Re: [9fans] User Interface

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[nigel]

>> btw: is there a shutdown command or do I just switch my laptop of?

I'd just switch it off.

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Lucio De Re]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 11:02:47AM +0100, nigel@9fs.org wrote:
> 
> >> btw: is there a shutdown command or do I just switch my laptop of?
> 
> I'd just switch it off.

Amen.  Lucio.

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[pac]

>> On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 11:02:47AM +0100, nigel@9fs.org wrote:
>> > 
>> > >> btw: is there a shutdown command or do I just switch my laptop of?
>> > 
>> > I'd just switch it off.
>> 
>> Amen.  Lucio.
>> 

I almost certainly missed the joke (again :-), but I would rather do:

	disk/kfscmd halt
	Ctl+Alt+Del
	(switch it off)

BTW, I was impressed by the Plan 9's GUI when I first saw it.....no, I'm not a hacker or a programmer, see below. 
However, I like it for the sake it is minimalistic, yet powerful....no unnecessary bells and whistles (except of being so much colourful).
Nevertheless, it is not GUI, what is central to this OS.  _It is a clean concept_.

Unfortunately, I am a newbie, thus not being the proper person even for intro. However, here are the reasons that
convinced me (personally) to prepare to switch to Plan 9:

* clean design, AFAI can tell, no backward compatibility bloat,
* small graphic lib and windowing sys instead of dinosaur X,
* unicode,
* minimalistic, yet powerful GUI (believe me, or not)
* system-wide snarf buffer (but see sam)
(yes, and the fact that Plan 9 is being made by the fathers of Unix sounds like warranty, at least to me).

Although I am capable of doing some C programming, I would classify myself as a user.  Yes, and I know the OS called "Windoze"
and it's notepad.exe with its "File is too large to be opened by Notepad..." message. I have 15+ years experience of using
computers, and I have wasted _A LOT_ of time swithching among OSes:

 HP programmable calculator in early 80's --> Z80 based computer ---> CP/M --> DOS --> Windows, MacOS --> NEXTSTEP -->
Linux --> (gnu/hurd/mach ... L4Linux on L4Ka .... dreaming of  berlin/hurd/L4 would once become true) --> Plan 9.

Please, delay erasing of Plan 9 from your computer, and try to dive deeper. 
Good luck, and have a nice day,
Peter.

--
Peter A Cejchan
biologist
Acad. Sci., Prague, CZ
<cej at cejchan dot gli dot cas dot cz>

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Eric de Redelijkheid]

pac wrote:

>>>On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 11:02:47AM +0100, nigel@9fs.org wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>btw: is there a shutdown command or do I just switch my laptop of?
>>>>>>
>>>>I'd just switch it off.
>>>>
>>>Amen.  Lucio.
>>>
>
>I almost certainly missed the joke (again :-), but I would rather do:
>
>	disk/kfscmd halt
>	Ctl+Alt+Del
>	(switch it off)
>
This procedure is absurd. What is wrong with a command like ' shutdown'. 
Why not a button for a system shutdown? Or a whole sentence: ' please, 
shutdown the system for power down'. What is the excuse for making a 
simple task difficult to execute?

>
>
>BTW, I was impressed by the Plan 9's GUI when I first saw it.....no, I'm not a hacker or a programmer, see below. 
>However, I like it for the sake it is minimalistic, yet powerful....no unnecessary bells and whistles (except of being so much colourful).
>Nevertheless, it is not GUI, what is central to this OS.  _It is a clean concept_.
>
>Unfortunately, I am a newbie, thus not being the proper person even for intro. However, here are the reasons that
>convinced me (personally) to prepare to switch to Plan 9:
>
>* clean design, AFAI can tell, no backward compatibility bloat,
>* small graphic lib and windowing sys instead of dinosaur X,
>* unicode,
>* minimalistic, yet powerful GUI (believe me, or not)
>* system-wide snarf buffer (but see sam)
>(yes, and the fact that Plan 9 is being made by the fathers of Unix sounds like warranty, at least to me).
>
What is a snarf? Should an ordinairy user like me concern myself with 
words I can't find in the dictionary (if it is a word in a dictionary, I 
have a very cheap one). The fact that it is made by the same people as 
UNIX tells you nothing about interface design. The existence the old 
style man pages are an indication.

