Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 09:37:03 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>, current@freebsd.org, jhs@freebsd.org, terry@lambert.org Subject: Re: editors Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.93.960605092442.422d-100000@Fieber-John.campusview.indiana.edu> In-Reply-To: <8374.833961150@time.cdrom.com>
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On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > Actually, it's sort of considered "cool" in the UNIX world to bash > Microsoft and Apple as somehow less than macho, the inference being > that UNIX is far more of a power tool and would not lower itself to > being used by mere users. There were not any smileys in that message; I was half serious actually. Microsoft's wizards are on occasion useful, but their packing and marketing is nauseating. > In reality, the best compromise lies somewhere in between. Make a > tool stand out of your way when you know how to use it, give it some > standardized way of documenting itself when you don't. A good ideal, but SO hard to achieve. Having put in my fair share of yeras working in college computer labs and more recently teaching intro to computering courses, knowing when to help and when not to is a pretty tough problem for REAL intelligence, never mind artificial intelligence. Maybe what is needed is a single system wide agent that monitors a user's skill level and serves as an advisor to the help systems in individual applications. Agent says to vi: "Hey, Jordan is a vi power user, offering help will be considered an insult." The trick is figuring out what dimensions of user experience would be most useful for the agent to know about. -john == jfieber@indiana.edu =========================================== == http://fallout.campusview.indiana.edu/~jfieber ================
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