From: peter@ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 16:16:02 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.181915.2357@twg.com> "David Herron" <david@twg.com> writes:
> A lot of your comments are good.  Not all the world, after all, is a GUI 
> screen.  Some of is VT100's (or worse) and other parts are shell scripts
> running at 3AM from cron.

Right. Some programs need a GUI. Some programs can benefit from a GUI, but
don't need one. Some programs are actually hurt by putting a GUI into them.

For members of the first class, consider any program that involves editing
graphical objects: font/bitmap/icon editors, paint programs, CAD programs,
audio programs, and so on.

For members of the second class, consider browsers (*rn, more/less/...,
FileManager), editors, infrequently used software, ...

For members of the third class, look at any program that's inherently
batch: compilers, long-running data manipulation tools, and so on. Some
of the members of this class intersect with members of the second depending
on the quality of ths GUI and whether it's integrated with the package (for
example, consider a tool that in a GUI environment is basically a property
sheet. You can pull it down, or just edit a config file or command line).

What I'd like to see is a really graphic shell. UNIX shell commands would
be icons you link together, with an attached property sheet you can use
to build the command line:


	+---------------------------------------------------------------+
	| X | Pipeworks                                                 |
	+---------------------------------------------------------------+
	| (File) (Edit) (View) (Search) (Create)                        |
	+---------------------------------------------------------------+
	|                                                               |
	|   +-------+        +------+        +------+        +-------+  |
	|   | /etc >|--------| GREP |--------| SORT |--------| /tmp >|  |
	|   +-------+        +------+--------------------------+ ----+  |
	|                    | Pattern       [^root:.*       ] |        |
	|                    | Ignore case   [X] -i            |        |
	|                    | Invert match  [ ] -v            |        |
	|                    | Count only    [ ] -c            |        |
	|                    | Names only    [ ] -l            |        |
	|                    |                                 |        |
	|                    | [grep -i '^root:.*'           ] |        |
	|                    +---------------------------------+        |
	|                                                               |
	|                                                               |
	|                                                               |
	| [ </etc/passwd grep -i '^root:.*' | sort -d >/tmp/root      ] |
	+---------------------------------------------------------------+
-- 
Peter da Silva                                               `-_-'
$ EDIT/TECO LOVE                                              'U` 
%TECO-W-OLDJOKE Not war?                        Have you hugged your wolf today?
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.      Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012       +1 713 274 5180
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