>
>
>Although I am capable of doing some C programming, I would classify myself as a user.  Yes, and I know the OS called "Windoze"
>and it's notepad.exe with its "File is too large to be opened by Notepad..." message. I have 15+ years experience of using
>computers, and I have wasted _A LOT_ of time swithching among OSes:
>
I do not need a manual for notepad.exe. I should not need a manual for a 
simple task as changing the contents of a text file. I can not work with 
sam or acme. In linux, I can hardly work with vi; I only use the very 
basic commands like i-nsert, a-ppend, ESC, w-rite, q-uit. Thank god that 
I can use the backspace key in editing mode, to erase a character. I 
refuse to work with emacs.

>
> HP programmable calculator in early 80's --> Z80 based computer ---> CP/M --> DOS --> Windows, MacOS --> NEXTSTEP -->
>Linux --> (gnu/hurd/mach ... L4Linux on L4Ka .... dreaming of  berlin/hurd/L4 would once become true) --> Plan 9.
>
>Please, delay erasing of Plan 9 from your computer, and try to dive deeper. 
>Good luck, and have a nice day,
>Peter.
>
>--
>Peter A Cejchan
>biologist
>Acad. Sci., Prague, CZ
><cej at cejchan dot gli dot cas dot cz>
>
A user interface is more then just the GUI. Functions of the computer 
and programs should, in my opinion, be instinctively understood by the 
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?)

Take the GUI for instance. Click on the desktop with your right 
mouse-button. A pop-up screen apears saying (among others) 'New'. 
 New?... New what? A new file? A new car? A new job? A new wife?
Select this 'new' whatever and the arrow changes to a cross.  
Instinctively I click (left button) this cross, hoping something would 
happen. Unfortunaly the cross changes back to an arrow.
Only by fooling around a bit, I found out I can change this cross into a 
terminal window, by using the left mouse button and dragging this cross 
to a terminal window.
A better aproach in my opinion would be:
- In the pop-up menu say: 'new shell', ' new prompt',  'new window' 
instead of just 'New'
- By selecting this 'New.........' , let a window appear with a standard 
size immediately. Resizing can be done afterwards.

Without a good and simple easy to use user interface, plan 9 will never 
be adopted. And the whole effort would have been a pointless exercise. 
As far as a user is concerned the entire computer is the user interface. 
Only technicly skilled people (those that we call nerds) can appriciate 
what is under the hood.

Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Matt]

EdR> This procedure is absurd. What is wrong with a command like ' shutdown'. 
EdR> Why not a button for a system shutdown? Or a whole sentence: ' please, 
EdR> shutdown the system for power down'. What is the excuse for making a 
EdR> simple task difficult to execute?

because plan9 is not really a single user system. The local disk
system is added in for local storage. If you were using the system as
envisaged you would be booting from the network so you could happily
just switch your terminal off.

if you liek you can write a script called shutdown that executes
disk/kfscmd halt and then echos "you can now switch the computer off
Eric if you so desire".

it's not much different from other systems

only the earliest computers with their OS in rom let you just switch
off without potential damage to the filesystem.

heck in Linux you have to log in as the superuser, type the command,
wait a while for it to sync and then switch off.


EdR> What is a snarf? Should an ordinairy user like me concern myself with
EdR> words I can't find in the dictionary
You can find it in the manual for the windowing system, or the papers
about plan9. "rtfm" I believe is the usual mantra

EdR> The fact that it is made by the same people as
EdR> UNIX tells you nothing about interface design. The existence the old 
EdR> style man pages are an indication.

