🚀 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.

That's reasonable, and that's about the extent of the standardization of
the Mac UI.

For instance, you expect that in both a car and jet plane, turning the
steering wheel counterclockwise will cause the vehicle to go to the left.
There are many rocker or toggle switches in cars and jet planes, and they
act similarly in both.  The precise set of switches, of course, depends on
which vehicle you're in, just as the precise set of menus in Mac
applications depends on the application.  A car's gas gauge is probably
similar in appearance to many plane fuel gauges.  Setting the frequency of
a plane's radio or transponder is similar to setting most car radio
stations (unless you always use SEEK/SCAN in the car).

The point is that if you know how to drive a car, learning how to fly a
plane is much easier because many of those aspects that the two vehicles
have in common are done similarly.  You mostly have to learn those aspects
that are special to flying (such as also pressing the rudder pedal while
turning the wheel) and the added equipment in the cockpit.

-- 
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar