From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface
From: anothy@cosym.net
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Message-Id: <20010820150226.534D619A45@mail.cse.psu.edu>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 11:02:17 -0400
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// I keep hearing this, and it's pithy, no doubt, but I don't really buy it. 
// Talk to a lactation consultant sometime.  People (mothers and infants)
// still have problems.  Newborns have the instinct to suck, but both mother
// and child still need to be taught how to properly latch on (yes, that's
// a technical term).

maybe just further support for the nipple claim? the nipple's intuitive, as
you say most infants have the suck instinct, but maybe it's the breast that's
problematic? if we can't move even _that_ far past the nipple, how do we
expect to come up with an intuitive GUI? ☺

i've tried hard to keep the following consice.

i've shown plan 9 to a number of non-techie (no CS or non-M$/Mac
background) people. results have been, on the whole, favorable. shell stuff
takes a bit of explaining (wildcards and >|< I/O redirection, mainly), but
once that and a few other principles have been learned, most people seem
quite able to build up from there, with only casual coaching. consistant
application of those basic principles is what makes this so.

i'd say that perhaps while the Mac interface was designed to reduce time to
usability, the plan 9 interface reduces time to proficency. the basic principles
take time to learn, but once they are learned, a lot of power can be derived
from them.

i didn't learn plan 9 from the manuals; rather i just mucked around with it.
with my extant unix background, i found it the easiest system to learn i've
found. this was possible only because the basic principles i learned are
consistantly applicable throughout.

when i did sit down and read the manuals cover-to-cover, i still learned
loads of stuff i didn't know, and found loads of stuff i didn't know existed. it
was easy to incorporate because the principles were applied consistantly.

i need a manual for notepad.exe. i don't have a clue what's under the various
top-level menu boxes. hell, if i'd not used M$ before, i wouldn't even know
they're pull downs.

i've found the plan 9 man pages, used in conjunction with lookman, grep,
and acme, the most efficient and comprehensive help system i've used. these
feelings are echoed by many of the above mentioned folks.

i think the ½ required to start the wm was a good idea - it required people to
at least read _something_ before getting started.

lots of  "ordinary human beings" work with it. i don't make the mistake of
thinking that folks who don't understand the system are stupid, but i do tend
to think perhaps they havn't given much time to learning it. please don't make
the mistake of thinking that since you don't understand it, the authors are
stupid. thanks,
-α.