command line vs gui
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From: Peter T. Breuer on 7 Dec 2005 07:32 In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote: > In article <ahvg63-aqb.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>, > Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote: >>In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote: >>> Well, you have said: >> >>>>>>I was imagining that checking many checkboxes give you an OR. >> >>> and also >> >>>>>>> As I understand it, your GUI represents A & B & C & D with four >>>>>>> panels, >>>> >>>>>>Panels? checkboxes. One panel for all. >> >>> To me this second comment seems to indicate that you have checkboxes >>> representing things (filters) to be AND'd together. >> >>No it doesn't. I don't know why you think so! > Read the above dialog one more time. I say "four panels for A&B&C&D", > and you reply "panels? checkboxes". They are CHECKBOXES! Not "panels". > If you truly don't understand > why this might make me think you mean to represent A, B, C, and D > as checkboxes within a single panel, They are CHECKBOXES. Depending on how you wish to combine them, they will be on the SAME or DIFFERENT panels. ALL the options are present on EACH panel. I read your A & B & C & D as written shorthand without any formal meaning. > then we probably should stop > trying to communicate, because it's not clear it's a good use of > anyone's time. Unless .... >>All the checkboxes >>appear on one panel, and checking multiple boxes means OR. You get AND >>by piping filters together (i.e., clicking "again"). > Maybe we don't mean the same thing by "panel". I'm not sure how > to give a precise definition of what I mean, but something like > "an instance of your basic GUI frame with its set of checkboxes", That's what I mean. > such that you get one of them at first, and clicking on "more" brings > up another one. I think there may be a one-to-one correspondence > between the "filters" of your conceptual model and the "panels" > of the GUI I'm trying to imagine based on your description. That is correct. >>> So now we *might* be back to representing either expressions in the >>> equivalent of CNF, or the equivalent of DNF, or possibly one or the >>> other. >> >>I don't know what you mean. One does no "representing"! I think the >>problem is what I fingered below ... > I think it's more likely, with regard to the above interchange, > that we don't mean the same thing by "representing". I'm using > it in a fairly inclusive sense (not text only, i.e.), such that > the state of your GUI (which checkboxes are checked, what text > is typed into any textboxes, etc.) is a representation of the > selection criteria for the search. Why didn't I say that? well, > I suppose I hoped that when I said "equivalent of CNF" you would > interpret that to mean some, um, "representation" that could be > mapped one-to-one onto CNF expressions involving the basic "find" > search terms (-mtime, -name, etc.). It would be a surjection, but there would at least be an surjective sub-injection there. > I don't know how else to say > what I mean here, but your comment "one does no 'representing'!" > suggests to me that we're not in the same mental universe. I only meant that the human makes no conscious effort to translate from one internal format to another (externally constrained) format as seems t be implied by the use of the word "represent" here (and apparently you did not intend it to carry such weight). Instead they think IN the constraints of the external format - just as you and I do in language all the time. > [snip] >>>>I don't see the difficulty. What you say is required is not required. >>>>Your argument seems to boil down to "english is difficult for most >>>>people to speak because one has to translate from the chinese into >>>>english and most people can't do that". No - english is not difficult. >>>>One just "thinks in english", not in chinese. >> >>> If one is a native Chinese speaker who is attempting, as an adult, to >>> learn English, English is difficult. >> >>Then stop doing that - people don't have any problem speaking english, >>or in clicking checkboxes. That you want to first express your problem >>in chinese (arbitrarily nested symbolic logic) and then translate into >>english (clicking) doesn't make the objective difficult - it just means >>you should "stop doing it that way" and think in english ("clicking") >>instead. > This is just silly. "People don't have any problem speaking English" > indeed. This is patently false, It isn't. They have no problem speaking it - you are a living example. > so much so that I can't imagine > why anyone would say it other than as flame bait or some such. > Since it's not really germane to the argument here, I won't provide > counterexamples, but I think you could find them in any major city > in the world. If they don't know english, they can't speak it. That argument is as flawed as would be the application of your argument to "falling off a bicycle is not easy" (or perhaps even more pertinintly "riding a bicycle is not easy" - yes it is easy; you merely have to learn to do it, which is easy). > As