HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mark@spider.co.uk (Mark Valentine)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 9 Sep 92 23:56:20 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK

In article <id.P72T.O1C@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>In article <1992Sep6.060556.14670@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse) writes:
>> In article <NEERI.92Sep1141334@iis.ethz.ch>, neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher) writes:
>> > In article <YANDROS.92Sep1003712@j-g-ballard.MIT.EDU> yandros@Athena.MIT.EDU (Chad Phillip Brown) writes:
>> >> (Does anyone know why there isn't a magic key sequence to get to the
>> >> menubar, for instance?)
>
>> "get to"?  The menubar is not a keyboard-useful device, unless you want
>> to arrow-key step through everything.
>
>Or unless you're running Microsft Windows. In which case you can step
>through the menus selecting the underlined letters with the ALT key
>depressed. It's amazingly handy. I wonder why nobody else has picked it
>up. Does Microsoft have a patent on it or something?

The out-of-the box configuration of keyboard accelerators in Windows
is something I'd truly like to see emulated elsewhere.  The silly two-
button rodents which seem to be common on PCs here give me cramps after
a few minutes use, but I can quite happily ignore the mouse with such
features as ALT-<arrow> to browse the menus (e.g. ALT,DOWN,RIGHT,RIGHT),
and ALT-TAB-TAB sure beats grubbing around the desktop the hard way...

Although I'm a novice as far as Windows is concerned, I can get around
it a darn sight quicker than I can the twm I've been using for years and
still haven't got around to configuring for decent mouseless operation!

Scrollbars are another GUI feature that seem simply to waste real estate
most of the time.  Most people I point it out to are pleasantly surprised
to learn that SHIFT-PGUP does the sensible thing by default in xterm (well,
half-sensible, I customised it to go a full page).  What's more, no scroll-
bar I've seen has given me the ease of control that a simple pair of keys
give me (back about four pages? blam, blam, blam, blam! oops, missed it
there, blam! gotcha!!).

		Mark.
-- 
Mark Valentine, Spider Systems <mark@spider.co.uk>            /\oo/\
"Tigers will do ANYTHING for a tuna fish sandwich."
"We're kind of stupid that way."
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.x
From: mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Keywords: Mac, Window, Throw
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 22:08:48 GMT

In article <37783@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson) writes:
>> but that file might have unprintable characters in it, or it might
>> not be a postscript file at all.. you see the computer knows best.
> Right :-) Postscript knows enough not to crash the printer.

I got news for you.... :-)

>> ( In this case I would be tempted to sit down and write that special
>>   program, [...] )
> But all the program needs to do is pass everything through verbatim.

Exactly: that this needs a special program is precisely the problem!

> (A fancy version would just check the first two characters first, and
> if not postcript, run it through a text to postscript filter.)

The first two characters??  Whatever your chosen "first two characters"
are, there are plenty of text files that begin with them, and
PostScript programs that begin with other characters.  PostScript files
*are* text files.  Even if you read the whole thing, you can't tell
whether I want to print the file as text or have the printer's
PostScript interpreter grind through it as a PostScript program; that
decision *must* be made by the user somehow.  (Except for files that
aren't PostScript programs at all...though telling the difference
between a plain text file and a PostScript program with some mistakes
in it is not one I'd like to have to automate.)

					der Mouse

			    mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
From: mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 92 05:45:53 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.214658.21877@cybernet.cse.fau.edu>, spc@pineal.sci.fau.edu (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) writes:
> In article <Btv1sC.79B@mtholyoke.edu> jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
>> I've never quite been able to figure out what exactly NeWS is...
> Well, the SGI machine I'm sitting in front of used to run NeWS, and
> was one of the best looking, quick and easy to use GUI's I've ever
> used.  and the fact that it was running Postscript in the background
> (to manage the display) meant you had quite an oportunity to
> personalize it (assuming you knew Postscript 8-).

And had the time, and a strong enough stomach, to wade through the
morass of undocumented interfaces, scattered across multiple files,
that was the implementation of the window manager (in PostScript).  I
once attacked this in the hope of getting a L&F I could stand to use
for more than a few minutes and had to give up - and I *know*
PostScript, too.

Me, I don't miss NeWS.  I like having real X instead of the pseudo-X
provided by 3.x.  What I miss is working GL timers.

					der Mouse

			    mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
From: neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Integrated Systems Laboratory, ETH, Zurich
	<1992Sep8.154728.20480@daimi.aau.dk>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 10:45:51 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.154728.20480@daimi.aau.dk> rorschak@daimi.aau.dk (Jesper Lauridsen) writes:
>minow@Apple.COM (Martin Minow) writes:
>
>> To understand the problem better, try
>>convincing a Unix C compiler to compile a file named foo.bar (i.e., not
>>foo.bar.c).
>
>That problem can be solved within seconds using the _built in_ command
>mv.

