.COM> <11555@lanl.gov> <17376@cisunx.UUCP> <3847@ficc.uu.net>
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 39

> 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.

I don't think running a spell checker in foreground has anything to do with
a graphical interface, just an interactive one.  It would be quite simple
to develop an interactive spell checker that was not graphical, and vice
versa.  (As a matter of fact, I've used an interactive spell-checker with
EMACS, which is a rather graphicless program!)

The advantage of an interactive spell checker is that it lets the user
see the context of each word so they can easily correct it, something 
that's difficult with the plain UNIX spell command.  The disadvantages
are that you have to wait for the CPU and you have to be distracted with
the computer displaying the context for lots of words that you can
quickly identify as correct.

Apparently most PC software vendors think the advantage outweighs the 
disadvantages.  I suspect they're right, although I agree it would be
nice if a word processor had an option to check spelling as a batch 
background process and produce a list of misspelled words.

Anyway, don't condemn graphics because you don't like a specific feature
to be implemented interactively.  A graphical interface is based on the
premise that not all information is best presented or provided textually.
When you're driving a car, would you prefer to see a textual description
of what's in fromt of you, or look at the road?  Of course, it can be
overdone, and of course, there are unique merits to a command language.
They *don't* have to be mutually exclusive!  True, they often are 
today, requiring a developer to choose between them, but that's changing.
As for interactivity, that's another feature that's useful in some
situations and not in others.  Software technology has a long and
exciting road ahead; there are tremendous opportunities for graphics
(and interactivity, and command languages) in that world.  

Bruce Burger