From: kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 20:48:43 GMT

In article <ewright.719163764@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <1992Oct14.214506.1596@nwnexus.WA.COM> kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:
>
>
>>> Steve> So the graphical interface doesn't guarantee consistency.  In
>>> Steve> fact, the amount of consistency is completely independent of the
>>> Steve> type of interface.  You can have a completely consistent CLI
>>> Steve> (where -o always specifies an output file, for example) or
>>> Steve> completely inconsistent GUI's (Windows -- need I say more?)
>
>>>Yes, but if we're talking about the Mac's UI vs. any CLI I've ever seen
>>>(this *is* c.s.MAC.advocacy, after all, though dumping on Windows is a
>>>major sport), the Mac's UI is far more consistent.
>
>>I agree.  Being a fan of CLI's as well as GUI's, that's why I'd like to
>>see a Mac CLI.  
>
>Okay, can someone send Steve a pinup photo of the MPW command line? :-)
>
>Let's see if I can follow this.  The Macintosh interface isn't perfectly
>consistent, but it is far more consistent than any CLI.  The fact that
>it is more consistent than any CLI is what makes you want a CLI.

Right.


>Am I missing something here?

Dunno.  I think I've shown that a GUI is not inherently more or less
consistent than a CLI.  Apple has shown an ability to come up with a
consistent interface.  I'd like them to use that ability to come up with
a consistent command-line Mac interface (which they are, in fact, doing)
because a command-line interface has some advantages over a graphical
interface in some areas.  These advantages/disadvantages are completely
independent of consistency.  got it now?


>And if you're really a "fan" of the Macintosh interface, why do you
>slime it by using derogatory terms like "Gooey" for it?

Be careful, you're really coming across like a fanatic here.  Since when
is "Graphical User Interface" a derogatory term?  I simply used an
abbreviation for that term:  "GUI."  I have never, ever, used the term
"Gooey." 

     
>>It would really bring out the full potential of a CLI.
>>I still like UNIX a lot, however, because it offers enourmous power in
>>return for its lack of consistency.
>
>I am constantly amazed at the number of people who believe
>that "user hostility" is synonymous with "enormous power."
>My definition of computer power is how easy the computer
>makes it to do things. 

And if you can't do something at all, it's infinitely difficult, right?
Since you can't do some things with the Mac GUI that you can do with
some CLI's, those things are infinitely easier to do with a CLI.
I've had about equal experience (8 years worth) with UNIX and the Mac.
Do you really think I'd be completely blind to the fact that I'm less
efficient with UNIX if that were the case?


>>Different tools applied to different classes of objects, plus
>>there were access controls which determined whether or not you could
>>apply a tool to an object.  We decided that inapplicable tools shouldn't
>>appear in the menu at all, and inaccessible tools should appear
>>greyed-out.  
>
>Argh!  So all the user has to do is figure out which tools are
>"inappropriate" and which are only "inaccessible."  "Access
>controls" for a tool?  You mean like having an electric drill,
>but you can't use it until you turn it on?  Well, that seems
>to be stretching the analogy a bit to far.  If the user didn't
>want to access a tool, why would he choose it from the menu?  In
>fact, it seems to me that the menu item *is* an "access control"
>for the tool.

No, I'm talking about access controls in the more traditional sense.
This is an application to model the entire Boeing 777 aircraft, with
hundreds of people entering data and hundreds of thousdands of objects.
We can't have Joe Blow deleting the entire aircraft from the database,
can we now :-)  We wanted Joe to *know* that delete was unavailable to
him by greying it out.  On the other hand, if the currently-selected
object was a signal, we didn't even want a tool like "simulate" to show
up in the menu because it simply doesn't make sense to simulate a
signal.  Not only that, but if every tool showed up in the menu it would
be a very long and cluttered menu.


>Of course, it's generally better to put tools in a toolbox
>instead of menu, anyway.  But this is probably no worse than
>most X-Windows interfaces I've seen.

That would have been nice, but it would be very difficult to come up
with icons for some of the tools.  There was always the chance they
might not be recognizable.  Even a toolbox would still have been
cluttered by all the tools.  One of the key aspects of this system was
that a system administrator could use it and have a completely different
view of things than the average user who just needed to enter some data.
The average user didn't even want to know that tools for system
administration existed.  Things get a little more complicated once you
get beyond simple single-user personal computers.

--
Steve Kanefsky
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.sys.mac.misc