SHULMAN@sdr.slb.COM (Jeffrey Shulman) (12/14/87)
Date: Mon 14 Dec 87 09:35:53-EDT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Delphi Mac Digest V3 #54
To: Delphi-List: ;
Message-ID: <566490953.0.SHULMAN@SDR>
Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(218)+TOPSLIB(129)@SDR>
Delphi Mac Digest Monday, December 14, 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 54
Today's Topics:
Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (7 messages)
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From: XATHENAX
Subject: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, and
Date: 12-DEC 04:48 Telecommunicating
Caution: Long Hot Flame Ahead on the Yellow Brick Road ....
As a programmer and user-interface designer, with many years spent in
Unix Land (and a couple of miserable ones spent in IBM Land), I like the
Mac a lot. But as someone who yearns for simplicity in a complex and
poorly designed world, I'm sad to say I'm very slowly losing faith in
the Mac. I feel, well, sort of scared for it, I guess.
I have just read through the last 512 or so messages in this Forum.
Every time I do this, I am left with this low-level feeling of d(read).
The Mac is becoming as hard to use as the IBM systems I hated 10 years
ago. There are more and more design hacks and kludges and important
pieces of essentially secret knowledge as programmers append
"functionality" to take care of the cases that they forgot or that Apple
forgot or whatever, and more and more complaints about incompatibilities
among various software, including Apple's latest and greatest offerings.
Cache crashes and confusion. All inevitably increasing, like
user-interface dust-bunnies collecting under the desk(top).
The arcane stuff I am being asked to remember in order to be able to
maneuver my way through Mac Land is daunting, and my role is not as a
programmer, mind you, but as a user (the distinction is becoming
blurred). Hold the mouse down at these times;
Option-Command-Shift-Control-Meta-Foo-Boot when something is showing
will reset something else (or was it while opening this DA). Place the
cursor in this special spot. Load these programs in this order because
something only runs in this part of memory. Oops, can't run this game
when these files are in this folder. Printing in the background with
this spooler means you can't use this program (it crashes). MultiFinder
doesn't deal with certain clipboard stuff right (right?); MultiFinder is
useless without further hardware enhancements (you need more memory:
sounds kinda like IBM's been teaching Apple some old tricks (see also
HyperCard)); there are how many different ways an application can be
MultiFinder-compatible/friendly/ignorant? This disk backup program will
really screw you over in this one obscure case. This monitor doesn't
quite work with this combination of that and those. The most common Mac
telecommunications program is now unreliable on a Mac II. Such and such
program doesn't work with the cache on. And on and on. I can't wait
until we start seeing all those HyperCard XCMD's and XFNC's extending
off in orthogonal directions of user-interface HyperSpace (a "complex
basis"?).
The first time I tried Oasis 2.0 (about a month ago), it took me a short
time to figure out how to attach a button to an application (MacWrite).
I clicked once - my Mac crashed. The programmer in me wants to find out
what the problem was; the user in me doesn't have the time for the
hassle. So I don't use Oasis ("There's no place like desktop"). I
don't know if Oasis was at fault. I don't care. I don't want to have to
find a Wizard to help me through the various technicolor traumas arrayed
before me in the Mac's Little Land of OS. I like to be able to quit out
of the current Adventure context, thank you. This is the real world and
I have work to do.
Within 15 minutes of the first time I tried Switcher 5.0, my Mac
crashed. I tried it a couple of times more, with the same results. It
was supposed to make my life easier; but it made me lose
data=work=time=hair. I never used it again. The better part of valor:
I'd rather not switch and not fight.
I recently tried out the latest version of DiskFit, SuperMac's hard disk
backup program that everyone recommends. Personally provided to me by
someone at the company. My DataFrame disk needed backing up, so what
happens when I run DiskFit? It won't backup because it says I don't
have a DataFrame! The error message cannot be found in the on-line
manual which supposedly includes a list of all the error messages I am
ever likely to see. Likely? The programmer /puzzler in me can make a
good guess as to what the problem was; but sorry, I just don't want to
hassle with it. And it looks like such a well-designed program, too.
It may not be their fault. Who knows? My time has been wasted yet
again.
