[Sussex] Improving on UNIX

[Mark Harrison]

> However as Languages,
> written and spoken provide one of the
strongest tools sets available to
> Humankind. A gui based interface for a
language driven subset, like oh
> I dont know cuniform of the
babylonians or hieryaglphyics {spelling}
of
> the Eygptians was useful but
restricted them in their developments.

Peut-etre, je peut demonstrer une des
problemes. Le monde anglophone le trouve
tres avanteguese d'adopter une system
qui trouve, dans ses bases, les mots
anglais. Mais, pour le pluspart du
monde, ce n'est pas claire que ca soit
une avantage.

Which is to say:

Perhaps I can demonstrate one of the
problems. The English-speaking world
finds it very useful to adopt a system
which is based on English words. But,
for most of the world, it's less clear
that this would be beneficial.

The question of development is worth
challenging.

To claim that, say, the use of a
non-alphabetical language restricted
development prior to the late middle
ages sadly doesn't stack up. Many
technological and cultural advances were
first made in Asia - the classic example
would be the development of gunpowder in
China.

It is true that languages based on
ideomatograms were slower to develop in
recent centuries. However one could
claim that this was because, with the
advent of movable type, the technology
placed such restricitions on the
mass-production of the written word.

Technology has advanced to the extent
that it can mass-communicate content
based on more than plain text. Pictures,
sounds, movement, and so on. Much
research on communication has shown that
the _average_ human is capable of both
processing and conveying information at
a rate much higher than that at which
they can process the written word. I am
not convinced of the claim that because
something has proved to be an advantage
for 300 of the last 5000 years that it
will always be an advantage simply
because those 300 are the most recent.


> Languages are the stong foundation for
common communication of ideas.
> Icons may represent the idea but they
actually represent the actions on
> that idea and as such become context
restricted.

Languages likewise only REPRESENT ideas.
The concept, say, of "democracy" means
something very different to us to the
average inhabitant of the German
Democratic Republic in the 1980s, or
even to a republican (in the sense of
the movement, not the party) American,
who would consider the UK to be a
fundamentally less democratic country
than the US, because we do not have an
elected head of state. This is equally
true whether I type "D, e, m, o, c, r,
a, c and y" on the keyboard, or click a
symblic representation. There are whole
branches of linguistics devoted to
this - axiomatic semantics would be a
good place to start.

> So managing a operating system with a
GUI. yes its possible if you want
> simple brain dead no though, dont have
to learn, administration
> processes to be part of your Sysadmins
skill set.

As an IT manger (as I was for many years
before becoming a consultant), I have a
place for the highly literate and
self-motivated technocrat who is keen to
develop new skills. However, I also have
a place for the relatively basically
trained IT support person who does not
have the ability or inclination to learn
arcane commands, but knows that he has
to click the button that looks like a
fat B to make text bold and is happy to
repeat this to end-users ad nauseam.
This person will cost me a lot less! Why
should I pay for an expensive
command-line understanding sysadmin when
I can have a cheap one who can drive a
GUI.

GUIs were not developed in some way to
prevent understanding. They were
developed to improve productivity. It is
not at all clear to me why a tool that
has clearly demonstrated mass
productivity improvements in non-IT
people should somehow prove to be
incapable of delivering such things in
IT people.

Regards,

Mark