I think it does to those who know unix.
It suggests that text manipulation will probably control everything.
It suggests "everything is a file".
and plenty of things besides.

old style man pages work for me

EdR>I refuse to work with emacs.
It sounds like you refuse to work at all.

EdR> A user interface is more then just the GUI.
in fact it's not even a gui.
EdR> Functions of the computer and programs should,
EdR> in my opinion, be instinctively understood by the
EdR> user.
Well we all wish that but it really isn't possible. Our interface
understanding is a culmination of all we have learned from other
interfaces. If your understanding doesn't help you move from one
environment to another seemlessly and you are too uncomfortable in
your new place then maybe the move wasn't for you.

EdR> This is not the case with this GUI as a whole, programs like acme 
EdR> and sam or the man pages. (Please, can't we get rid of those?)
feel free to convert the man pages to a format you prefer

EdR> Take the GUI for instance....
it takes maybe 15 minutes to learn, it's a price worth paying

EdR> Without a good and simple easy to use user interface, plan 9 will never 
EdR> be adopted.
it already has one

Is adoption really the goal of someone who writes software esp. an OS?
Aside from the fact that plan9 has been adopted part of the reason it
remains in existence at all is because it solves the problems of it's
authors.

EdR> And the whole effort would have been a pointless exercise.
I think that's pretty insulting.
plan9 is so much more than a bitmap terminal

EdR> As far as a user is concerned the entire computer is the user interface.
You are considering a subset of all users and the naive one's at that.
What is it you want from plan9?
If it's whizzy spreadsheets and watching DVD's then I think you have
found the wrong place.
The world of computing is a big place.
Fitting every OS into *your* view would mean plan9's paradigm would be
ignored.

EdR> Only technicly skilled people (those that we call nerds) can appriciate 
EdR> what is under the hood.
As others on the list may tell you, plan9 is used by plenty of "naive"
users.
And what if plan9 was an OS just for technically skilled people?
Do technically skilled people not have a right to a product that
caters for their needs too?
Personally I don't want an interface that has dancing paperclips to
tell me how to write a letter but my mum likes it. Things don't always
have to be simple to use in the first 5 minutes.

I placed my trust in the people who wrote plan9 and the people here
who write about it and they have not let me down. I invested plenty
of time getting seemingly nowhere but now every precious moment of
that time has been rewarded. Moreover, it has presented me with a new
view on computing. I have learned so much more than "how to use
plan9".

To instantly complain about what you find is understandable and in
almost every field of existence complaining says more about you than
it does about the target of your complaint.

In the old days one would swear at the manual switch the whole thing
off and maybe come back tomorrow or maybe just leave it forever. These
days one writes an email of complaint first :)

I sincerely wish you well on your computing journey.


Matt

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Micah Stetson]

> 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

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Boyd Roberts]

From: "Micah Stetson" <micah@cnm-vra.com>
> Personally, I find the manual pages better reading
> and certainly more helpful than anything I've found in
> the Windows help system.

yes, they read X, babble, not X  -- every paragraph.

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Eric de Redelijkheid wrote:
> >       disk/kfscmd halt
> >       Ctl+Alt+Del
> >       (switch it off)
> This procedure is absurd. What is wrong with a command like ' shutdown'.

All you have to do is put "disk/kfscmd halt" into an rc file "shutdown".
Mine is called "halt", which is about as much an improvement to your
suggestion as your suggestion is to the "hard way".

> Why not a button for a system shutdown?

Why should there be one?  That leads to a myriad of buttons for all
sorts of trivial things, which is *not* good user interface design.

> Or a whole sentence: ' please, shutdown the system for power down'.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."

"I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave.  You didn't say 'please'."

> What is a snarf? Should an ordinairy user like me concern myself with
> words I can't find in the dictionary (if it is a word in a dictionary, I
> have a very cheap one). The fact that it is made by the same people as
> UNIX tells you nothing about interface design. The existence the old
> style man pages are an indication.