I can no longer remember how many times the Finder has crashed my Mac II
while doing one of the most common functions in its repertoire of useful
behaviors: copying a bunch of files from/to a floppy. I don't do
anything weird. I hear a rumor that there's some kind of problem.
Well, that's some kind of problem! Apple hasn't even taken the time to
implement an UNDO in the Finder. How many times have you had "Clean Up
Window" ruin your icon layout in ways you hadn't planned? How does
Apple expect its developers to follow user interface guidelines when
they don't follow them internally (see also HyperCard). Why is there no
Help command in the Finder so that I don't have to remember what all
those secret "shortcuts" are for doing useful things like ejecting
disks?
In short, I see disarray in the Sweet Land of Macintosh Computing.
Dislike of fighting with computers was one of the main reasons the
Macintosh was brought into this world by Jef Raskin; but unfortunately,
he was working at a computer company, and because the Mac is a computer
(i.e. infinitely configurable), it is itself now losing ground in the
fight against design entropy. It is inevitable for any product that has
literally thousands of people trying to make it behave in different,
often conflicting and confusing ways, supposedly for my benefit as a
user-interface-ee.
In a recent Forum message we read
> I *always* advise people to use IBM PCs for BBS systems. Wasting a machine
> like a Macintosh on a BBS is a crime.
At Jef Raskin's current non-computer company, Information Appliance, Inc
(IAI),
they have recently committed the terrible deed: an *entire* Mac is used
for their in-house Bulletin Board and E-Mail system. Since there are no
Bulletin Board appliances yet, they have turned a Mac into one, and it
sits alone, unattended, happy, waiting for the phones to ring. Every
employee, even the front desk receptionist, uses a Canon Cat to send and
receive stuff over their building's local area network (a/k/a the phone
system). For single messages, such as While-You-Were-Out-type phone
messages, they don't even need a BBS; it's only used to save time when a
message/memo needs to be sent to multiple people, or other
special-purpose, message-serving tasks.
This isn't simply because Raskin, the creator of the Macintosh, dislikes
computers (IAI uses various machines, including Mac's and Mac II's for
software development), or because his company designed the Cat as an
information appliance. It is because it is easier to learn and *use* an
information appliance than any computer, regardless of whether you are a
computer person or just a general non-technical employee, such as a
receptionist, secretary, manual writer, or anyone in management (i.e.
most people). For a small company, a Cat can even do an adequate job
for the CFO. For larger numerical jobs, it's not appropriate. On the
average, however, it is more productive. The difference is that it does
not present itself to its users as a universal computer with a daunting
array of options and user interface ideas, all of which may be good
individually but which taken together causes untold confusion.
Or hostility. I recall the story last year on Public Radio about the
guy in Georgia who opened a shooting range where the customer can set up
any object she or he wants, in order to fill it with hot lead using the
weapon of their choice. The single most commonly "killed" objects were
personal computers ( giving new meaning to the term "Machine Guns").
I'm sure most of the unfortunate devices were IBM PC's and others of
that ilk; I'd be willing to bet
that more and more of them will be Macs. And the time is coming when
some insane (uh, sorry, "disgruntled") user decides to go after the
programmer who leaves his name and address in an "About MacBeatles..."
dialog of a program that just lost a week's worth of fan letters to the
user's favorite movie star.
Now there's a harsh thought.
So it's okay to use a Mac for a dedicated BBS. The statement needs
revising:
< It is a crime to waste both your money and/or time to use a Macintosh
(or < any other computer) to do common information management tasks,
when a lesser < machine with a single cleaner, simpler user interface
will do.
We(e) computer programmers live in a magic land. But us folks back in
Kansas are just trying to live a simple life in an already
too-complicated world. (And if you triple-click the mouse....)
P.S. I *always* advise people to use IBM PC's for doorstops; they are
also quite well-suited for jetliner wheel chocks and other inertial
tasks (such as stopping speeding bullets).
EOF [End of Flame] - Back to the Desperate Struggle of Programming the
Mac and
Keeping Up with Delphi Forum Messages.
- Doug McKenna (XATHENAX on DELPHI)
Pyro Caveat Emptor: Although I am a Macintosh user/programmer, I also
have a technical/emotional/financial stake in Information Appliance,
Inc, whose product philosophy I obviously lean towards. I am, however,
neither an employee nor official spokespersona of IAI.