for the claim that someone who understands Boolean algebra and is > accustomed to thinking of search criteria in those terms should "stop > doing it that way" and point and click .... Them's fightin' words. No it isn't. You learned boolean algebra (which merely gave you a formal symblic framework on which to hang your thoughts). Learn, say, proof theory (natural deduction) instead, and do it that way. Or perhaps you'd perfer using a Gentzen calculus? These things are merely learned to the level of habituation and proficiency - nothing stops you learning another methodology or focus or approach,because it too is "easy". > I suppose one could make a case for the idea that everyone should > speak English, and everyone should communicate with computers using > a GUI, but I don't think you'd get universal acceptance of this "one > size fits all" approach, nor am I at all convinced that you should. Please stop making absurd arguments! Nobody is requiring everyone to speak english, I merely pointed out that is "easy". You know it is! Billions of people can do it to a greater or lesser degree, just as a billion or so can read and write chinese. It is merely a question of custom and practice and habit. Nothing makes english obligatory, or chinese obligatory - they are both things you can get good at (hey, I can say "where is the hotel" in mandarin, and I can read a couple of hundred classic chinese symbols, and that's without even TRYING). So stop claiming it is not easy, if that is what you are doing. Your arguments are annoyingly misdirected in that respect. >>No language is any different to any other in terms of difficulty. You >>should stop making an issue out of translation and instead concentrate >>on whether or not it is easy to use, and such. > Easy to use for whom? I claim we are not all alike. For some > people, "easy to use" means "makes it easy to do simple things", > period. For others, it means "doesn't make it impossible to do > complicated things". I put myself in the latter category. Then perhaps you should stop wittering on about your opinions on an interface that is meant for the former group! And surely I have already shown you that your second criterion is satisfied already! Peter
From: Peter T. Breuer on 7 Dec 2005 07:38 In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote: > In article <4k0h63-ele.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>, > Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote: >>In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote: >>> I think what you're telling me is that I need to first click "name >>> matches .bak" (checkbox A) and "name matches .tmp" (checkbox C), >>> then "again", then "modified in the last 24 hours" (checkbox B) and >>> "name matches .tmp" (checkbox C), then "finish". >> >>> I cannot imagine how that would be obvious to anyone not able to >>> write and transform the Boolean expression. >> >>:-). reading the description, it sounds perfectly natural to me! (note that C will already be checked on the second panel and you don't have to check it anew). > We are in different mental universes. It doesn't to me. But perhaps > someone unfamiliar with Boolean expressions would also find it > perfectly natural. <shrug> >>One mistake is in thinking that somebody not familiar with Boole >>would even know what "OR" means (exclusive? Why can't you get it OR >>grok it?). > So, you're saying that someone unfamiliar with Boolean expressions > is unable to imagine searching for something that meets one or more > of some given criteria? No, that can't be it, since your basic set > of checkboxes is meant to capture that idea. > People unfamiliar with Boolean algebra probably don't have a precise > notion of what "OR" means in the context of Boolean algebra. The > English word is somewhat ambiguous, sometimes meaning "exclusive or" > and sometimes not. It's worse; in negation the english word sometimes means AND (being used mistakenly for NOR). >>> My point is that Google's interface restricts what you can search for. >>> Yes, I can do two searches, but how do I combine the results? >> >>You use something other than google. What is the point of this >>argument? Where is it going? > It's an example of an interface that restricts what you can do, And I gave you one that didn't. So why mention it? (answer below ...) > where a different interface to the same underlying system might > not. I *think* you're the one who brought up Google, saying "it > understands AND and stuff." Perhaps I misinterpreted "and stuff" > to mean "and other/all Boolean expressions", and we were off on > another argument whose point, if any, got lost along the way. I don't know why it came up, and my correction was merely a point of information. Peter
From: Jacob Sparre Andersen on 7 Dec 2005 09:31 Lee Sau Dan wrote: > Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote: > > No matter what, the basic concept of a command line seems to be so > > foreign for many computer users, > > Is verbal communication that foreign? With a computer, to many people, yes it seems like that. - No matter how strange it seems to me. Greetings, Jacob -- "You've got to build bypasses!"
