From: johnsd2@vccnw01.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 00:27:01 GMT

In article <qy#p8#a.marquis@netcom.com>, marquis@netcom.com (Roger Marquis) writes:
|> In article <gbhz=jl@rpi.edu> johnsd2@rpi.edu writes:
|> >
|> >|> --- GUI VS CLI
|> >Hoo, this'll be fun. Tell me how you can convert the finder to
|> >a ->CLI<-, without loosing anything. (not a character based interface,
|> >character vs graphical is really irrelevant. the is CLI vs GUI);
|> 
|> Perhaps I should have said CBI (character based interface) rather than
|> CLI.  I may have missed the meaning of CLI. (I'm sure someone will
|> explain here ;-)

Heh. Ok, that's differen't. There's nothing inherintly wrong
with character based interfaces imho.

(CLI= Command Line Interface. Ie, type a command, press return, the
computer does it. type annother.. etc etc...)

|> >|> --- MICE VS KEYBOARD
|> >But what if you don't REMEMBER the command-keys to hit?
|> 
|> It would not matter if you remembered the keys or not.  If they are
|> displayed on the menu, as they should be, then you wouldn't have to
|> take your hands off the keyboard (the old time-wasting keyboard to
|> mouse and back shuffle).

I see. Menus, but not mice. Well, that helps but its hardly
better than mousing (instead of finding the mouse, you
find the alt-key.)

Finding the mouse doesn't take long, if you are good at it.
Its always right where you left it.

|> >
|> >Indeed, there are supposedly studies that show that mousing is faster
|> >than command-keys because you have to remember stuff to use
|> >command keys. You just don't remember thinking about it. I expect
|> >you've heard of that, but I doubt you believe a word of it. :)
|> >
|> Have not heard this before.  I would suspect the methodology of any
|> study showing mice to be faster than keyboards for chosing menu
|> options.

:) That's a good way out of ANYTHING. Basically, "if it doens't
agree with me, it must have been done wrong." :)

Well, I dont have teh study so Ill just drop this line,
as I cant defend it...

|> >|> --- OPEN VS RESTRICTED SYSTEMS
|> >There is ->NO<- enforcement. There are no verified cases of the
|> >Apple Thot Police dragging anyone off to the gulag for violating
|> >the User Interface Guidlines. (there are always rumors tho...)
|> 
|> No direct enforcement, true, but there is defacto enforcement in the
|> fact that it's too difficult to write to anything but standard OS API
|> calls.

It is not. The calls make it easier to do things the way apple
wants them done, but they do NOT make it harder
to do things "wrong"; You can still write direct to screen
memory; its easier to use quickdraw but that doesn't make
it harder to write to the screen directly. (for instance)

If you use Think C anyway, you can make generic command line apps
wo/ problems; just use standard C calls.

|> >But, might I ask how "its GUI" and "the strict enforcement of a
|> >rigid interface" are distinct? Sounds like you are saying
|> >"its not the GUI, its just they there's this GUI everyone
|> >has to use!"
|> 
|> In essence.  Sun has done an excellent job of making all sorts of GUI
|> front ends available on their platforms without taking away any of the
|> functionality of the character based backend.

I dont see how this relates to the point. In any case, I know of very
few Unix apps that can run w/ Open Look (I think its something likst
150 of them..), and the other user interfaces are in similar
straights. So I would say the character based backend (which is
perfectly good) has  taken away from the user interface. Or
perhaps its just the lack of a standard. Hard to say.

|> >|> The crux of this argument is: just how much of a trade off are you willing 
|> >|> to make (flexibility and extensibility vs short learning curve).  Are
|> >|> you sure you can forever do without the ability to write a batch program 
|> >|> which can automate 100 points and clicks to get the benefit of a good
|> >|> looking and consistent interface?
|> >
|> >Believe it or not, most people don't need batch jobs like that.
|> >I agree the facility should be there, but isn't there (yet!), but
|> >its not that critical.
|> 
|> What you don't know can't hurt you I guess?  If you only use your
|> computer for word processing, or a very limited number of
|> applications this may be true.  But why limit your options?  Would you
|> buy a house without a kitchen because it was easier to keep clean?  I
|> guess my point is that once you know what can be done with a computer
|> there's really no going back.  I save hours every week thanks to
|> Desqview macros and DOS batch files.  If I could do the same on a Mac
|> that would be great.  

This arguement works backwards. I dont want to work with a system
that doens't support tons o' freeware and shareware and beerware (etc)
extensions to the system, to be picked up at any ole' ftp site...

I dont want to work with a system that doesn't have an Apple
menu (or somethign like that); And so forth, and so on.

You could do the same on teh mac, w/ a scripting language.
You do not need a CLI for this, anyway.

However, Id like to know what these batch files of yours do,
so I can see what it is Im missing, and see if you'd need to do
it in the Mac.

|> >
|> >One other point; I agree CLIs exist with more flexibility than
|> >any GUI I know of, but CLIs have been around, and in constant
|> >heavy use and develoemend, for a lot longer than GUIs have. Give
|> >GUIs more time, and watch what happens. They wont stand still.
|> 
|> GUIs _are_ the future!  They are developing quickly and gaining features
|> at an amazing rate.  Only Apple's GUI is not keeping up with this
|> explosive growth.

Is it not? Please defend this statement. Tell me what
sorta great stuff is appearing in other GUIs that Apple is
missing. Apples UI does change and improve over time, but
not "explosively", as this would blow away any consistency
in it.

|> >As for extensibility, I dunno bout that. Some of the things
|> >Extensions can do are really, really wild. I never heard of a CLI
|> >doing that sorta stuff. [do you want examples?]
|> 
|> Examples, Please do!

Sure.

WindowShade-	Double click window title bars, and watch them roll up
		(everything but the title bar vanishes)
[I think there's an extension to iconise them instead, but I haven't
tried it.]

SpeedyFinder-	Lots of things. It makes your floppy icons display
		letters on them to indicate what size floppy is
		represented. It speeds up finder copies. It makes
		option-Find become "Find Origional" (trace down
		the origional from an alias), it makes
		option-Get Info get info on the destination of an alias.
		It gets rid of those zooming-rectangle effects.
		More stuff, but I cant remeber what. It does a lot.

SoundMaster-	Everyone's favorite :) Plays sounds on certain
		events, such as start up,shut down, disk eject,
		on the hour, and lots more. (I thikn the latest
		version of windows does this by itself, but
		MacOs can only do startup sounds by itself.
		This adds more)

MaxApplZoom-	This one is wild. It reprograms the Apple High-Resolution
		Display card to display more pixels, up to 704x512 or
		something like that. Makes teh monitor flicker a bit tho.

Wild Magic-	Comes with QuickTime. This fudges things so that apps
		that support pasting PICT images into documents can
		paste quicktime moves in, and play them. Doesn't always
		work, tho.

Just TRY to make a batch file do THAT! :)
-- 
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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