UNIX-style man pages, properly used, are a very effective means of
organizing and presenting usage information.

> ... I can not work with sam or acme. In linux, I can hardly work with vi;
> ... I refuse to work with emacs.

Then please go away.  Plan 9, like UNIX, is for tool users, not
barbarians.

> Instinctively I click (left button) this cross, ...

Read the instructions.
There is *no* window manager in general use that is "intuitive"; if
you think there is, it's only because it is similar to some other WM
with which you already have some familiarity.

> Without a good and simple easy to use user interface, plan 9 will never
> be adopted. And the whole effort would have been a pointless exercise.

Adopted by whom?  You don't seem to understand the point of the
exercise.

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Eric de Redelijkheid]

Dan Cross wrote:

>In article <3B793F22.5080707@xs4all.nl> you write:
>
>>This procedure is absurd.  [...]
>>
>
>Rather, your behavior is absurd.
>
>Let me get this straight; you use a piece of software, but with
>pre-conceived notions about how it should work.  When it's borne out
>that those notions don't mesh with the reality the software presents,
>you complain about and insult the software?
>
>And this makes sense to you?
>
More sense than making this piece of crap and then blaming users if they 
don't appreciate it? I think insults can work out in two way's. Either 
the software designers come up with something better, or there will be 
nothing left to insult.

>
>
>I mean, not to be rude or anything, but this sounds more like your
>issue than Plan 9's.
>
>All I can really say is, well, if notepad.exe works for you, stick with
>it.  Why you bothering to change?  What's your motivation?  If you're
>not going to attempt to learn a new way of doing things, and it sounds
>like you're not, you should probably just stick with what you know.
>
I am very willing to learn new things. This OS, however does not invite 
a me to learn about it. For your information I finally figured how to 
operate 'acme' and 'sam' and I still think it is stinks. It won't be 
long before I wipe my harddisk. I am thinking of trying beos instead. My 
motivation is not to put up with any illconceived idea about how a 
computer should be operated.

>
>
>On a personal note, I really like Plan 9.  It's a lot like a breath of
>fresh air for me; but then I like to think that I'm able to appreciate
>the new ideas that went into it, which took me quite a long time before
>I was able to do.  Maybe Dennis Ritchie and Rob Pike don't appreciate
>my humor about 1200 baud modems (:-p), but they do know a thing or two
>about how to write operating systems.
>
These new ideas won't mean a thing if you can't get ordinary human 
beings to work with it. And knowing a thing or two about operating 
systems, does not mean they know anything about how someone in the real 
world would want to use a computer.

>
>Hmm, maybe it's that stuff they sell in Amsterdam....
>
You could not point the place on a map if you wanted to. What are your 
hobbies besides computing and shooting strangers of your farm?

>
>
>Oh, one other thing: I don't think the `goal' of Plan 9 was wide-spread
>acceptance.  It was built to meet the needs of the people who built
>it.  There's nothing wrong with that, and it certainly wasn't a waste
>of time.  This can be seen empirically by the fact that they've used it
>for years to get real work done.  To the extent that it's provided a
>new way of looking at things, I think it's been rather successful as a
>research endeavour, too.  Don't make the mistake of assuming that every
>piece of software needs to be written for a mass-audience of millions
>in order to be successful or useful.
>
Then why is it for sale? To hurt users? If it is just an excercise in 
building a distributed operating system, why let  it out of the lab?

>
>
>That's all I'll say on the issue; I have no real desire to participate
>in a flame war over opinions on user interface issues.
>
>	- Dan C.
>
And I don't want to hear excuses like: if a user can't operate our 
software, we are not to blame; this user must be stupid, or: I can 
operate this software, so logicly if I can, anyone can.

Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Matt]

EdR> More sense than making this piece of crap and then blaming users if they
EdR> don't appreciate it?
hehe wake up, time to die


Eric de Redelijkheid <ericdere@xs4all.nl> University of Bath Computing Services, UK

explains it all

probably a Comp. Sci. student

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Eric de Redelijkheid]

Matt wrote:

>EdR> More sense than making this piece of crap and then blaming users if they
>EdR> don't appreciate it?
>hehe wake up, time to die
>
>
>Eric de Redelijkheid <ericdere@xs4all.nl> University of Bath Computing Services, UK
>
>explains it all
>
>probably a Comp. Sci. student
>
>
>
eh?

don't let the message source from a moderated newsgroup confuse you.

Here's the original header I sent. No organisation.

 From - Wed Aug 15 19:29:43 2001
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Message-ID: <3B7AB184.3030106@xs4all.nl>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 19:29:40 +0200
From: Eric de Redelijkheid <ericdere@xs4all.nl>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.3) Gecko/20010801
X-Accept-Language: nl, en-us
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: comp.os.plan9
Subject: Re: [9fans] User Interface
References: <20010814122734.A24734@cackle.proxima.alt.za> <cej-1010814144547.A02246@cejchan.gli.cas.cz> <200108151619.MAA07420@augusta.math.psu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Matt]

EdR> I am thinking of trying beos instead.
y, I'm sure the mighty userbase will appreciate your arrival.

EdR> My motivation is not to put up with any illconceived idea about how a
EdR> computer should be operated.
Then your only real solution is to write your own OS.

1 button for "shutdown"
1 button for "write electronic letter"
....
1 button for "read inter-web page on electric newspaper"

you could make a 300 key keyboard

oh, Microsoft already did that

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Steve Kilbane]

> More sense than making this piece of crap and then blaming users if they 
> don't appreciate it?

Not so. If it's not appreciated, fine. If you don't like it, fine. If you
disagree with it, then a discussion is always appreciated. Insulting it
because you can't be bothered to think is a different matter.

> I think insults can work out in two way's. Either 
> the software designers come up with something better, or there will be 
> nothing left to insult.

Insults don't help. Destructive criticism isn't useful. Constructive
criticism is.


> I am very willing to learn new things. This OS, however does not invite 
> a me to learn about it.

Why not? What is it that's missing, that would "invite" you to learn?
Most of us started with the published papers. (Anyone out there using
Plan 9 who *didn't* devour all the papers first chance they got?)

> For your information I finally figured how to 
> operate 'acme' and 'sam' and I still think it is stinks.

It's an opinion. Could do with some justification, though.

> My 
> motivation is not to put up with any illconceived idea about how a 
> computer should be operated.

And yet, your first example was notepad?

> These new ideas won't mean a thing if you can't get ordinary human 
> beings to work with it.

Sorry? You apparently have missed the "Research" part of Plan 9's
origins.

> Then why is it for sale? To hurt users? If it is just an excercise in 
> building a distributed operating system, why let  it out of the lab?

Because people in this forum begged them to. Because the papers were
published, demonstrating new ways of assembling and using a system, and
enough people liked those ways enough to want to use them.


> And I don't want to hear excuses like: if a user can't operate our 
> software, we are not to blame; this user must be stupid, or: I can 
> operate this software, so logicly if I can, anyone can.

Then don't hear them. No-one's forcing you to read this, just as no-one's
forcing you to use Plan 9. If it's not for you, fine: go use something
else with our blessing. Maybe you'll find something that suits you. Stay
around and discuss things calmly and rationally, if you like, but please
don't just hang around to whine. It does no-one any good.

steve

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Boyd Roberts]

what we've got here is failure to communicate [pure research].
some men, you just can't reach...
so, you get what we had last week
which is they way he wants it!
well, he gets it!
n' i don't like it any more than you men.