From: blmblm on 7 Dec 2005 09:37 In article <eb1j63-2b3.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>, Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote: >In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote: >> In article <ahvg63-aqb.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>, >> Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote: [ snip ] >>>>>>>> As I understand it, your GUI represents A & B & C & D with four >>>>>>>> panels, >>>>> >>>>>>>Panels? checkboxes. One panel for all. >>> >>>> To me this second comment seems to indicate that you have checkboxes >>>> representing things (filters) to be AND'd together. >>> >>>No it doesn't. I don't know why you think so! > >> Read the above dialog one more time. I say "four panels for A&B&C&D", >> and you reply "panels? checkboxes". > >They are CHECKBOXES! Not "panels". > >> If you truly don't understand >> why this might make me think you mean to represent A, B, C, and D >> as checkboxes within a single panel, > >They are CHECKBOXES. Depending on how you wish to combine them, they >will be on the SAME or DIFFERENT panels. ALL the options are present on >EACH panel. I read your A & B & C & D as written shorthand without any >formal meaning. Well, that explains it. I meant "&" as shorthand for "AND". I'm not sure that should have been 100% obvious, but (1) if I had simply meant a list of four elements, wouldn't it be more natural to write "A, B, C, & D"? and (2) the "A & B & C & D" was originally part of the more complicated expression (A & B & C & D) or E Perhaps it was remiss of me to mix "&" and "or", but earlier you wrote: "Boolean normal form. You have written (A & B) | (C & D). That is the" which I take as an indication that sometimes you interpret "&" as meaning "Boolean AND". [ snip ] >>>I don't know what you mean. One does no "representing"! I think the >>>problem is what I fingered below ... > >> I think it's more likely, with regard to the above interchange, >> that we don't mean the same thing by "representing". I'm using >> it in a fairly inclusive sense (not text only, i.e.), such that >> the state of your GUI (which checkboxes are checked, what text >> is typed into any textboxes, etc.) is a representation of the >> selection criteria for the search. Why didn't I say that? well, >> I suppose I hoped that when I said "equivalent of CNF" you would >> interpret that to mean some, um, "representation" that could be >> mapped one-to-one onto CNF expressions involving the basic "find" >> search terms (-mtime, -name, etc.). > >It would be a surjection, but there would at least be an >surjective sub-injection there. So now we're agreeing that there are expressions in CNF that your GUI doesn't allow one to .... enter? represent? [ snip ] >>>>>I don't see the difficulty. What you say is required is not required. >>>>>Your argument seems to boil down to "english is difficult for most >>>>>people to speak because one has to translate from the chinese into >>>>>english and most people can't do that". Ah, here's something I should have commented on earlier. "Most people", no. "Some people", yes. >>>>>No - english is not difficult. >>>>>One just "thinks in english", not in chinese. >>> >>>> If one is a native Chinese speaker who is attempting, as an adult, to >>>> learn English, English is difficult. >>> >>>Then stop doing that - people don't have any problem speaking english, >>>or in clicking checkboxes. That you want to first express your problem >>>in chinese (arbitrarily nested symbolic logic) and then translate into >>>english (clicking) doesn't make the objective difficult - it just means >>>you should "stop doing it that way" and think in english ("clicking") >>>instead. > >> This is just silly. "People don't have any problem speaking English" >> indeed. This is patently false, > >It isn't. They have no problem speaking it - you are a living example. > >> so much so that I can't imagine >> why anyone would say it other than as flame bait or some such. >> Since it's not really germane to the argument here, I won't provide >> counterexamples, but I think you could find them in any major city >> in the world. > >If they don't know english, they can't speak it. That argument is as >flawed as would be the application of your argument to "falling off a >bicycle is not easy" (or perhaps even more pertinintly "riding a >bicycle is not easy" - yes it is easy; you merely have to learn to do >it, which is easy). Well, the analogy of Boolean expressions as Chinese versus clicking on checkboxes as English was yours, I believe. Perhaps the point you were trying to make is that clicking on checkboxes is natural and easy and "intuitive", whereas expressing one's meaning in terms of nested Boolean expressions is artificial and difficult? but what I'm claiming is that for someone who has spent more hours expressing thoughts in terms of Boolean expressions, that wouldn't be the case. > >> As for the claim that someone who understands Boolean algebra and is >> accustomed to thinking of search criteria in those terms should "stop >> doing it that way" and point and click .... Them's fightin' words. > >No it isn't. You learned boolean algebra (which merely gave you a >formal symblic framework on which to hang your thoughts). Learn, say, >proof theory (natural deduction) instead, and do it that way. Or >perhaps you'd perfer using a Gentzen calculus? These things are merely >learned to the level of habituation and proficiency - nothing stops you >learning another methodology or focus or approach,because it too is >"easy". > The "fightin' words" aspect is that you seem to be telling me to put aside a notation that I find useful and effective in favor of one that as far as I can tell is less expressive and offers no advantages to someone familiar with the more commonly used options to "find" and accustomed to expressing search criteria in terms of Boolean expressions. As for whether anything stops me from learning another methodology or focus or approach .... It's the same thing that stops me from learning Chinese: I have only so much time and mental energy, and I choose to use them elsewhere. (Maybe if I spent less time replying to posts like this one, I'd have more time .... :-) ) Learning new ways of communicating with computers, or other humans, is intrinsically interesting, I suppose, but I already do about as much of that as I care to. > >> I suppose one could make a case for the idea that everyone should >> speak English, and everyone should communicate with computers using >> a GUI, but I don't think you'd get universal acceptance of this "one >> size fits all" approach, nor am I at all convinced that you should. > >Please stop making absurd arguments! Nobody is requiring everyone to >speak english, I merely pointed out that is "easy". You know it is! Speaking English is easy for me because I learned it during that "language acquisition" phase of childhood. I am not sure it would be so easy if I had tried to learn it as an adult. Perhaps there are people who find it easy to learn new languages as an adult. You may be one of them, judging by the comment in the next paragraph about being able to read several hundred Chinese symbols without even trying. Or perhaps it's that you spent a significant amount of time in an environment in which these symbols were common, and .... >Billions of people can do it to a greater or lesser degree, just as a >billion or so can read and write chinese. It is merely a question of >custom and practice and habit. Nothing makes english obligatory, or >chinese obligatory - they are both things you can get good at (hey, I >can say "where is the hotel" in mandarin, and I can read a couple of >hundred classic chinese symbols, and that's without even TRYING). > >So stop claiming it is not easy, if that is what you are doing. Your >arguments are annoyingly misdirected in that respect. I do claim that learning new human languages, as an adult, is not easy. Perhaps that's not the case for you, but I have several acquaintances who seem to be having trouble with it, despite what I would think are strong incentives to improve. If the argument is about whether GUIs are easy, see below. >>>No language is any different to any other in terms of difficulty. You >>>should stop making an issue out of translation and instead concentrate >>>on whether or not it is easy to use, and such. > >> Easy to use for whom? I claim we are not all alike. For some >> people, "easy to use" means "makes it easy to do simple things", >> period. For others, it means "doesn't make it impossible to do >> complicated things". I put myself in the latter category. > >Then perhaps you should stop wittering on about your opinions on an >interface that is meant for the former group! My impression was that you were saying that this interface would be better ("easy") for everyone. That's what I'm disagreeing with. >And surely I have already >shown you that your second criterion is satisfied already! I suppose you have. I put it badly, though; what I really meant was probably close to "doesn't make it more difficult [ than some interface with which they are already familiar ] to do complicated things." I'm probably a little touchy on the subject of interfaces, meaning too quick to assume that others are bent on applying a "one size fits all" approach that I personally would find tedious and annoying. Let's leave it at that. (Actually this has been a remarkably civil discussion considering the two groups it's cross-posted to?) -- | B. L. Massingill | ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
From: Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz on 7 Dec 2005 09:05
In <3vl59iF15td7vU1(a)individual.net>, on 12/06/2005 at 09:51 AM, blmblm(a)myrealbox.com said: >Something similar applies to CLI/GUI. If you remember the command >and the options, a CLI is often more efficient, but if you don't >.... If you remember the menu structure, a GUI is often more efficient, but if you don't .... -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel> Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not reply to spamtrap(a)library.lspace.org |