Re: [9fans] how people learn things (was architectures)

[presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com]

> J.
> Random User wants this 'cos it's shiny and flashy and they can point and
> click (have it crash on them :) and don't need to know anything about
> programming or typography.

I think the advantage of excel and word is that you don't have to
remember anything from session to session.  It helps but its not
necessary.  You can do a reasonable job of spread sheet or formatted
document by just starting the program and clicking the buttons that
look right.  The WYSIWYG aspects makes that possible since you get
immediate feedback of what you did.  If you don't like it, do something
else.  There are precious few buttons and the icons are sufficiently
descriptive that you don't have to hunt too much for what you want.

I like the interface though I tend to get absolutely potty by the huge
step in difficulty when you have to go past the obvious point and click
stuff.  Of course, troff has its own problems.  I get equally potty
trying to get breaks to happen where I want them to and usually
end up compromising with it after a few go arounds.  To get some
WYSIWYG feel, I tend to have a loop in a window that looks like:

	while(`{read}){
		troff ... |lp -dstdout > x.ps
		page x.ps
	}

That's usually good enough for me to see quickly the effect of my
changes.  However, WYSIWYG would be nicer.  It might even be worth
doing.  Its just that when most of us get used to troff, the drive
for doing a formatter for the uninitiated goes down.

> > I'm sure most of Microsoft's bad decisions were mandated by time to
> > market.
>
> no.  the core architecture is so flawed and the API so gross
> that it had to be sheer bad design.

I'm not sure these are contrary statements.  I just spent a few
days in Redmond job hunting.  MS's ability to handle complexity
both in design and code is astounding.  I spent some time with
people in the early stage of a large project, part of .NET.  They
are very thoughtful in their designs.  However, they do lack any
fear of complexity, or perhaps more correctly, given the current
weight of MS code, their idea of what's complex is an order of
magnitude or two above mine.  They are VERY focused and they
spend a lot of time feeling out interfaces.  However, they
do feel completely handcuffed by legacy API's.  They can
add to them but not subtract from them.  That means that if
time to market causes them to release a less than wonderful
interface, they're stuck with it for at least 3 releases
before thay can phase any part of it out.  That means the
API's do nothing but get wider and less coherent.