   -- strother p. martin, _cool hand luke_

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[mark powers]

in article <200108161929.UAA31601@localhost.localdomain>,
Steve Kilbane <9fans@cse.psu.edu> sez ... 
>Most of us started with the published papers. (Anyone out there using
>Plan 9 who *didn't* devour all the papers first chance they got?)

as an aside, I suspect there are also at least a few of us who've come
to find rc + sam + 9wm indispensable on Unix even without (yet) having
experienced the full glory of the real thing...

p.s. cheers and hats off to all, from a largely non-technical user (yes,
we exist!).

-- 
-mp ``between thought and expression lies a lifetime''

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Eric de Redelijkheid wrote:
> Then why is it for sale? To hurt users? If it is just an excercise in
> building a distributed operating system, why let  it out of the lab?

So that people who can appreciate it have the opportunity to
experiment with it.

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[John Murdie]

On 14 Aug, Eric de Redelijkheid wrote:
> In my opinion every task performed on a computer:
> - installation
> - administration
> - general use (word processing, spreadsheet, mail etc..)
> - programming
> should be done with the aid of a simple, intuitive,  point- and- click,
> graphical user interface.

I recall Brian Kernighan's statement along the lines of: ``The trouble
with WYSIWYG is that What You See Is All That You Get.''

I think that the term WYSIWYG is misused; as far as WYSIWYG goes, it's
fine - _of course_ I want my document preview to be printed as exactly
as I see it on the display - what people usually mean when they say
WYSIWYG is actually `direct manipulation' (Ben Schneiderman, 1983, I
think). This in turn usually means that all grammar more complicated
than `noun-verb' (perhaps modified with adjectives or arguments) has
been removed from the interface.

If you've ever seen, as I have, e.g. a Windows administrator creating
student accounts by printing out the E-mailed list which came from my
University's Administration, and then typing in each student's details
again, then pressing `Create account' and `Ok' buttons (or more!) for
each one, you'll know how bankrupt the idea of (only) direct
manipulation is. Even cutting and pasting by hand wouldn't have saved
them much time. (A Unix or Plan 9 user would pipe the E-mail through
(say) an awk script and finish the student account creation in a matter
of seconds, or minutes if the script didn't pre-exist.) Of course, this
is old hat to most people on this list.

As for intuitive, why, video recorders have exactly the kind of
interface that you describe. Why then are they so difficult to use?

(Ok, some might argue that this is off-topic, but I'd say that it is
connected with the why Plan 9 is as it is.)
-- 

John A. Murdie
Department of Computer Science
University of York
England

Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Matt]

JM> If you've ever seen, as I have, e.g. a Windows administrator creating
JM> student accounts by printing out the E-mailed list which came from my
JM> University's Administration, and then typing in each student's details
JM> again, then pressing `Create account' and `Ok' buttons (or more!) for
JM> each one, you'll know how bankrupt the idea of (only) direct
JM> manipulation is.

a company i shared an office building with hosted 200 or so web sites
on one NT server. He assigned them all a distinct IP.

One day his box "forgot" it's IIS settings (a frequent occurence
in those days - bit rot on binary files probably)

He had to manually enter the details of all 200 sites.

Each IP had to be entered an octet at a time because of MS's great IP
dialog control.

It took him 20 hours.

how we laughed (but not to his very pissed off face)

Re: [9fans] User Interface

[anothy]

// ...I have never seen a more awkward user  interface since twm.

i'm not sure how much of this to attribute to lack of familiarity and how
much to simple personal preference. the GUI is definatly stylistically very
different from any i've seen from any other lineage (X, MS, Mac, etc).
but it is, in my mind, what a UI should be: exactly enough to facilitate
you doing your work, without getting in your way or distracting you.

// ...sam and acme are virtually unusable. Why is it that such a simple
// task as editing the contents of a textfile must cause so much pain?

what specifically is your complaint? i've found sam very easy to learn,
and have taught it to several non-Plan9 (even some non-techie) folks,
with good results. acme is a bit more learning, it's true, but you get a
bunch more out of it (IMHO). and _certainly_ either one gives much
more than any Win32 editor i've seen (well, except sam ☺).