------------------------------
From: MACWEEKBOS
Subject: RE: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (Re: Msg 24175)
Date: 13-DEC 10:31 Telecommunicating
Doug,
I just left a message mentioning some of the same problems you bring up,
*before* reading your message. The problem has been brought home to me
by watching my father work with his new Mac Plus. He was, until
recently, completely "computer illiterate" although he's quite
"literate" technically and linguistically. He has no fear of computers
and is getting hooked on the Mac, going so far as to program in
TrueBasic rather than try to twist a spreadsheet to fit his needs.
But, things in the user interface that should be clear are actually
confusing. The many little obscure (and often undocumented) tricks I
have to tell him keep reminding me of the complexity of the Mac. It
doesn't stop him from using it, but my efficiency is higher thanks only
to three years of intense experience and research.
Other friends of mine are making their living teaching new Mac users how
to use their computers. There's a great demand for such courses, despite
the fact that the Mac is so much easier to use than the IBM PC or Unix
boxes.
I hope this thread really takes off, because it's a problem that isn't
well accepted amidst the hype of Apple advertising. Unfortunately, I
think the solution is only in years of software work. I wish that
Apple's commitment to research and development will shorten that time in
calendar years, but I'm not optimistic about great progress in the next
5 years.
Finally, I think the biggest problem is that we have no Einstein of
software, no one who has grasped the essential problem and described it
in a simple way. The most inspirational thing I've seen yet, and the
results aren't in, is a book by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores
called "Understanding Computers and Cognition, a new foundation for
design" published by Addison Wesley. It describes a completely new way
of looking at computers and their uses.
Ric
------------------------------
From: NATURAL
Subject: RE: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (Re: Msg 24199)
Date: 13-DEC 11:42 Telecommunicating
I think a _lot_ of the problem(s) we speak of are due to the constant
grabbing of "tiny" little utilties, inits, das, cdevs, applications,
that do "insanely great" tasks. The Mac seems to spur a lot of
creativity but creative minds do not always think alike and therefor
one's definition of creativity can differ drastically from another's,
both in visual interface and programming design, thus creating visual
and internal conflicts that either create confusion or the dreaded
infamous system error.
Is it really important to have 43 DAs? Or not use the Finder for things
like Oasis and PowerStation? The list goes on and don't get the
impression I am picking on any one utility but the answer is No and Yes.
No, we could use Font/Da Mover and the finder to do the same tasks but
Yes, we do need them as the make an _experienced_ macintosh user's use
of the Mac a lot more pleasant.
So what do we do? Now that four of the five members of my family have
Macintoshes, I find myself the family support center. (Unfortunetly, my
rates are to low... ;-) However, there's a limit of how advanced and
what kind of utilities and am going to pass on. For example, my mother
uses MS Word 1.05. Insane you say? Not really. It works for what she
uses it for... a relatively simple but surely overall solid word
processor. Now she hears the word 3 is around and she wants to upgrade.
I keep telling her that she's fine with 1.05... she really just wants
the preview command. I'll probably just give her the Preview Print
Driver. But the point is, I _know_ that giving her MSW3.0 will create
headaches not only for her but for me as well. Not that she's not up to
speed or techically intelligent, but that she's not a computer
professional... she's a musician who's using the Mac as a WP. This I
think is the typical Mac user, probably a lot like Ric's Dad... (hey...
my mom's single... is your dad? :-) What level would they be up to
without us? Would they be stuck in a rut? What level should they be?
Should they have to join a user group? I think that's silly. She
doesn't belong to a Smith-Corona users group, nor a Cuisenart user's
group. Is this where we want the Mac to be headed, as the ultimate Info
appliance?
Joshua Wachs
Natural Intelligence Consulting
------------------------------
From: JOSEF
Subject: RE: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (Re: Msg 24203)
Date: 13-DEC 13:54 Telecommunicating
I agree with Joshua's observations and would like to add a few of my
own. If you have done a lot of serious programming on the Mac, then you
must realize that as programmer's, we ask a lot of our machines that the
ordinary user doesn't require. At least I do. After shuffling 43 DAs
and 27 INITS and 5 finder replacements in and out of the system and then
expect the whole shmear to operate flawlessly over a complex internet
while testing my buggy code is probably asking a bit much. I also think
you're being a bit unreasonable (and unnecessarily depriving yourself of
some great software) if you really do things like rule out Switcher just
cuz it bombed on you once in the first 15 minutes.
