[OT] Re: [Gllug] On Linux desktops...

[Paul Nasrat]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 05:23:05PM +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Wednesday 17 October 2001 4:45 pm, you wrote:
> > >People do, though, often misunderstand what it means to be command-line.
> > > Just because a display is made of text, on a console, doesn't mean it's
> > > not a GUI.
> >
> > Out of interest, what do you imagine the 'G' in GUI - that
> > distinguishes it from just a 'UI' - stands for?
> 
> See that power button on the front of your compter? That's a user interface. 
> The knobs on your cooker are the user interface. 'Graphical' denotes the use 
> of graphs to represent the interface. Ergo....

Hmm, now this is the hard bit.  Defining graphs/graphics...

I would imagine in this context there is a difference of opinion between
people.  Where do you start:

graph-  IIRC is a greek stem to write.  Now writing is a visual
representation (or multiple visualisation, or multiple technologies with
shared visual representations, or summit...)

graphics is a visual representation of widgets is what I take Alex's
definition to be.  I can see the argument but would probably need to
think more about my own definition before agreeing or disagreeing
conclusively.

David's argument seems to be based around the metaphors of computing
where graphics has a heavily loaded meaning.  An also reasonable
definition, but probably not broad enough for annoying bastards like me.

We can also simultaneously hold these perspective extremes as well, so
I'm sure when Alex is actually working/doing and not mediating his
process the definition is transparent and possibly switches between
multiple definitions...

I don't want to get into the trap of citing specifics yet as my argument
isn't coherent.  Also my usage of terms is based upon my own
understanding (without a HCI or Comp Sci theoretical basis).

I would concur with that a gui is a multifuncional tool (cf writing -
which I have a special interest in):

Alex wrote:

> GUIs are tools for power users - they enable people to do work more
> quickly.
> They enable you to work with datasets with more than one dimension. They
> allow you to express more powerful relations between objects.

I think that dimensionality is one benefit/tool/mode of gui-fication,
others off the top of my head is transparency, translation (between
dimensions?) , perception filters.   Hmm some of those overlap.

To get back to the text/screen mode vs X argument:

They are both Interfaces providing layers on top of fairly fundamental
stuff happening on different scales (electrons, memory addresses, etc)
which add dimensionality, and other stuff to the previous
layers/metaphors/interfaces whatever.  

So I guess the question is one of how we define the dimensionality and
relationships between interfaces in order to determine if it is
graphical or not - whatever graphical means.

Hmm my brain hurts now.

Paul


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