From kragen@dnaco.net Fri Sep 4 16:16:34 1998 Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 16:16:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: Christopher Palmer cc: rebecalist@bossanova.com Subject: GUIs and usability In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 1669 Status: O X-Status: On Fri, 4 Sep 1998, Christopher Palmer wrote: > Command line is *how*, not *what*. If you prefer the command line to > mousing, then yeah you'll prolly hate the Mac (although MacOS X will have > all Unix shells, so wait a year). I'd guess that any task you care to > mention is possible with the Mac's GUI. Have you read the Anti-Mac paper? Basically, the Mac's GUI is a lot better than command-lines for simple things, but when it comes to communicating complex ideas between the human and the computer, the Mac reverts back to the linguistic command-line interface. Writing scripts, doing calculations, etc. -- communicating complex ideas from the human to the computer -- are all almost universally done linguistically instead of graphically, and when the Mac has more to say than just "yes" or "no", or one item among three or four possibilities, it says it linguistically, too. Command-line oriented systems, especially Unixes, tend to be better at communicating linguistically. Of course, graphic artists communicating complex ideas all the time, but they're not communicating them to the computer. They're using the computer as a canvas with which they can communicate them to other human beings -- just as, when I talk into my telephone, I'm not talking to the telephone. Kragen (who think GUIs can extend further than they have) -- Kragen Sitaker I don't do .INI, .BAT, .DLL or .SYS files. I don't assign apps to files. I don't configure peripherals or networks before using them. I have a computer to do all that. I have a Macintosh, not a hobby. -- Fritz Anderson