Where exactly is mv built in ?

Matthias
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
From: neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Integrated Systems Laboratory, ETH, Zurich
	<NEERI.92Sep3175345@iis.ethz.ch>
	<1992Sep6.072259.16818@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 16:58:34 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.072259.16818@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse) writes:
>In article <NEERI.92Sep3175345@iis.ethz.ch>, neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher) writes:
>> From Bruce Tognazzini, _Tog on Interface_:
>>   We've done a cool $50 million of R&D on the Apple Human Interface.
>>   We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:
>>   - Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than
>>      mousing. 
>>   - The stopwatch consistently proves that mousing is faster than
>>      keyboarding.
>[...]
>>   And therein lies the very advantage of the mouse: It is boring to
>>   find it because the two-second search does not require high-level
>>   cognitive engagement.
>
>Two-second?  Were the experimental subjects totally hopeless at
>hand-eye coordination or what?

I don't think "two seconds" is to be taken literally.

Matthias
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:768 comp.windows.misc:1422 comp.windows.news:682 comp.windows.x:16611
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 13 Sep 92 11:51:54 GMT
Followup-To: alt.religion.computers
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>Ok, I've been advised that Open Windows _is_ (or rather, implements)
>Open Look.  At least I and the previous poster were obviously in
>violent agreement!  ;-)

Did the previous poster disklike the OPEN LOOK GUI, or did they dislike
the Open Windows implementation of it?
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
From: marauder@wam.umd.edu (Joe Jacobson)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: ---University of Maryland, College Park---
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 04:34:46 GMT

It's obvious you people haven't seen God's gift to GUI's: namely NeXTSTEP.
(That's the GUI for the NeXT's computers.  Steve Jobs second gift to the world;
the first being Macintosh, of course).

I've been using NeXTSTEP for two years now, and I've got to admit that I've 
never seen a more powerful, versatile, awe-inspiring GUI ever.  After using
NeXTSTEP, you yawn at Motif, grudgingly use a Mac, and look w/ contempt on 
Windows.

Simply, NeXTSTEP provides the simplicity of the Mac, over the power of UNIX.
It's not a question of what can you do with NeXTSTEP, but how to go about doing
it.  (Granted, that's a bit of a brain-teaser in some cases.  It took me three
weeks to figure out that a <control> drag sybolically linked files.

A GUI isn't harmful.  It's simply a tool to ease your use of the computer, to
improve efficency.  If you find differently, then it's probably the case that
you have a poorly made GUI.


				Joe
				marauder@wam.umd.edu

Opinions expressed here are solely my own.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*   Joe Jacobson             |   "It doesn't matter               *
*   marauder@wam.umd.edu     |       what we do, as long as       *
*   NeXT mail accepted!      |          innocent people suffer."  *
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
From: djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Keywords: Mac, Window, Throw
Date: 7 Sep 92 22:27:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: sdcc12.37783
Followup-To: alt.religion.computers
Organization: =CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego

>but that file might have unprintable characters in it, or it might not
>be a postscript file at all.. you see the computer knows best.

Right :-) Postscript knows enough not to crash the printer.
It's not the same as sending a binary file to a QIC printer
or anything...

>( In this case I would be tempted to sit down and write that special
>program, and charge the time wasted to apple for not supplying a
>reasonable interface )

But all the program needs to do is pass everything through verbatim.
(A fancy version would just check the first two characters first,
and if not postcript, run it through a text to postscript filter.)

A nice interface would be to drag the file to the printer icon and drop.
It should handle *any* format, including Postscript, or formats for programs
you don't have (lots of doc files out there that make assumptions about
what wordprocessor you have).

-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
  - Grad school - just say no.
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:736 comp.windows.misc:1384 comp.windows.news:659 comp.windows.x:16400 comp.human-factors:2151
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 9 Sep 1992 16:44:47 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com

In article <id.P72T.O1C@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>Or unless you're running Microsft Windows. In which case you can step
>through the menus selecting the underlined letters with the ALT key
>depressed. It's amazingly handy. I wonder why nobody else has picked it
>up. Does Microsoft have a patent on it or something?

It was copied in Motif.  I've used other menu systems that used a similar
mechanism, such as the menu system in Applix's Alis office automation
system.  Except for the graphics editor, I think you can do everything in
Alis using the keyboard if you want to.  Menus have accelerators, and items
in lists can be selected by typing item numbers or using arrow keys to move
through them.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:692 comp.windows.misc:1340 comp.windows.news:632 comp.windows.x:16209 comp.human-factors:2078
From: johnb@searchtech.com (John Baldwin)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:02:41 GMT
Followup-To: alt.religion.computers
Organization: Search Technology, Inc.

