From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Micah Stetson To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] User Interface Message-ID: <20010815175948.B12514@cnm-vra.com> References: <20010814122734.A24734@cackle.proxima.alt.za>, <3B793F22.5080707@xs4all.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Mutt/1.0.1i In-Reply-To: <3B793F22.5080707@xs4all.nl>; from eric.de.redelijkheid@xs4all.nl on Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 08:34:33AM +0000 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 17:59:48 -0700 Topicbox-Message-UUID: de170bf0-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > user. This is not the case with this GUI as a whole, programs like acme > and sam or the man pages. (Please, can't we get rid of those?) Personally, I find the manual pages better reading and certainly more helpful than anything I've found in the Windows help system. They are also, in my opinion, easier to use than the GNU Info system. Hypertext is fine. But if you are willing to read, and the documentation is fairly well written, it's just another unnecessary layer of complexity. Of course, if you learn to use acme, the plain old manual pages work almost like hypertext anyway. But really, after criticizing the majority of the user interface and telling us that you don't desire to appreciate anything deeper, what drives you to use Plan 9? I mean, if you feel a real urge to use Notepad for day-to-day text editing, by all means install one of the "more advanced" operating systems that incorporate that ground-breaking technology. For most people, "user friendly" is defined by what they're accustomed to using. If you're accustomed to the user interface philosophy of Windows, Macintosh, CDE, KDE, GNOME or any of that family, and you're unwilling to change completely the way you work with your computer, then Plan 9 will never appeal to you. However, most of us on this list feel that a little time invested in learning to use Plan 9's interfaces is more than payed off by the productivity gains over less powerful interfaces. In fact, after a few weeks of using rio, sam and acme, I began to view many of the interfaces I had thought friendly as almost user hostile. But you have a right to a different opinion. Use what you want to use. Micah Stetson "Calvin, go do something you hate; being miserable builds character." -- Calvin & Hobbes