C70:editor-people (06/03/82)
>From LAWS@SRI-AI Thu Jun 3 00:26:50 1982
This list has addressed the requirements of several user communities:
technical people who need sophisticated editor systems; professional
writers who need convenient ones; and secretaries who (supposedly) need
easily-learned ones. I would like to know if anyone has looked into
the needs of young children.
My two-year-old is just starting to type a few words and numbers.
For the most part I just get him into insert mode and let him bang
away -- the line just keeps wrapping down the page. For special
effects he knows the caps lock and the VI undo command ("magic-u").
Soon he will have mastered character delete and line delete.
Even these simple commands do not serve his needs well. The VI
character delete merely backspaces over text, not blanking it until
you overwrite or hit escape. This is confusing.
I have to enter insert mode because the VI top-level command has too
many "magic" keys for him to comprehend. EMACS is better in this
respect, but the cursor motion keys would be far beyond him. (Both
editors also suffer from "magic cursor motion" due to tracking the
ends of lines.) It seems to me that a top-level picture mode (either
insert or replace) would be best. A command buffer or command echo
(as in ZED) would also seem a good thing since it would continually
remind him when he is using control commands (however invoked) that
he is indeed in a command mode.
A motivated child can no doubt learn any given system much better than
I can. In general, however, I maintain that children and non-programming
spouses require much slicker systems than we hackers do. LOGO, SMALLTALK,
and PLATO systems have had to deal with this situation; can anyone
enlighten me as to the editor characteristics they have used?
-- Kenneth Laws
-------C70:editor-people (06/03/82)
>From LAWS@SRI-AI Thu Jun 3 03:00:42 1982
This list has addressed the requirements of several user communities:
technical people who need sophisticated editor systems; professional
writers who need convenient ones; and secretaries who (supposedly) need
easily-learned ones. I would like to know if anyone has looked into
the needs of young children.
My two-year-old is just starting to type a few words and numbers.
For the most part I just get him into insert mode and let him bang
away -- the line just keeps wrapping down the page. For special
effects he knows the caps lock and the VI undo command ("magic-u").
Soon he will have mastered character delete and line delete.
Even these simple commands do not serve his needs well. The VI
character delete merely backspaces over text, not blanking it until
you overwrite or hit escape. This is confusing.
I have to enter insert mode because the VI top-level command has too
many "magic" keys for him to comprehend. EMACS is better in this
respect, but the cursor motion keys would be far beyond him. (Both
editors also suffer from "magic cursor motion" due to tracking the
ends of lines.) It seems to me that a top-level picture mode (either
insert or replace) would be best. A command buffer or command echo
(as in ZED) would also seem a good thing since it would continually
remind him when he is using control commands (however invoked) that
he is indeed in a command mode.
A motivated child can no doubt learn any given system much better than
I can. In general, however, I maintain that children and non-programming
spouses require much slicker systems than we hackers do. LOGO, SMALLTALK,
and PLATO systems have had to deal with this situation; can anyone
enlighten me as to the editor characteristics they have used?
-- Kenneth Laws
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