[Sussex] Improving on UNIX

[John Crowhurst]

> however language is a great tool, when used with clearly defined
> context.

This is where English lets us down. The language is easy to learn for us,
but the words have too many meanings.

> I grew up with a rare disorder, I never understood subtleties in
> language because to me it was a method of translating understanding.
>
> to me next saturday is 15th, but to most its 22nd. and yet the only
> possible next saturday is 15th.

Its 22nd because this saturday would refer to 15th, next (one after) would
refer to 22nd. I can see your problem, simply because the next meeting we
have would be 27th of March, and not April.

> so back to pictographic context.
>
> I got into this conversation pointing out that pictograms restrict not
> the development of technology but the ability to communicate the
> implementation of that technology.

In a pictogram you are limited by what you see alone. If you try to learn
from pictograms alone, you won't get very far. You would need some kind of
legend or key to describe what each pictogram means.

> Gunpowder, WainWrights and Glass Blowers did not really write anything
> down dor a long time. but had it been appropriate ? well look at
> Cuniform and Hieroglyhipcs and ask how it might have been possible to
> record the instructions to make those items.

Were Hieroglyphs used to pass on information to the other realm rather
than to the physical world. To have a tomb with the writing on the inside
and not on the outside implies such a thing.

> use several gui environments and from the "desktop"( assuming desktop to
> be common } open and read a text file. time how long it takes and how
> many items are involved.

There are way too many actions involved, but if they are visible to a user
it has the illusion that they are friendlier and easier to use.

> use a command line environment and do the same

Its quicker to use a CLI, but it looks less friendly to a new user.

> have you noticed that Computers have always had data entry of some sort,
> keyboards being primary and current mas data inputs for the personal
> computers. When we added GUI we added another input device. increasing
> the amount of controls every user has to aclimatise to.
>
> if we wanted to make computers simple for end users we should have built
> input devices specific for each task.  instead we made each device to
> hanlde multiple tasks and expected users to learn that. which is quite
> unnatural.

In an attempt to make things easier for the user to use the product and
easier to interact with it, they have damned themselves along with the
users.

> GUIS hamper first the developers and designers long before they hamper
> the end user!

CLIs tend to hamper those who think visually. Take web design for an
example, where you can see what you are creating. It takes much longer to
work on a webpage in a CLI, then display in the web browser, make the
subtle change and do it again. With WYSIWYG you make the change instantly
visible.

--
John