From: peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:05:52 GMT
Reply-To: peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce)
Organization: Peirce Software
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.6v1


In article <1992Sep2.171407.11876@news.cs.indiana.edu> (alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x), krawling@banana.ucs.indiana.edu (Ken Rawlings) writes:
> 
>         I love GUI's as much as the next person, and I do believe they have
> their place. However, it seems to me that when you take them to the extreme,
> they become not only cumbersome, but _unusable_.
> 
>         Case in point: The MacIntosh OS. Is it just me, or when you use a Mac,
> do you feel like you're at a foreign customs office trying to explain something
> to an official that doesn't understand english? You can communicate simple
> concepts quite easily(by pointing, etc), but every time you try and do anything
> beyond that, he just looks at you with a dumb grin on his face..
> 
>         There are two relatively simple things that I want to do on a Mac that
> I _still_ have no idea how to do, even after reading all of the info-mac
> digests, and using Mac's extensively. 
> 
>         #1: Send a postscript file to the printer. Just shove that baby down
>             the serial connection to the printer. No, I don't want to modify
>             it in a word processor, or anything else. Here's the file, across
>             the room is a postscript printer. Send it. I've talked to
>             _numerous_ people that consider themselves "Mac Gods" and they
>             all agreed, "Can't be done without a special program, and I don't
>             know where you'd find it"

There is program called SendPS.  My copy says it was created in 1986,
i.e. it's been available a long time, and anyone can use it and distribute
it for non-commercial use.

>         #2: See this file sitting on the Hard Drive? Execute it. No, I don't
>             care that you think it's a "Document", just trust me and run the
>             damn thing. This is a _real_ problem when you have a bunch of
>             .hqx files, and have a copy of binhex4.bin that you downloaded
>             with a PC(why didn't I download it on the mac? Those beautiful
>             unstandard serial ports that I don't have a cable for and Apple
>             wants an arm and a leg for a converter for, and ComputerLand 
>             can't understand the question in the first place :-( )

I'm a little confused by this one.  Serial cables for the Mac aren't
exactly rare and exotic things.  Never the less, say you really want
to run a file that the Finder doesn't think is an application.  The
reason the Finder won't launch it is that the Finder doesn't think it's
an application because the files type isn't 'APPL'.  You can change this
with a number of utilities such as ResEdit or MPW.

>         These are two _real_, non contrived problems I have encountered
> _recently_ with Mac's and have caused me no end of consternation. The thing
> that makes me mad is that I _WANT_ to like Mac's, lord knows i'm sick of DOS,
> but there's this big wall that's put up between me and the Machine that
> _purposely_ keeps me from doing what I want to do.

These may be real problems for you, but they aren't exactly common
problems.  Most people don't know what PostScript is beyond something
they think they really should have in their printer.  And executing
what the system is pretty sure isn't an application should be hard
to do.  Never the less, there are simple solutions to your problems.

I really don't think either of these problems has anything to do with
the human interface of the Mac or lack of a CLI.

>         These are also things that a Mac "User" like myself SHOULD be able to
> do. We won't get into the inability to write shell scripts, or other hairly
> issues - these are _TRIVIAL_ things that for me makes the Mac less a real
> computer, and more an expensive Information Appliance(or Word Proccessor).

I've always though the Mac *was* an information appliance.  It's primary
design target is the common person, not the computer nerd.  If there
is a choice between making it safe and easy for regular people over
being cool for the computer nerd, the choice always goes in the direction
of the regular person.

Of course, us computer nerds have build all sorts of cool tools to
let is do protentially nasty, but sometimes needed things on the Mac.
You just have to look around for them (check out the SUMEX archive,
America Online, or any local Mac BBS).

>         Basically, I can't deal with a computer that thinks it's smarter than
> me...

It just might be right :-)     <- note the smiley, it's a joke

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