MS competed with Quicken and got it's ass whipped. Quicken wasn't built on Free Software, so your claim that "unless you're built on Free Software, your customers will definately lose" is false.
I'm sorry if you think my comment was irrelevant. I wonder why you're still following along so closely in that case.
I'm running out of new ways of saying it. The guy singled out GUIs for criticism and in the absense of any explicit statement about non-CLI alternatives it's quite reasonable to assume he was thinking of CLIs. If you claim that you don't believe it's reasonable, I simply don't believe you.
Yes, the guy backpeddled later and noted that he didn't mention "CLI" explicitly, but he still never made a statement like "of course non-GUI interfaces can have bad metaphors too".
As far as starting a flame-war is concerned, all I said was that CLIs are an abstraction too. Do you disagree with me? If not, what's your beef?
At the risk of repeating myself (and yourself), you changed the word "GUI" to "metaphor". That which is perfect doesn't require change IMHO. Anyway, I'm done with this argument.
I wasn't referring to rendering issues, I was talking about things like saving user state and updating any visual element without clicking on a submit button, etc all without storing cookies on the client machine, placing hidden fields in the page, or executing a script or other hacks. A standard designed specifically for web apps should be able to handle these kinds of functions natively.
The old guy prattles on in an off-topic manner
on
A New Kind of OS
·
· Score: 1
It's funny how times change.
I was about your age when the Mac was introduced and everyone I knew thought it was incredibly cool and a great advancement although few us were able to afford it. My friends and I were Atari 2600 programmers so we weren't exactly technical lightweights, but there was little thought given to the idea that a CLI was better. That was just the old primitive technology to us.
Later we came to understand that Xerox played a big role, but we still thought the Mac was cool. I've never ended up owning a Mac, but I appreciate its historical role.
Perhaps having to use a number of different incompatible OS's made the idea of memorizing commands a big waste of time. I suppose if Unix the only OS we were using we would have found more value in a CLI, who knows?
"I have an error in my very first line too. That should have been "in its very first line".
A PC was Jobs and Wozniak's idea?
on
A New Kind of OS
·
· Score: 1
What's interesting about the Stephenson essay is that it has a flaw in it's very line:
"About twenty years ago Jobs and Wozniak, the founders of Apple, came up with the very strange idea of selling information processing machines for use in the home."
That "very strange idea" had been around a long time before Jobs and Wozniak thought about it and they were not the first to implement it either.
"Someone is mis-reading here. I'm simply not seeing how I disagreed with the OP."
I think it's you. You said you agreed with the post "100%". If that's true why say "I won't even use the word GUI there, because it's not limited to GUIs". So you apparently thought that you needed to modify what he said which wasn't necessary if you believed him to be "100% correct".
When I first read your post, I thought you were joking. I guess I'm not schooled enough in MIT jargon. It's funny how younger geeks are more connected to MIT culture than most of those who were actually alive during its heyday.
To put it in more familiar (to me) language, your claim is that you can manipulate the system at a lower level of detail or with more details using a CLI than you can with a GUI (or at least the common ones).
I'm not sure if that is equivalent to "being closer to the system", but admittedly this is a rather vague concept. In any case, to draw the conlusion that your claim is true one would have to look carefully at a representative examples of CLI and GUI commands/actions.
This can be rather tricky because you can only have frobs to manipulate aspects of the OS that actually exist. For example, classic Unix didn't use fonts but it wouldn't be fair to use that as proof that Windows has more frobs because of the frobs available related to fonts. Likewise, I'm sure there are aspects of Unix that don't exist in Windows, so it wouldn't be fair to hold that against Windows either.
"I read through his comment and completely agreed, and I didnt think of CLIs once, though I like CLIs."
Good for you. I always think of CLI's when GUI's are criticized simply because they are usually the alternative user interface. Any kind of user interface can have bad or good abstractions, but abstraction is their common attribute.
"I thought iTunes/iPods were meant to be easy to use, but in dumbing down the options, it makes it more awkward for people that are used to just being able to copy files wherever they want with explorer etc. "
I've never used iTunes so I can't comment specifically on that, but I do think that it is a challenge to have a single tool that is intended to be used by different people with different needs.
My point was simply that any user interface hides the complexity to a certain degree. I also think that some people (I'm not saying you) think of CLI's is being so basic that they actually believe they almost are the system in much the same way as some people think IE is the Internet.
"First off, the post you quote is 100% correct. Hiding the system from the user is a mistake."
It's clever that you avoid invoking the CLI since a more abstract argument is more difficult to refute. The fact remains that whatever user interface is used (GUI, CLI, or fantasy) the system is in fact hidden from the user in some way by virtue of the abstraction used by it.
"The part that I think is most cogent is the observation that even the simplest metaphor (and I won't even use the word GUI there, because it's not limited to GUIs) requires training to use correctly (self-teaching through trial-and-error is not training-free)."
What happened to the other guy's post being 100% correct?
He said: "even the simplest metaphoric GUI.." so it's pretty clear he was bashing GUI's as a class not just some GUI's.
