command line vs gui
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From: Lee Sau Dan on 19 Nov 2005 12:11 >>>>> "blmblm(a)myrealbox" == blmblm(a)myrealbox com <(blmblm(a)myrealbox.com)> writes: blmblm(a)myrealbox> Another way to say this (maybe -- or at least blmblm(a)myrealbox> it's a point I'd make) is that GUIs tend to be blmblm(a)myrealbox> novice-friendly, while CLIs tend to be blmblm(a)myrealbox> expert-friendly. The travel agents might not be blmblm(a)myrealbox> happy using a CLI to browse the Web at home, but blmblm(a)myrealbox> my guess is that they regard that "shell" they blmblm(a)myrealbox> use at work as worth the time it took to learn blmblm(a)myrealbox> to use it. I strongly suspect that there are blmblm(a)myrealbox> similar examples in other professions/jobs. How about restaurants? Many restaurants assign codes to the items on the menus, and when taking orders, they write down only the codes of the food items. And the code is understood by the whole workflow: the waiters, the cooks and the cashiers. Why don't they use names (or in GUI: photos) of the food items? How about bank tellers? Do they use a GUI on their terminals, or do they see a text-based screen and use the keyboard (perhaps the keys F1--F12) to perform those operations such as deposit and withdrawal? And how about a drug store? Do people buy drugs visually by describing the colours and shapes of the pills they want to by? Or do they prefer to give the names of the drugs? When you go to buy a drug, you prefer the drugstore worker to display to you all drugs they sell and let you pick the one you want? Or would you rather tell the worker the name of the drug you want? blmblm(a)myrealbox> Programmers might be somewhat more likely that blmblm(a)myrealbox> other people to perceive the benefit of blmblm(a)myrealbox> investing time in learning to use an blmblm(a)myrealbox> expert-friendly tool, even if it's not very blmblm(a)myrealbox> novice-friendly? Not only programmers, I think. Would a hair-dresser avoid learning to use those specialized scissors and use an ordinary pair of office scissors (for cutting paper) instead? Would he give up the razor blades and use a philips 3-head electric shaver to shave his customers? Would workers in a garments factory avoid learning to use the sewing machine, and sew with their own hands? Would they avoid learning to use electrical cutters to cut the cloths, and use a plain pair of scissors like what a housewife would do at home? -- Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~} E-mail: danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
From: Lee Sau Dan on 19 Nov 2005 12:13 >>>>> "Robert" == Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com> writes: Robert> And there are many users of English who can actually spell Robert> it *without a spell checker*! And many foreigners -- those who don't speak English as a mother tongue -- can spell English correctly, too. -- Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~} E-mail: danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
From: Tobias Brox on 20 Nov 2005 16:08 [Lee Sau Dan] > They don't have the patience to RTFM. But they have the patience to > go through menus, checkboxes, comboes and cascading dialog boxes? I'm considering myself a CLI-freak, but I must say, even for me menues, checkboxes and dialog boxes sometimes come easier than RTFM. -- This signature has been virus scanned, and is probably safe to read Tobias Brox, 69?42'N, 18?57'E
From: Tobias Brox on 20 Nov 2005 16:21 [Lee Sau Dan] > What? This language relies on INDENTATION to tell the boundary of a > repeat block? i.e. repeated whitespace characters affect semantics? > That'd be very error prone! The snippet above was pseudo-code, not written in any particular language, and optimized for human readability. Python does rely on indentation, and it works. When I started learning Python, I had the same hesitations towards letting code logics depend on indentation. By now I've been working professionally with Python for more than a year, and I still miss the possibility to mark out { blocks } with curly braces. It's so much better for things like searching for the block end, using tools for automatic reindentation when moving code blocks, etc - and when used together with proper indentation, it gives a redundancy which reduces the risk for errors - but, in our project involving 6-10 developers working full time for one and a half year, I have so far seen serious bugs due to wrong indentation only twice. > Tobias> As for exactness, the very most drawing programs supports > Tobias> "snap to grid", and that's usually sufficient for me (not > Tobias> that I make many drawings anyway). > "snap to grid". So, you must place your drawing points at integral > multiple of the grid granularity. Then, it can't let you accurately > start/end an arrow at the circumference of a circle, which has a > radius that is an integral multiple of the grid granuarity, at the > point which is 45 degrees counterclockwise from the x-axis. Indeed. -- This signature has been virus scanned, and is probably safe to read Tobias Brox, 69?42'N, 18?57'E
From: Richard Steiner on 22 Nov 2005 02:25
Here in comp.os.linux.misc, Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> spake unto us, saying: >But the question is: is a GUI that presents all possible options >_easy_ or _convenient_ to use? An xterm is one method that a GUI can use to provide a set of flexible options while also maintaing its nature as a graphical interface. The text prompt effectively becomes a subset of the total desktop UI. :-) One doesn't have to use only a GUI or only a CLI, even in a single UI. Even text-based tools like midnight commander or 4DOS can mix and match GUI and CLI elements concurrently. -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven! WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then. |