In article <1992Aug30.155725.3241@kilowatt.uucp>
	root@kilowatt.UUCP (Kilowatt admin) writes:

>	Sorry to sound like I'm flaming, but I've been harrassed with Object
>Oriented Programming brochures in the mail, et al. Don't see how someone else
>can setup a GUI that would represent what I have in my head. Or are they
>improving, and allowing the user to define a lot of things? Talking out of
>my hat again?


   Huh?  Since when does (Object_Oriented == GUI) ?


   And previously...


>I agree, the average person can get a LOT done with OOP, but that's the
>average person. From what I've seen and read, I'd rather hack C code and
>use less resources in the mean time.


   Not in my experience.  
   
   The "average person" (not my term --- the "average person" does not
   program!) gets lost pretty quickly when beginning with a typical OOP
   language or design metaphor.  For one example, there is an awful lot
   of C-ish C++ code lying around.  The telltale signs: static functions
   which should have been private methods; passing structure arguments
   (whether by pointer or by value) instead of defining a new class.
   Ad infinitum.



FINAL POINT:

   Look at the "Newsgroups" line above.  Now look at the "Followup" line.
   The bulk of this conversation thread DOES NOT belong on comp.human-factors.
   Some of it does, and should be split off to a new thread.  In NO case
   does this thread merit being spread throughout so many groups.  Can
   we all be a little more careful to prune the distribution lines down
   and reduce the net bandwidth, please?


-- 
John Baldwin                                        johnb@searchtech.com
Search Technology, Inc.                             uupsi!srchtec!johnb
4725 Peachtree Corners Circle, Suite 200            johnb@srchtec.uucp
Norcross, Georgia  30092   USA
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
From: mark@spider.co.uk (Mark Valentine)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 13 Sep 92 14:48:27 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK

In article <mellon.716242919@pepper> mellon@ncd.com (Ted Lemon) writes:
>Unfortunately, because the GUI has completely taken over the functionality
>of the ALT key, anybody who's accustomed to using Emacs immediately loses.

So what's new...?  :-)

If you're prepared to accept a bit of inconsistency, the ALT key can be
used by both the window manager and the application (apart from the occasional
necessity of running emacs, I only ever use ALT to speak to t(v)wm).

>I've also noticed that (at least with Motif, which has the same keyboard
>traversal mechanism) that typeahead doesn't really work - if you type your
>commands quickly, you will inevitably lose due to characters being eaten by
>the wrong widget.   To me, this sort of UI behaviour is inexcusable.

Isn't this just a plain software bug?

>>Most people I point it out to are pleasantly surprised
>>to learn that SHIFT-PGUP does the sensible thing by default in xterm
>
>SHIFT-*what*??   I see no PGUP key here.  (Actually, I'm being a bit of a
>weenie in complaining about this - if I really wanted a PC-style keyboard,
>I could get one for my terminal, but I prefer the smaller keyboard
>since leaving the home row is to me just as big a pain as reaching for the
>mouse.

MIPS are to blame for not giving me a choice in the matter a few years
back...  Even the Sun Type 5 *UNIX* keyboard forces it upon me!  Now, my
old Wyse 30 keyboard, there was a cute little begger...

>         Plus, I like having the control key in the place in which God
>intended for it to reside.)

If your vendor doesn't *at least* ship you a couple of replacement keycaps,
complain vehemently!

		Mark.
-- 
Mark Valentine, Spider Systems <mark@spider.co.uk>            /\oo/\
"Tigers will do ANYTHING for a tuna fish sandwich."
"We're kind of stupid that way."
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Keywords: n
Date: 2 Sep 92 17:59:59 GMT
Organization: City University, London

In article <5242@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes:
>In <id.3AOS.4A2@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Aug25.014057.29946@wl.com> schuette@wl.com (Wade Schuette) writes:
>>> Amen to that.  I bought my first mac in 1984, and have been extolling the
>>> virtues up till system 7.  I'm overwhelmed and lost by the new screens,
>>> color 3-D-looking icons, and other totally irrelevant clutter that violates
>>> all the rules.
>
>>I believe the technical term is "angry fruit salad".
>
>And is to be avoided at all costs.
>
>
>
>>And it's a pity... finally the O/S is beginning to catch up to the '80s, the
>>window system takes a dive back into the '60s. No, not mainframes and card
>>punches, I mean psychedelics and black light discos ...
>
>Which is (IMHO) a big over-kill.  And uses up too much of computer
>resources that could be used for something else.
>
>
>>(then there's the question of WHY IT TAKES SO MUCH GODDAMN MEMORY... but that's
>> apparently considered normal these days... I understand WNT will require 8 MB)
>
>Once upon a time, there was a complete development environment with editor,
>compiler, linker and overlay manager.  It was called Turbo-Pascal version
>3.00 from Borland for the PC machine.
>
>It fitten on one diskette and the size of that complete development
>environment was:  40k.  Forty Kilobytes.
>
>But now when the GUIs have entered the computer world, you wont get away
>with less than (say) 20-30MB for the smallest development environment.

