From: "Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: More silliness about completion (was Re: More Defense of CLI  (there, I changed the subject ... ))
X-Quoted: 50%
Reply-To: mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Indiana University
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:35:28 -0500

Thus said bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman):
>In article <1992Oct10.004042.17093@news.cs.indiana.edu>, "Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
>> If you don't know how many characters to get a unique name, there are
>> two possibilities:
>> 
>> - You type too many.  No problem.
>> - You type too few.  The shell expands as many more as it can, beeps at
>>   you, and gives you the chance to add more.  Slight inconvenience.
>> 
>> In neither case does filename completion "not help you" at all.
>
>Except that it doesn't do what you expect. So to use this feature properly,
>you have to type like a madman, then hit <tab> then what you see what you
>got. In my mind, this is the user interface equivalent of a slot machine.
>Sometimes it pays off, often not.

It does exactly what I expect.  If you expected something different,
then, well, I'm sorry.  If you mean "it is not possible to fully predict
its behavior in advance unless you have a fully accurate mental model of
the system", that applies to a pop-up list too.  If you say "You can
always just type the filename instead of selecting it from the list",
well, gee, CLIs can do dat too...

>> This is only a problem if you hit <RETURN> too fast, before receiving
>> the notice (often a beep) that the partial filename could not be
>> uniquely completed.  
>
>And that's exactly the problem. You might as well type out the whole
>thing rather than waiting. This would be a simpler process than typing
>some of the name, hitting tab, waiting for the response if that was enough,
>typing more, hitting tab, etc, etc. You're better off just typing the
>whole name.

Well, the "waiting for response" thing is silly, since it's typically
instantaneous.  It's much faster than the delay a Mac gives you
after you pull down the cute menu and select "Open" and it takes a while
to draw a nice window and put some spiffy buttons and an adorable
scrolling window with the files in it.

>> For opening and manipulating just one file using just one application,
>> yes, this is probably usually superior.  As the old quote goes, GUIs do
>> make simple things simple.
>
>I hate the term GUI. But yes, graphic user interfaces make things simple for
>all.

I didn't mean GUI as an insult.  If you know a better term to describe
it, by all means suggest it.

Do you really mean GUIs make things simple for all?  So, X is simple for
all? :-) 

>> So, how does one do composition of functions on a large number of input
>> files on a Mac without redundant pointing and clicking?
>
>The pointing and clicking is necessarily redundant. You aren't clicking the
>same files, right? You are clicking a different thing every time.

"Necessarily redundant" is an oxymoron.  If additional clicking carries
new information, it's necessary.  If it doesn't, it's redundant.  If the
interface makes you do it anyway, it's annoying.

Anyway, I was just trying to mention that some untrue things about
completion were being said, and some opinions about it (e.g. it's
worthless in case X) being presented as fact.  There are lots of reasons
why Macs are lousy, but lack of filename completion a la tcsh is not one of
them.
-- 
Marc VanHeyningen    mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu    MIME & RIPEM accepted

What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?
		- Doctor Who
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy