From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: The Problem with UNIX
Organization: The World
Distribution: comp
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 01:24:06 GMT


Some thoughts...(the "you" in here is the audience unspecified who is
crying out for all this user-friendliness with a tone similar to what
is heard from those folks who beg charity for starving babies in
Somalia):

1. Although mentioned before, I will mention this again: People are
confusing "Unix" with various user interfaces (i.e. shells.)

The shell has been re-writtened so many times (including fully point
and click mac-like things of which several exist from NeXT to Looking
Glass to IBM's AIX Desktop whatever-it's-called) that the point is not
even debateable.

If there is such a huge market out there for these user-friendly
interfaces how come no one but you has noticed?

Is it that software houses don't like money?

Assuming these user interface programs do exist and you haven't heard
about them (i.e.  they're not too commercially successful) what is
that trying to tell you?

Or is it possible (heresy alert)...just POSSIBLE...that you are (dare
I say it)...wrong?

2. Here is what I remember of my Unix career:

Year (approx)           # of Unix systems         Comment
                        in the world (approx)

1976                    200                     Unix is too user unfriendly,
                                                it will never catch on.

1980                    2000                    Unix is too user unfriendly,
                                                it will never catch on.

1985                    200,000                 Unix is too user unfriendly,
                                                it will never catch on.

1992                    4 million +             Unix is too user unfriendly,
                                                it will never catch on.

(I'm sure people will quibble the numbers, I'm also sure that my point
will remain the same when the dust settles.)

Ok, well the "my thingie is bigger than your thingie" crowd will point
out that DOS has (some ridiculous number like 20-40M) systems out
there. But how can you separate out merely cheap (and worth every
penny) from better? What has been the effect of the minimum hardware
to even run Unix costing $10K-$100K until relatively recently?
Similarly, with almost exactly the same parameters (hardware prices
dropping etc), how come OS's like VMS have fared so horribly?

There are certainly more bicycles than automobiles in the world, does
that make bicycles superior to autos? Or just better than nothing
(e.g. when nothing means typing with a typewriter and a bottle of
correction fluid) at a very low price point?

(I consider the analogy apt, DOS is an operating system about as much
as a bicycle is an automobile, that they both roll people around on
wheels is not quite enough to make the point.)

Anyhow, since Unix has had most of its growth in parallel with DOS
it's a bit hard to make that point, I believe as a yearly percentage
Unix is now growing faster than DOS, and that difference is expected
to increase in the near future.

So even those who point towards "instantly off the top of their heads
fabricated" market statistics turn out to be on rather shaky ground.

3. Those who believe they have great intuitions about user interfaces
and user friendliness and what that stupidest of all creatures, namely
the secretary (you know who that is, the person who is always
explaining to you how to use your phone switch, the postal meter, fill
out requisition forms correctly, etc) can or cannot possibly learn,
consider for one moment something no doubt sitting on your desk right
this moment: The Telephone.

Yikes! The TELEPHONE?!?!?!

Does he mean that 12 or 20 or 100 button thing that requires you to
key in anywhere from 7 to 10 to 20 or more DIGITS to find your friends
and acquaintances and other info? (and don't forget to dial 9 for
outside calls, 011-country-code for int'l calls, 9-1-area-code for
outside long-distance, company tie-lines are accessed via ..., the 24
digit pattern for making a charge card call is described on the back
of your calling card, speed dialing is *NNNN where NNNN is the 4-digit
code you wish to call, to add a party to a conference call dial the
first party, put him or her on hold, dial ##+, wait for a dial-tone,
then first-line#, +, second-line# num, release hold, to enter memory
codes for fast dialing the switch marked "Memory" on the back of your
phone must be set to "ON", then hold down the key marked FUNCTION and
enter the key number you wish your number to be saved into, for two
digit memory keys us FUNCTION first-digit # second-digit, when you are
done type FUNCTION * and your number will be saved to NVRAM, 976 and
1-900 calls cost big bucks usually, 1-800 is free, etc etc etc etc etc
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc ETC ETC ETC ETC
ETC....(anyone want to complete the list of little rules about using
their phones they and their 6 year old children have committed to
memory???))

NAH...the telephone will never catch on, no one can possibly
understand that kind of stuff...STRINGS OF DIGITS as an addressing
scheme? Preposterous, unusable, unworkable, only for some kind of
nerds...

4. SUMMARY - We haven't barely a clue as to what is user-friendly and
what is not. All we sort of know is that people who are motivated to
use a particular technology seem to have an uncanny ability to learn
it that a priori judgements seem to be confounded by.

5. Post Script - After 16 years I'm getting awfully tired of this
tired and nearly brainless point being made over and over and over and
over and over again.

All I've learned from all this is that most of the people I've known
over the years who believed Unix was too user unfriendly and can never
get anywhere have all missed the boat, most have become rather
pathetic technological dinosaurs (or have finally given in.)


-- 
        -Barry Shein

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