You can quite happily develop using a C compiler, editor, etc on
a multitasking OS with full GUI - testing, writing and compiling
all at the same time, and playing some Bach fugues in the back-
ground - with just 512K ram and an 880K floppy disk drive (and a
colour telly). Guess which system we're talking about?

Hint:

    //
   //
\\//
 \/

or something like that :-)


--
Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
From: kmo@sae.com (Mike Ovington)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Software Architecture & Engineering, Inc.
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:18:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.132127.8785@searchtech.com>, johnb@searchtech.com (John Baldwin) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep5.071715.9958@b11.b11.ingr.com>
|> 	billj@b11.b11.ingr.com (Bill Jones) writes:
|> 
|> >Windows NT hasn't even been seen by anyone who hasn't signed a NDF.
|> >Yet BYTE asks on its cover "Is Unix Dead?". This isn't fair. Not
|> >even to Microsoft, who will not be able to match capabilities with
|> >a more mature Unix system YET.
|> 
|> 
|>    The first part simply isn't true.  Microsoft had "late beta" (read:
|>    "early alpha!") versions of NT running on 586 and r4000 boxen at the
|>    "Software Development '92 Spring" conference in Santa Clara.
|> 
Microsoft will sell anyone a beta CD-ROM of NT for (I think) $69. This is
a full development system (C++, sockets, RPC etc.) and entitles you to
the commercial release (for free) when it is available. Of course, you need 
at least 12 Mb of ram to run the beta release, and you want at LEAST a
33 Mhz 486. Still, it seems Microsoft finally has a REAL operating system, and
Unix shops ARE evaluating it. I expect both NT and Unix to be around for
a while, but given Microsoft's clout in the applications world, if I were
Unix vender, I'd take NT seriously.
-- 
________________________________________________________________________________
    Michael S. Ovington                         Template Software 
       uunet!sae!mikeo                   13100 Worldgate Drive, Suite 340       
        mikeo@sae.com                         Herndon, VA 22070-4382
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: bbrown@infonode.ingr.com (Bailey Brown)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:32:09 GMT

peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:

>> "get to"?  The menubar is not a keyboard-useful device, unless you want
>> to arrow-key step through everything.

>Or unless you're running Microsft Windows. In which case you can step
>through the menus selecting the underlined letters with the ALT key
>depressed. It's amazingly handy. I wonder why nobody else has picked it
>up. Does Microsoft have a patent on it or something?

This behavior is also part of Motif and IBM's CUA.  I haven't heard of
Microsoft trying to patent "look and feel" things anyway.

------------
Bailey Brown                               "Above all else, confusion reigns."
Intergraph Corporation                                  
bbrown@casca.b11.ingr.com                              Procol Harum
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:717 comp.windows.misc:1369 comp.windows.news:646 comp.windows.x:16326
From: rorschak@daimi.aau.dk (Jesper Lauridsen)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Keywords: Mac, Window, Throw
Date: 8 Sep 92 15:47:28 GMT
Organization: Exile Government of Bramming

minow@Apple.COM (Martin Minow) writes:

> To understand the problem better, try
>convincing a Unix C compiler to compile a file named foo.bar (i.e., not
>foo.bar.c).

That problem can be solved within seconds using the _built in_ command
mv.
-- 
No News is Bad News
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:726 comp.human-factors:2144 comp.windows.misc:1378 comp.windows.news:652
From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 8 Sep 92 11:18:24 GMT
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

"Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@peach.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:
> >Mantis doesn't have a Postscript printer at all.  But if you give me the
> >actual document, I can probably print it; we can handle a list of document
> >formats as long as your arm.
> 
> Irrelevant.  Many documents, such as TRs, are "published" as Postscript
> via FTP.

And very irritating it is too.  Even when I had access to a Postscript
printer, I used to get godawful results when I printed such "published"
documents, as I was using standard A4 paper.  It just demonstrates once again
the parochialism of Americans.


mathew
-- 
"When nothing's funny it gets easy to laugh 
 at the drop of a hat, or a bomb" -- DEVO