From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI  (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 9 Oct 92 12:07:17 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Oct8.235008.14355@news.cs.indiana.edu>, mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu (Marc VanHeyningen) writes:
> Thus said bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman):
>>In article <1992Oct3.235607.14542@nwnexus.WA.COM>, kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:
>>Big deal. All it appears to do is save a bit of typing. Worse, it doesn't
>>help you unless you know how many characters to type to get a unique name.
> 
> This is false.

I was incorrect in my understanding, but my assertion still holds. (see below)

>>And what would happen if you had "Letter to Fred" as well as your
>>"Letter to Bob". This completion stuff wouldn't help you at all.
> 
> Yes it would.  It would complete "Letter to ", as much as could be
> completed unambiguously.  

Ah! But that wasn't what you wanted. You wanted "Letter to Bob." You
typed "LE<tab><return>" thinking that it would be unique. It wasn't. Uh
Oh.

This type of keystroke-saving "feature" is only useful if you have a
perfect image of what is in the current directory in your head, and can
compare the names to determine what is unique. Humans are notoriously
bad at these tasks.

> You could then bring up a list of "Bob" and "Fred" with another keystroke 
> and type "B<tab>" to get it to work.  

Oog. 

> Have you ever even used filename completion in a shell?

Yes I have. The one I helped design didn't require a charcter to do the
matching. All matching was done continuously and instantaneously. (The way
it should be)

>>You shouldn't have to type ctrl-D. You should see the list automatically.
> 
> Just like on the Mac where you see the list automatically.  Well,
> actually you need to open it up by double-clicking on it.  But double
> clicking is much easier than typing control-D, at least by an order of
> magnitude.

Yup. Sometimes you don't need to open things up. For example, go into any
Mac application bring up the standard get file dialog with File / Open. 
You can type in a name there, or use the mouse on the list, or type,
mouse and arrow keys in any combination.

>>My point exactly. Rather than have all these tricks to attempt to make a CLI
>>more palatable by reducing redundant typing, a graphic user interface 
>>elminates the typing in the first place.
> 
> Yes, instead it makes you do redundant pointing and clicking.  Much
> different than redundant typing; in one case you're moving your hands
> and fingers, while in the other case you're... er, nevermind.

Wait a second, you're comparing different things. (well, I did, too)

A CLI involves lots of typing. Features to reduce typing appear to make 
sense (although no good measure of the cognitive load has been studied,
I'm sure).

With a visual interface, typing is eliminated. So, features to reduce
typing make no sense. Your original posting indicated that file name
completion was a feature that CLIs had that visual interfaces do not. Feature
counts don't necessarily help, since the feature not make sense in the other
interface.

In both user interfaces, attempts are being made to streamline the
interface. If a visual interface requires lots of redundant pointing and
clicking, I'd say it was defective -- it would appear to need methods to
streamline use. 

-- 
Bill Coleman, AA4LR                ! CIS: 76067,2327    AppleLink: D1958
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