linux = impossible? (no offense meant!)

[Taavi Burns]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, bonnie wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, Keith Mastin wrote:
> > > There is another problem with unix, which I think is less legitimate:
> > > people are scared of the command line and following instructions.  Most
> > > people simply want to click a button and be done with it.  It doesn't

Yes, they do.

> > > matter if typing 'pkg_add some_package' is equivalent, because you
> > > actually have to follow an instruction to do this.  By following an

Unfortunately, yes.

> > > instruction, I mean that the user is doing something other than running
> > > a program in the typical way.  (For many years, dragging an icon from a
> > > floppy diskette to the hard drive was the acceptable way to install
> > > Macintosh programs.  Even though it was mindnumbingly simple,
> > > installation programs caught on because most minds were too numb to
> > > handle copying files.)

Um...this is still/again the de facto way to install Mac software.  I've
had a Powerbook since December, and dragging programs is how I install more
than half of the software I use on there.  It's simple, effective, and far
less fugly.  Some packages use the new OSX Installer.app, where you just have
to double-click on the .pkg file, but it's a very nice, SIMPLE installer.
There are very few options, but there are enough to get the job done.
It's also generally only done for system applications which would require
root priveledge to install.

Any mac app using installshield loses major points in my books.  It's fugly
and hard to understand (Click "Continue" to install another program'.  If
I wanted to do that, I'd go and install it.  Now GO AWAY.)

> > I get a kick out of these 'server config gui thingies'... sysadmins using

Have a look at the OSX Server admin utils if you ever have a chance.  They
appear to be quite effective.  Then again, I've never had any good reason to
use them.  And yes, OSX does provide all the CLI utils to do the GUI work, so
you do NOT have to use the GUI if you don't want to.

> > webmin to configure something and never realizing that the thingy can only
> > unleash maybe 10% of the apps' potential. I'm not even gonna get into

That's certainly the case where the GUI designer is not the app designer,
and where the GUI designer had no clue what the app or users were interested
in providing or using.

> > ranting about the practice of putting a gui on a server to begin with...
> > some people are just much better off taking the bus.

I take the bus, preferring to work on my Linux Thinkpad while commuting.  :)
(that or reading a book)

> whereas a gui is akin to driving, a videogame or what have you, a response
> to interactive visual cues and is (more) non-linear, approaches more
> closely an instantaneous perception of the whole.  the gui is more about
> short-term memory and response than a linear sequence of commands
> memorized and executed.

This is consistent with the event model used to drive Windows applications;
though the way it's implemented is very sequential.  Object-oriented methodology
which hides the serialised nature of the event model is a much more accurate
representation of what occurs at runtime.

> if anyone here has read microserfs, there is a hilarious discussion of
> user interfaces which bascially concludes that the cli (which it
> characterizes as the "pc" or "dos" approach is by nature masculine while
> the gui (apple) is a more "feminine", gestalt-focused way of doing things.

Neal Stephenson also has a wonderful bit of disussion about the varoius
OSen.  It's a bit dated, but when taken in context it's quite wonderful:

http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

> while i dont wanna beleive the gender crap, there is a great potential in
> analysing these different interfaces from a post mcluhan perspective,
> rather than just a leeter than thou one.  a lot of the affection for the

That's 1337 to you, grrl.

> cli does eem to stem from one notorious mcluhanism: with the emergence of
> a new medium, its predecessor becomes an art form.

But why shouldn't the GUI be an art form?  Really, it should be.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/index.html

> comparing the gui and the cli, which one is "warm" and which one "cool"?
> if current guis are unsatisfactory, does that exclude them from the
> functionality of the cli for ever?

Does the fact that the CLI is currently more powerful for us preclude
the fact that the GUI might be a more powerful metaphor for interaction
with our computers, when properly implemented?

I'm not talking streamlining what we have now; what control paradigms
have not even been considered that would fall under the category of the
GUI?  Optimising an algorithm is cool; picking a supierior algorithm
is even cooler.

-- 
taa
/*eof*/
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