🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Nov4.052817.14034@wpi.WPI.EDU> entropy@wintermute.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard) writes:
>I think the utility of this is badly over blown. I don't expect the controls
>for a database and text editor to be any more similar than the controls for a
>car and a jet plane.

Really?  You don't expect clicking and dragging to select something?  Or
Command-C/X/V to Copy/Cut/Paste the item selected?  You don't expect a
search to be brought up with the same sequence, or the edit menu to be
in the same place?  You don't expect the buttons to be similar in appearance,
and their placement in dialogs to be the same?  You don't expect the
same mechanisms for getting help on the product, or finding out who
wrote it, or quiting out of it?

Many programs have a very large subset in common.  Standardizing that
subset can make the difference between learning or not learning a new
program.

The Unix market has changed drastically in the past few years.  The majority
of user's are no longer people like ourselves.  They have neither the skill
or the patience to learn complicated and dissimilar systems.  They need the
power of Unix, but they can't stand the interface.  Microsoft has recognized this,
and they are unleashing a "real" operating system (Windows/NT) that lets those
users continue to run their DOS and windows apps, but that will also let them
move to non386 machines and to applications that take advantage of real OS
features.  Given an OS with the power *and* friendliness that they need,
the standard commercial/home computer user isn't going to touch Unix with a
ten-foot pole.  That's the kind of future that the Visix's and the Alfalfa's
and the CrossWind's of the world are trying to fight.  We're trying to make
applications on Unix friendly enough and consistant enough that Unix doesn't
lose the commercial market.  Sometimes I'm not even sure it's worth the effort.

Some (many?) of you may not give a damn.  There certainly doesn't seem to
be much effort in this direction in GNU software.  The only mentions I see
of it are cop-out statements to the effect that you can't do it because
Apple would sue.  That's nonsense, as Amanda has pointed out.

Someone else recently commented on the GNU tendency (not supprising, given
the lack of a central design center for most publicly available software)
towards creeping featurism.  In case you were wondering, that kind of
thing doesn't cut it in the real world.  Hell, we've had a number of
customers who have asked us to take features *out* of our email product -
things like hierarchical folders are just too complicated for them to
deal with.  

>Unix command line arguments are generally very consistant. But to much
>conformity is a bad thing, sometimes you have to give up ease of learning for
>long term ease of use.

You don't understand.  These people don't have time to spend in the short
term.  If they don't get something easy to use out of the box there *is*
no long term.

>Give me a break. Race an experienced Mac user Vs and experienced unix user
>given a certain task and see who wins. If I'm going to use a system for 1000's
>of hours, taking a few days to learn new things is not a big deal. 
Okay.  Prepare a 30 page slide presentation with mixed graphics and text,
your company logo and a standard slide background.  That took me about
6 hours, including writing the talk.  Prepare a full page flier with screen
shots, and put together a two page newsletter for a mailing.  That took
me a day and a half.  Two and a half if you want to count turnaround time
at the printers to get a lino of the thing.  Actually you could now do these
things on Unix in close the the same time - some of the tools have been
ported to Unix from the Mac/DOS environments, others have been built to
mimic them.  Sure there are tasks you can do faster on Unix - but how
many of those tasks are useful outside of r&d?

>I recently watched a grad student pulling his hair out when he reached the
>limits of the Mac program he was using, he kept wishing he had used Latex, if
>he had used Latex it would have taken a while to learn, but would have saved
>weeks in the end.
I bet he could have gotten rid of those limits by switching to another Mac
program too - and it would have taken less time to learn.  But that misses
the point.  You can probably teach that grad student out to use latex, you
aren't going teach my parents, or a secretary, or the manager in administration.
They don't give a damn if it takes longer than on Unix, because they can
do it on a Mac, and therefore they don't *need* Unix.  You don't win this
game by being right, or being fast, or being technologically advanced (that
should all be pretty clear already - we are talking Unix after all), you
win *this* game by being cheap and easy.  And Unix isn't either.

-- 
Alfalfa Software, Inc.          |       Poste:  The EMail for Unix
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I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.