From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.x-window
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 3 Sep 92 21:49:00 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

Date: 2 Sep 92 15:10:33 GMT
Message-Id: <a1BHqB7w165w@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.x

root@kilowatt.uucp (Kilowatt admin) writes:
> 	A GUI is a godsend to people who don't want to be "programmers" to
> get anything usefull done under UNIX - BUT, who set up the GUI in the first
> place? Setting up the GUI is a PAINFULL experience - like X windows.

Setting up X may be painful, but there's no reason to believe that setting up
GUIs in general is anything like as painful.  I reformatted and repartitioned
the disk on my Mac yesterday, then reinstalled System 7 from scratch.  It
took less than a quarter of an hour, and didn't require any reference to
manuals.  Yet it's only the second time I've ever done it.

> 	I've used X minimally (maybe I'll use it more when I get this
> Diamond SpeedSTAR 24 to work with 1024*768), and have found it very usefull.
> It's nice to have 3 xterms up and running (and being able to see them while
> I'm in another window) that still give me the CLI interface I NEED to develop
> I can't use a GUI to do debugging or editting - I still use TECO which is a
> CLI based editor (even though I've made it do a LOT more than DEC's TECO in 
> the area of on-screen editting).

So your development software is lousy.  This is supposed to be news?

Take a look at some of the integrated development environments on the PC and
Mac.  I do all my C++ coding using a GUI.  It's nice to hit a key, jump into
the debugger, click on an object and browse through the values in it in a
scrolling list.

>                                 I have to use my HANDS - I have a much 
> clearer view IN MY HEAD of what I'm trying to accomplish than any GUI
> programmer could provide me with.

Well, all I can say is that you must have a strange head if the way you
visualize things cannot be represented on a screen.  Personally I'm more of a
visual thinker.

> 	An endorsment for X windows: Ever notice how unlike MS-Windows it is?
> It lets you actually TYPE things... You can run an X application from an xter
> window... MS-Windows does not allow you to start a Windows app from the MSDOS
> CLI - is this stupid or what?

Run Backmenu under Windows.  Then you can just type (for example) "wrun word"
and it'll fire up Word for Windows.

> 	It's nice that GUI's have freed up many peoples time. It greatly
> increases the productivity most computer-ignorant people get from their
> computers.

You make it sound as though you think *only* computer-ignorant people get
increased productivity from GUIs.

[ Then he moves on to making similarly astute comments about object oriented
  programming... ]
> 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.

Less resources?  Properly written C++ with a good compiler is pretty much the
same as C when it comes to efficiency of compiled code.

> 	Oh well... BTW - Wonder why I like typing so much? I can type 110+ WPM
> on a BAD day. I can't move the mouse with that much accuracy.

Yeah, but how much time have you spent at each task?  I can't play the piano
anything like as well as I can type, but that's because I don't spend most of
my working hours at a piano keyboard.


mathew
-- 
"Even the most bizarre of the unions (probably that between a cat's gall
 stone and a single note 'G' from CNN's ident theme) managed to convey a
 sense of rampant impropriety."  -- 'Fortran Five', Simon G. Lawrence Leonard