I wasn't really looking for alernatives to GUI's and CLI's, I was just calling him out on his claim that he wasn't talking about CLI's.
I don't really see scripting as playing the same role as a CLI or GUI unless you can program one without a CLI or GUI. Perhaps paper tape or punched card systems would qualify.
"But you know what? When you're working that closely with a system, you learn it better! No, typing "mv *.txt../textDocuments" won't teach you a wit about x86 assembly, but it will get you thinking about directory structure in a way that explorer.exe prevents one from doing."
Well, that different way of thinking doesn't provide any additional insights into the directory structure. "../textDocuments" is just a crude way of representing part a tree abstration that tools like explorer make obvious. But the tree itself is just an abstraction anyway and has little do do with bits in hardware.
A CLI is sometimes more efficient but CLI commands don't teach any more about the sytem than pointing in clicking in a GUI do.
"The mistake that Windows and many GUI systems have made is in trying to HIDE the system in metaphor. It always backfires, because although a transparent system may be harder to learn, it is far, far easier to deal with once the learning curve has been climbed. And since we've discovered that even the simplest metaphoric GUI requires "training", well.. you may as well train the end user how it actually WORKS instead of trying to hide it from them in a bubble of "interface"."
"I'm sorry, what? Where did I mention anything about the CLI?"
You didn't mention a CLI, but if you read what you wrote above, you're obviously bashing GUIs. What non-CLI alternative to GUIs do you intend to suggest, then?
Doing web apps from a browser is going to involve ugly hacks simply because web "standards" were not designed for applications from the beginning. If IE had always been 100% standard compliant it wouldn't have made any difference.
If the industry really wants to a have a clean design for web apps, they need to come up with a new set of protocols that are designed specifically for these applications. Otherwise it's going to be cookies and scripting as far as the eye can see.
A CLI is no more "the system" than a GUI, it's just another abstraction. Most black-and-white movies were made that way because it was the best that could be done, not because the filmmaker thought it was more artistic. In a like manner, most OS's of the 70's used a CLI not because it was a "minimum metaphor", but because it was the only practical option at the time.
Slashdot Mirror
MS competed with Quicken and got it's ass whipped. Quicken wasn't built on Free Software, so your claim that "unless you're built on Free Software, your customers will definately lose" is false.
I'm sorry if you think my comment was irrelevant. I wonder why you're still following along so closely in that case.
I'm running out of new ways of saying it. The guy singled out GUIs for criticism and in the absense of any explicit statement about non-CLI alternatives it's quite reasonable to assume he was thinking of CLIs. If you claim that you don't believe it's reasonable, I simply don't believe you.
Yes, the guy backpeddled later and noted that he didn't mention "CLI" explicitly, but he still never made a statement like "of course non-GUI interfaces can have bad metaphors too".
As far as starting a flame-war is concerned, all I said was that CLIs are an abstraction too. Do you disagree with me? If not, what's your beef?
Your dedication to the idea of a "useful discussion" is quite apparent.
At the risk of repeating myself (and yourself), you changed the word "GUI" to "metaphor". That which is perfect doesn't require change IMHO. Anyway, I'm done with this argument.
I believe he was emphasizing an aspect of GUIs not classifying them. If you think otherwise, please enlighten me with a list of non-metaphoric GUIs.
Every UI uses abstraction, not just GUIs.
I wasn't referring to rendering issues, I was talking about things like saving user state and updating any visual element without clicking on a submit button, etc all without storing cookies on the client machine, placing hidden fields in the page, or executing a script or other hacks. A standard designed specifically for web apps should be able to handle these kinds of functions natively.
It's funny how times change.
I was about your age when the Mac was introduced and everyone I knew thought it was incredibly cool and a great advancement although few us were able to afford it. My friends and I were Atari 2600 programmers so we weren't exactly technical lightweights, but there was little thought given to the idea that a CLI was better. That was just the old primitive technology to us.
Later we came to understand that Xerox played a big role, but we still thought the Mac was cool. I've never ended up owning a Mac, but I appreciate its historical role.
Perhaps having to use a number of different incompatible OS's made the idea of memorizing commands a big waste of time. I suppose if Unix the only OS we were using we would have found more value in a CLI, who knows?
"I have an error in my very first line too. That should have been "in its very first line".
What's interesting about the Stephenson essay is that it has a flaw in it's very line:
"About twenty years ago Jobs and Wozniak, the founders of Apple, came up with the very strange idea of selling information processing machines for use in the home."
That "very strange idea" had been around a long time before Jobs and Wozniak thought about it and they were not the first to implement it either.
"Someone is mis-reading here. I'm simply not seeing how I disagreed with the OP."
I think it's you. You said you agreed with the post "100%". If that's true why say "I won't even use the word GUI there, because it's not limited to GUIs". So you apparently thought that you needed to modify what he said which wasn't necessary if you believed him to be "100% correct".
When I first read your post, I thought you were joking. I guess I'm not schooled enough in MIT jargon. It's funny how younger geeks are more connected to MIT culture than most of those who were actually alive during its heyday.
