Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 07:06:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek <hoek@hwcn.org> To: Peter Korsten <peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ATT Unix for Windows ! Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.970829063812.28421C-100000@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca> In-Reply-To: <19970829025323.52918@grendel.IAEhv.nl>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Fri, 29 Aug 1997, Peter Korsten wrote: > Some people build their own stereos, some customize their car, > some need to be able to totally customize their computer. But > they're a minority. Everyone customizes these things. It's simply how they customize them which separates the groups. One group does whatever customization is designed to be done, and the other group decides to ignore the designed interface, take it apart and customize it. > Like I said, I don't care about the file format. It's totally > irrelevant. If your preference editor is good enough, you don't > need to know about the file format. It is not irrelevant. What, for example, do you do when you can't start your preference editor because its preferences are terribly wrong. How many times haven't you been saved (assuming a Win3+ or Win95 system) by being able to edit win.ini & co from an MSDOS prompt with EDIT.COM since Windows wouldn't run anymore. There are also, I believe, some things for which it is difficult to make preference editors "good enough". Comments, automatic editting (eg. with sed(1)), for two. And no, simply thinking from a Windows point of view does not obviate the need for sed. GUIs aren't that powerful (_yet_). > You're reasoning from the Unix point of view. You do everything > from a text file, so you want to be able to do that in Windows too. > Well, you can't and you shouldn't be able to do so, because the > average user (who is kept more in mind with Windows than with > Unix) will certainly screw it up. Fix the damn user. If a user is stupid, they are going to screw things up, no matter what. GIGO is a universal law, and there's simply no getting around that. A smart user will recognize when they don't know wtf they're doing. The stupid user keeps bumbling-on, and there's no way for anything, either a program working from a text init file, or not. It's not possible to screen-out every wrong input, because if there was only one right input, we wouldn't need any input... > But what it lacks is a common base that describes how programs > should work (and the professional Windows programs do work the same Yes, one hundred times over. X is not to be confused with a GUI. The MIT people wrote what J referred to as a windows environment, not a GUI. Incidentally, I don't blame the lack of a common GUI on it being "uninteresting to program", but rather on the fact that GUIs are very personal things and its difficult to get any two people to agree on "This is The Way It Should Be". Even still there are packages for writing GUIs, my personal favourite being Tk, but to get user-interface writers to agree on one seems impossible. Some people don't like the GNU organization, but here would be a perfect opportunity for them to show what their value is. They have (esp. for their size) a tremendous amount of influence and I would love to see them say "This is the GUI we will use, and that's all that there is to it. <period>". Perhaps that will happen with OpenStep. > It isn't a mistake. This flexibility is a direct descendant of the > limits that a text-only environment imposes on you. If you wouldn't > have the flexibility, you would have nothing, compared to a GUI. Then write a GUI which has the flexibility. > The idea behind a GUI is to make it simple and consistent. Why > should one need extensive training to be able to operate a computer? > Why can't many people still program their VCR? Because the user > interface sucks. I think this is a myth. Most people can program their VCRs, I think. Of course, I do agree --- the user-interface for some VCRs does suck. > scaring, but what can you do abot it? Unix isn't friendly enough > to appeal to a mass market. It also lacks options that have become And then there is the small group of masochists which it attracts for exactly that reason. ;-) -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.GSO.3.96.970829063812.28421C-100000>