🚀 go-pugleaf

On 31 Mar 1997 21:29:24 GMT, j.stokes@bohm.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes)
wrote:

>On Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:08:40 GMT, Bryan Palmer <bpalmer@pcug.org.au> wrote:
>>
>>>: Commands that give no indication of their activity, or any information on
>>>: successful completion (ie rm *) are *not* ergonomic.
>>>
>>
>>if it pains you that much, just run through /bin and /usr/bin and link
>>all of the key commands to their DOS name equivalents. For the slow
>>witted this process is very intuitive and ergonomic. You wont learn
>>Linux but given the comments I doubt if that's possible.
>
>I use Linux and like it, thankyou.  Look, before you flame me again, go read
>a book on user interface design.

From Microsoft Press, I presume?

>  Especially the part about how you put
>dangerous things behind a several-step safety curtain.
>
>How much effort does it take to program to print:
>
>"Are you sure?"
>
>and
>
>"11 files deleted in /usr/jstok/crapola"

If you want to talk about good interface design, rearrange the above:

 >11 files about to be deleted in /usr/jstok/crapola:
 >Are you sure?

If you actually *want* such information, you can arrange to get it.  If
you don't, it is just an increasingly acute pain in the butt.
>
>When you call for the deletion of an entire directory?  How much, eh?
>
>Granted, such behaviour isn't appropriate for scripts, but it's appropriate
>for most other situations.

I think it is generally inappropriate.  If you are a new user, groping
your way around the system, making mistakes as you go, then it is
necessary.  And it is easy to provide this functionality.  When I first
installed RedHat linux, after an absence from unix of a few years, I ran
into the problem of the interactive "rm".  The pest of a thing kept
asking me to confirm my rm's.  After grinding my teeth and uttering
imprecations a few times, the penny dropped, and I realised that I had
been alias'd.  Good idea.  If you are distributing a system for new
users, make it a more forgiving.

The problem is, that the whole underlying approach of unix is different.
unix takes a tool-building approach.  Everything is written with a view
to its ease-of-use in building up more sophisticated tools.  A effect of
this is that there is a certain underlying orthogonality in the dessign
of the system, and a certain predictability.  It was also written by and
for people who wanted to get some work done.  A major part of learning
unix is coming to know and love this underlying rationale.

This does not mean that, e.g., experienced users don't sometimes blow
away directories that they wish they hadn't.  But putting annoying
little questions in the way doesn't save you most of the time anyway.
When you are on a roll, thinking three steps ahead, and you mistakenly
issue an rm, you will automatically answer Yes anyway, and realise about
two commands later what you have done.

New users eventually, and pretty quickly, become experienced users.
When that happens, the GUI often becomes an impediment.  You see this
all the time in the MS world.  Users who make a living using say, Word
or PageMaker shun the mouse like the plague.  They want to get their
work done from the keyboard, and generally do.  That's what keyboard
shortcuts are for.  These "keyboard shortcuts" are not that at all; they
are an approach to a sensible and useful user interface.  The other
approach is the 'GUI longcuts' - great when you don't know which
direction is up, but a pest from then on.  Of course, if you are only
ever an occasional user of some particular piece of software, the hunt
through those pull-downs is useful.  You don't *want* to have to learn
how to use it.

Would I eliminate the GUI?  Never.  I like to use X, for example.  It
gives me the best of both worlds, because the most common window I am in
inside X is an xterm, with a good old shell.  It does make the reality
of a multi-tasking OS more obvious and accessible.

Unix has the tools to present a uniform, friendly face to the outside
world.  This is happening, and it can't proceed fast enough for me.  But
the difference between an X-based user-friendly interface (when it is
finally here), and the MS version, is that the system is not positively
hostile to the experienced user who wants to get in and do some work
behind the facade.  The underlying structures must be accessible, and
must be structurally sound.  With unix, this is generally the case.
>
>Jason Stokes: j.stokes@bohm.anu.edu.au

Peter
 __ /__   Peter B. West
   /     p.west@mailbox.uq.edu.au
  /    "Master, to whom shall we go?"