To put it in more familiar (to me) language, your claim is that you can manipulate the system at a lower level of detail or with more details using a CLI than you can with a GUI (or at least the common ones).
I'm not sure if that is equivalent to "being closer to the system", but admittedly this is a rather vague concept. In any case, to draw the conlusion that your claim is true one would have to look carefully at a representative examples of CLI and GUI commands/actions.
This can be rather tricky because you can only have frobs to manipulate aspects of the OS that actually exist. For example, classic Unix didn't use fonts but it wouldn't be fair to use that as proof that Windows has more frobs because of the frobs available related to fonts. Likewise, I'm sure there are aspects of Unix that don't exist in Windows, so it wouldn't be fair to hold that against Windows either.
"I think most people would just agree that this guy was only criticizing oversimplified GUIs, rather than all GUIs"
Is this really issue so important to you that you want to invoke the "most people would agree" argument?
"Practically speaking though, a CLI is usually far closer to "the system" than GUIs are."
I hear this argument over and over by CLI fans, but I've never seen any convincing evidence of it.
"most non-gui based OSes are more prone to exposing the user to the down and dirty."
I'd have to say I disagree. Give me an example of a non-gui OS that exposes the user to the system in a way that a GUI can't.
"I read through his comment and completely agreed, and I didnt think of CLIs once, though I like CLIs."
Good for you. I always think of CLI's when GUI's are criticized simply because they are usually the alternative user interface. Any kind of user interface can have bad or good abstractions, but abstraction is their common attribute.
"I thought iTunes/iPods were meant to be easy to use, but in dumbing down the options, it makes it more awkward for people that are used to just being able to copy files wherever they want with explorer etc. "
I've never used iTunes so I can't comment specifically on that, but I do think that it is a challenge to have a single tool that is intended to be used by different people with different needs.
My point was simply that any user interface hides the complexity to a certain degree. I also think that some people (I'm not saying you) think of CLI's is being so basic that they actually believe they almost are the system in much the same way as some people think IE is the Internet.
"First off, the post you quote is 100% correct. Hiding the system from the user is a mistake."
It's clever that you avoid invoking the CLI since a more abstract argument is more difficult to refute. The fact remains that whatever user interface is used (GUI, CLI, or fantasy) the system is in fact hidden from the user in some way by virtue of the abstraction used by it.
"The part that I think is most cogent is the observation that even the simplest metaphor (and I won't even use the word GUI there, because it's not limited to GUIs) requires training to use correctly (self-teaching through trial-and-error is not training-free)."
What happened to the other guy's post being 100% correct?
I've already stated my interpretation of what he said. If you think he intended to be pro-GUI or GUI-neutral than that's your right.
"Bashing a subset of A implies bashing A as a class?"
No, but he didn't bash a subset so your comment is irrelevant.
He said: "even the simplest metaphoric GUI.." so it's pretty clear he was bashing GUI's as a class not just some GUI's.
I wasn't really looking for alernatives to GUI's and CLI's, I was just calling him out on his claim that he wasn't talking about CLI's.
I don't really see scripting as playing the same role as a CLI or GUI unless you can program one without a CLI or GUI. Perhaps paper tape or punched card systems would qualify.
"But you know what? When you're working that closely with a system, you learn it better! No, typing "mv *.txt ../textDocuments" won't teach you a wit about x86 assembly, but it will get you thinking about directory structure in a way that explorer.exe prevents one from doing."
Well, that different way of thinking doesn't provide any additional insights into the directory structure. "../textDocuments" is just a crude way of representing part a tree abstration that tools like explorer make obvious. But the tree itself is just an abstraction anyway and has little do do with bits in hardware.
A CLI is sometimes more efficient but CLI commands don't teach any more about the sytem than pointing in clicking in a GUI do.
"The mistake that Windows and many GUI systems have made is in trying to HIDE the system in metaphor. It always backfires, because although a transparent system may be harder to learn, it is far, far easier to deal with once the learning curve has been climbed. And since we've discovered that even the simplest metaphoric GUI requires "training", well.. you may as well train the end user how it actually WORKS instead of trying to hide it from them in a bubble of "interface"."
"I'm sorry, what? Where did I mention anything about the CLI?"
You didn't mention a CLI, but if you read what you wrote above, you're obviously bashing GUIs. What non-CLI alternative to GUIs do you intend to suggest, then?
Doing web apps from a browser is going to involve ugly hacks simply because web "standards" were not designed for applications from the beginning. If IE had always been 100% standard compliant it wouldn't have made any difference.
If the industry really wants to a have a clean design for web apps, they need to come up with a new set of protocols that are designed specifically for these applications. Otherwise it's going to be cookies and scripting as far as the eye can see.
A CLI is no more "the system" than a GUI, it's just another abstraction. Most black-and-white movies were made that way because it was the best that could be done, not because the filmmaker thought it was more artistic. In a like manner, most OS's of the 70's used a CLI not because it was a "minimum metaphor", but because it was the only practical option at the time.
"Eventually you will have people who follow one process attempting to work with code created under another."
This is as much of a problem as you choose to make it.