Yes, the Mac IS getting more complex, and I agree that this is
unfortunate and perhaps even a bad sign. But remember that the Mac is
still available in basically it's original form: an off-the-shell
self-contained machine that you just plug in and start using (I'm
referring to the SE). And all the "insanely great" easy-to-use s/w that
started it all is still out there and being used i'm sure every day by
the vast majority of Mac users. At least we have a choice whetsher we
want to be "power" users or not. I'm not sure the IBM folks and their
ilk can say the same.
Here's another clincher: I have a boy who's not even 3 yet who can walk
up to the Mac, slap in a disk, double click on a program of his choice
and start using it. I wonder how many IBM households can get their
small children to do something comparable.
ya--there's lots of room for improvement, but let's not be too harsh.
In my opinion, the Mac is still: the state-of-the-art.
Thanx for raising these important issues!
Joe
------------------------------
From: JHODGSON
Subject: RE: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (Re: Msg 24203)
Date: 13-DEC 15:04 Telecommunicating
I hear what you're saying about causing headaches for you and your mom
but I think I have a real problem with those of us who know something
about this stuff deciding that we _know_ what's best for those who know
less. Isn't that What Apple did to us wit h the 128K Mac?
The whole point of personal computers is to expand yourself and your
capabilities. I know I don't want anyone else telling ME what they
_know_ I need or don't need. The littel INITs and whatnot are a problem
sometimes. But let's learn how to use them
well not less.
***Jack Hodgson
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (Re: Msg 24175)
Date: 13-DEC 21:32 Telecommunicating
I agree with most of what you say, except to point out that the
Macintosh makes shortcomings of this kind much more obvious than its
predecessors do. In the words of Alan Kay, "The Macintosh is the first
personal computer good enough to criticize". Here are some more
specific responses to what you say:
>The arcane stuff I am being asked to remember in order to be able to maneuver
>my way through Mac Land is daunting, and my role is not as a programmer, mind
>you, but as a user (the distinction is becoming blurred). Hold the mouse down
>at these times; Option-Command-Shift-Control-Meta-Foo-Boot when something is
>showing will reset something else (or was it while opening this DA). Place the
>cursor in this special spot.
This is part of an unending struggle between power users and normal
people. I hate overloaded keys too, but the power users demand them. I
think the right thing to do is to have all the special things brought
out into menus or some similar self-documenting structure and then let
the power user overlay this with his own personal tricks. QuicKeys is a
good example of the way to do this. However, once people start doing
this, they lose the ability to explain to anyone else how to do a thing
because everyone uses a private language to speak with the computer.
(For example, on the VAX, I have a command called "Browse" which I
abbreviate "br". When people see me doing this, they ask me what that
is, and I have to explain that it means "edit/read". Worse (for me), it
doesn't work when I am helping someone on another terminal, so I have to
remember edit/read anyway.)
>Load these programs in this order because something only runs in this part of
>memory.
You must be referring to Excel. I have little positive to say about
Microsoft either! They use 20-bit addresses in their p-code
interpreter. Works on an IBM PC, must be OK.
>Printing in the background with this spooler means you can't use this program
>(it crashes).
A bug is a bug. Lobby for memory protection as a standard feature.
>MultiFinder is useless without further hardware enhancements (you need more
>memory: sounds kinda like IBM's been teaching Apple some old tricks (see
>also HyperCard))
I was going to make this accusation too, but after thinking about it for
a while, I realized it is unwarranted. Where Switcher would work in a
512K machine with 3 programs designed for 128K machines, MultiFinder
works on a 2 meg machine with 3 programs designed for 512K machines.
Makes sense to me! I don't think anyone is really trying to take unfair
advantage of people by forcing them to buy more memory. As to
HyperCard, I agree it takes a lot of memory, but 200K of that is for
saved screens in Painting mode. Maybe it takes too much memory anyway,
but I would feel cheated if Atkinson's idea of the next generation of
personal applications were stunted by the 128K mentality.
