gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) (04/05/89)
In article <6883@cg-atla.UUCP> duane@cg-atla.UUCP (Andrew Duane) writes: >We modified EMACS here to use the mouse to position >around in the buffer and between windows. After a couple of >weeks of playing with it ("Boy, isn't this NEATO KEEN!") >everyone stopped using it. I don't even know if the mouse code >is even compiled into it any more. The moral: I don't know >what. But it certainly doesn't make sense to use the mouse for >everything. VI's h/j/k/l sucks big-time, yes. Is a mouse the >the answer, no. Be careful to distinguish between a particular use of a mouse, which may indeed not be advantageous depending on the particular design, and use of mice in general. I stopped using our EMACS editors for most purposes once Rob Pike's "sam" editor became available. Its use of the mouse is cleanly integrated into the design of the editor's bitmap interface, not just tacked on as an afterthought. It makes a considerable difference. Many of today's highly touted graphical interfaces strike me as atrocious, but that doesn't mean that graphical interfaces are a bad idea. I've seen some excellent ones. Unfortunately interface designers don't often seem to have studied past good examples before setting out on their own, or else they rip off the worst examples such as the IBM PC keyboard and the Macintosh icon interface, rather than think about the design issues.
jas@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Jim Shankland) (04/05/89)
In article <9984@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
!I stopped using our EMACS editors for most purposes once Rob Pike's "sam"
!editor became available. Its use of the mouse is cleanly integrated into
!the design of the editor's bitmap interface, not just tacked on as an
!afterthought. It makes a considerable difference.
!
!Many of today's highly touted graphical interfaces strike me as atrocious,
!but that doesn't mean that graphical interfaces are a bad idea. I've seen
!some excellent ones. Unfortunately interface designers don't often seem
!to have studied past good examples before setting out on their own, or
!else they rip off the worst examples such as the IBM PC keyboard and the
!Macintosh icon interface, rather than think about the design issues.
That's tantalizing. Would you be willing to elaborate a little on what
you think makes a good graphical interface, what's a good example and
why, and what's wrong with the IBM PC keyboard and Macintosh icons?
Jim Shankland
jas@ernie.berkeley.edu
"Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down"gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) (04/05/89)
In article <28684@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jas@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Jim Shankland) writes: >That's tantalizing. Would you be willing to elaborate a little on what >you think makes a good graphical interface, what's a good example and why, Unfortunately that would take too long to cover in sufficient detail to help anyone. The point is to hunt around and study a wide variety of interfaces, analyzing them for yourself. Some of the best examples are not recent ones. >and what's wrong with the IBM PC keyboard and Macintosh icons? Now, that one is easy to answer: They suck rocks. The way to compare keyboards is to use a large number of them for a substantial amount of time each and see how you like them. I find the ones that have pleased me the most have all been considerably smaller than the ones found on typical workstations, and the worst have almost all been those that followed "ergonomic standards". Hmm.. Quite a large number of people I've talked to share my preferences, by the way; it's not just personal idiosyncracy. The Macintosh interface is PERHAPS good for couch potatoes, but if one needs to do anything really interesting it always seems to turn out that it hasn't been anticipated by the providers of the Mac programs (which seldom cooperate with each other in a convenient way), and one is totally out of luck at that point. That approach is almost totally opposite the one successfully taken by the designers of UNIX. It is possible to obtain a toolkit-oriented environment on a Mac, but only by escaping from the mode that Apple intended Mac owners to use. As an example of the ridiculosity of the Mac design, the mouse was given only one button to keep it simple enough for morons -- can't push the wrong button, we were told. Then applications resorted to double- and triple-clicking in order to multiplex the uses of the single button. Pull-down menus are also a nuisance in many cases where pop-up menus would have been ideal. To fix that (last I looked) one has to design his own menu subroutines. Apple has been pushing the Mac interface for their Apple IIGS also; the most highly regarded games and applications for the IIGS seem to ignore Apple guidelines and provide whatever interface best fits their needs. Hmm.. Basically my complaints against the Mac come down to Apple pushing a particular style of interaction for universal use when it is far from optimal for many common applications. I find it really humorous how hard they fight to protect the "look and feel" of that environment, as though anyone in his right mind would steal it (as Apple basically did in the first place). What's even funnier (in a dark-humor sense) is that people ARE trying to steal it!
paulc@microsoft.UUCP (Paul Canniff 2/1011) (04/06/89)
Can we please move this flame war elsewhere? It is only incidentally dealing with C. I am not making any comment on the issue, the validity of the discussion, etc. so save those re-flames (or send email). But it ain't C. <--- syntax error, unkown verb root ain.
rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) (04/07/89)
In article <1247@microsoft.UUCP> paulc@microsoft.UUCP (Paul Canniff 2/1011) writes: >But it ain't C. <--- syntax error, unkown verb root ain. **** semantic error: ^^^ wrong root used. Possible solution: change "ain" to "ai" SR