From: night@acm.rpi.edu (Trip Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors,alt.religion.computers,comp.editors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 9 Sep 92 20:08:41 GMT
Reply-To: night@acm.rpi.edu
Distribution: usa

In <1992Sep9.175024.15430@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov> jonke@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Stephen Jonke) writes:

>The problem with this argument is that while if you continue to use the
>same programs over and over and over and keep up with it, you will go
>into "automatic", if you let it lie for some time, you soon forget a lot
>of it, except for some very basic core stuff (I can get around VI, even
>though I rarely use it, but doing anything other then the most basic
>stuff involves key combinations I don't remember and they are not easy
>to find out again -- not only that, but this is exactly the type of thing
>I don't want to have to find out.  It just gets in the way of what I'm
>really trying to accomplish.

This is a weak argument.  Yes, people are likely to forget things when they
aren't exposed to a program for a period of time, but if they were proficient
in using a program, then relearning it is *much* faster than learning a
program for the first time.  It's mostly a matter of getting reacquainted
with how things are laid out.

>More importantly, though, this type of program that requires long periods
>of learning time creates another problem -- stagnation.  It makes people
>not want to change with the times.  On the Macintosh, I never worry about
>switching to the latest word processor or graphics program, or whatever,
>because I know that the learning time is so short and effortless and I
>can quickly get on with the work at hand.

This assumes that the latest program is always "better" or "more productive".
I've rarely found that to be the case.  Also, powerful programs tend to
have a steep learning curve because they're designed to be very flexible, and
it's that flexibility that allows a knowledgeable user to execute complex
operations in a minimum amount of time.  Easy to learn programs tend to 
sacrifice flexibility for simplicity, so that only the simple common operations
are readily available.

It's a tradeoff.  Some users are willing to invest the time and effort to
learn vi or emacs and use that to increase their productivity.  Others don't
use a computer enough to make that investment worthwhile, and easy to learn
programs are more in line with their needs.

Granted, power users tend to be very reluctant to change, partly because
they don't want to lose the extensive investment in time for  learning
one program, and also because they tend to be skeptical about whether a 
new program is really that much better than what their using to be worth
investing the time to learn it. 

>The other thing (and maybe this is even more important) is that although
>you can pick and choose situations in which an entirely keyboard based
>application will be "faster", you are looking at very miniscule cases.  I
>have found that even though I can type reasonably fast (wpm = ????) I am
>none the less FASTER at getting tasks done on the Macintosh then I am at
>getting them done on keyboard based apps, in an overall sense.  When you
>look at the process as a whole, it is not simply typing in and correcting
>minor mistakes along the way (and, incidentally, doing that kind of stuff
>is just as "automatic" and fast anyway), unless, of course, you are a bad
>writer or a super-being program writer that writes stuff which works
>perfectly the first time, every time.  Then there's the fact that mouse
>based apps tend to be less error prone for the user.  The fewer errors
>that occur, the fewer errors that need to be corrected and the less time
>wasted.

What evidence do you have that mouse based applications are less error-prone?
As for being faster, I am *much* faster with a keyboard than with a mouse.
This is most likely because I'm a fast touch typist.  Having to move my hands
off the keyboard (or even off home row to hit function keys) is very
distracting and slows me down.  Also, the keyboard based functions available
in vi (and emacs) are much more powerful than any mouse-based editor I've
ever seen.

What it all boils down to is that each person is different.  Personal 
preferences is a dangerous area to make generalizations about.
-- 
Trip Martin
night@acm.rpi.edu
--
Trip Martin
night@acm.rpi.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x