🚀 go-pugleaf

I would like to take some time to refute a concept which has been floating
around here for quite some time, and has also been expressed by both
sides of the look-and-feel debate.

Many people seem to believe that uniformity in user interfaces is a Good
Thing.	I *strongly* disagree, because this position ignores a very
important fact (or two) (or three).

1.  Different types of programs require different modes of interaction.
For instance, the user interface of my C development environment is one
that is appropriate to that task.  My word processor uses an extremely
different interaction paradigm, but I don't complain because the
interface is appropriate to the task of processing words.  [My WP is
Microsoft Word 5.0 for the PC, for those interested.]

2.  One man's pie is another man's poison.  It is a simple fact that
different people like different user interfaces.  As an example, some
people prefer a Mac-style menu bar; others like Windows' menus; still
others like ATK- or NeXT-style menus.

3.  Sometimes, a smart programmer can come up with a radical new mode of
interaction that revolutionizes some segment of the market.  So it was
with MS Word; with the Star, Lisa, and Mac; with VisiCalc; with vi; and
many, many more.

However, given all this, I still do not support UI copyright or patent
protection.  The reason is a very simple one--the *users* and
*programmers* should have the ability to make the programs that they use
behave in whatever interaction paradigm they prefer.  To some extent
this is already possible with ATK, and to a lesser extent with Xaw.

Finally, I would like to point out that there is *far* more investment
in money and time by the *users* than by the companies, in any given
program or system's UI.  I view the evolution of UIs as a cooperative
development project between the authors and the users, and as such, any
given UI belongs at least as much to its users as to its so-called
"developers."

-GAWollman

--
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the address above should reach me once a week on Fridays.