>The most common Mac telecommunications program is now unreliable on a Mac II.
You mean Red Ryder? It has been fixed in release 10.x and was
LightspeedC's bug, not Scott Watson's. Blame THINK Technologies (they
deserve it for such a stupid blunder). To be fair, it has been fixed in
LightspeedC too, since last summer. Ditto Megamax C disease.
>Within 15 minutes of the first time I tried Switcher 5.0, my Mac crashed. I
>tried it a couple of times more, with the same results. It was supposed to
>make my life easier; but it made me lose data=work=time=hair. I never used
>it again. The better part of valor: I'd rather not switch and not fight.
Blame this on Apple: the 128K mentality. Apple will be paying for the
mistake of using low memory globals for a long time.
>>I *always* advise people to use IBM PCs for BBS systems. Wasting a machine
>>like a Macintosh on a BBS is a crime.
>At Jef Raskin's current non-computer company, Information Appliance, Inc (IAI),
>they have recently committed the terrible deed: an *entire* Mac is used for
>their in-house Bulletin Board and E-Mail system. Since there are no Bulletin
>Board appliances yet, they have turned a Mac into one, and it sits alone,
>unattended, happy, waiting for the phones to ring.
But Raskin doesn't like Macintoshes. My reasoning for making the
statement about never using a Mac for a BBS is based on the idea that
you want to use your Mac for something. If you have a spare Mac lying
around that isn't being used for anything at all, using it for a BBS is
a good thing. I'll bet there is nothing about using the Mac for a BBS
at Raskin's company that makes any special use of the fact that the
machine is a Mac. Maybe the Sysop functions? Nothing that the user ever
sees. Maybe AppleTalk BBS connections rather than serial port? That
would be more believable, especially of IAI uses Macs for development.
But for the conventional BBS application, there is no point to using a
Mac when you can use a much less expensive IBM PC.
>It is because it is easier to learn and *use* an information appliance than
>any computer, regardless of whether you are a computer person or just a general
>non-technical employee, such as a receptionist, secretary, manual writer, or
>anyone in management (i.e. most people).
I think that your definition of "information appliance" is "a computer
that does only a limited thing; not a general purpose computer". Thus,
your claim is a self-fullfilling prophecy. The specter of a future full
of information appliances is ghastly. Imagine the frustration of trying
to use machines that almost do what you want, but not quite. The
information appliance of the future will do what the marketing
department thinks "most people" need, that is to say, the lowest common
denominator. It will do it very well, most likely, but I want a
computer, not an information appliance. Give me the greatest Cartesian
product.
The challenge facing the system designers of the future is to make
computers programmable by the masses, and not in any arcane language
with toolbox interfaces. Until they do that, computers will continue to
separate the technocrats from the uncomprehending users, and that hurts
us all.
peter
------------------------------
From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: Mac's, PC's, Cat's, Inertial tasks, (Re: Msg 24175)
Date: 13-DEC 22:14 Telecommunicating
Before I give Jef Raskin a whole lot of credit, let me ask you a
question. Have you used his Swyftcard? I never have, so I could easily
be wrong in what I've gathered from the writeups of it. But I can't see
how anyone could design a machine that a touch typist can't use the
"find" command of -- to search for something, you hold the "leap" key
down and type what you want to find, right? But the machine has only one
leap key, right? so there's at least one letter (p) which is hard to
find as part of a sequence.
Nobody's forcing you to use MultiFinder; it's completely optional. You
can even save space if you don't like the feature.
But I do agree with you that in many ways, things are going the wrong
way. And MultiFinder is a prime offender (layers are completely alien
to the Macintosh user interface -- for one thing, they're modal).
There are no invisible Finder shortcuts for ejecting disks. (There is an
invisible shortcut for ejecting disks which works no matter what program
you're running, pretzel-shift-1.)
I _like_ infinitely customizable machines. I'm very doubtful that
anyone can predict all my information needs. Or that such a machine can
be made more bug-free than a program to do the same thing running on a
more flexible machine. (From my experience, dedicated word processors
are buggier than WriteNow.)
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End of Delphi Mac Digest
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