// Why is there not just one single command to create a new user...

if this is a big issue, it's quite easy to script. the commands are both
consistant and simple. the seperation comes, basically, from the fact
that you're really doing seperate operations: adding the user to the
auth database, then adding the user to the file server. both arn't
technically required, although normal operation requires them.

again, the point here is that the commands are simple enough so that
if them being seperate is an issue, you can easialy script them into
something appropriate for your site or installation.

// In my opinion every task performed on a computer [...] should be
// done with the aid of a simple, intuitive,  point- and- click, graphical
// user interface.

well, here it just sounds like we're at a philosophical diference. the plan
9 community tends strongly to believe that there are many tasks that
are ill-suited to GUI interaction, and are much more efficiently done
via CLI and scripted interfaces. administrative tasks, as in the examples
provided by other responses, are probably the clearest examples, but
others abound.

i'm also reminded of a quote i read somewhere but can't place:
	"The only 'intuitive' interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned."
-α.

Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Matt]

i found this attribution

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.)


on
http://www.mail-archive.com/preview-users@lists.calderasystems.com/msg00202.html

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Chet Ramey]

In article <6379969760.20010814182414@proweb.co.uk>,
Matt <9fans@cse.psu.edu> wrote:
>i found this attribution
>
>The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
>(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.)

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).

My wife (the nurse-midwife) bemoans the fact that too many mothers give up
on breast feeding too soon for this reason.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet)

Chet Ramey, CWRU    chet@po.CWRU.Edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[David Gordon Hogan]

While we're on the subject of user interfaces, perhaps it's
time to quote from Laurie Anderson:

	Well I had a dream
	And in it
	I was teaching cave people
	how to use blenders and toasters
	Well I drive up to the cave
	in my car

	And there they are
	Banging their heads against the walls of the cave
	And I say,

		``Hey folks!
		listen!
		you're doing it the hard way!
		let me show you a thing or two''.


Kind of says it all, really.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Boyd Roberts]

the pie in the sky
turned out to be miles too high

  -- the floyd / roger waters

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[forsyth]

>>Personally I don't want an interface that has dancing paperclips to
>>tell me how to write a letter but my mum likes it. Things don't always
>>have to be simple to use in the first 5 minutes.

as i think i've said before, my mother saw me using acme, asked for
a demonstration, and liked it.    i've shown people how to use the
basics of acme in a matter of minutes not hours (compared to some other things)
and they often weren't technical either.   one reason is that it relies on the
composition of a small collection of primitives, each of which is easy to explain and learn quickly.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[forsyth]

>>Personally I don't want an interface that has dancing paperclips to
>>tell me how to write a letter but my mum likes it. Things don't always
>>have to be simple to use in the first 5 minutes.

as i think i've said before, my mother saw me using acme, asked for
a demonstration, and liked it.    i've shown people how to use the
basics of acme in a matter of minutes not hours (compared to some other things)
and they often weren't technical either.   one reason is that it relies on the
composition of a small collection of primitives, each of which is easy to explain and learn quickly.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Scott Schwartz]

A note from the moderator:  Let's not argue about this.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[anothy]

// 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.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Boyd Roberts]

> 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? ☺

it may well be instinctive but that discounts implementation problems.

> i'd say that perhaps while the Mac interface was designed to reduce time to
> usability, ...

designed to reduce the time before defenestration (sp?) i'd say.

all stolen from PARC and tragically implemented.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Boyd Roberts]

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

i don't agree.  that was its name.  and yes, i used a similar brute force approach to
russ' for the v2 pc release.  one problem i had is that i _couldn't_ type ½ so i cheated.

yes, azerty hell.  with some pain i can type qwerty on azerty.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[Russ Cox]

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

not true.

cp /bin/8? /tmp
rm /tmp/8[acl]
/tmp/8*

that's how i did it when i booted plan 9 the first time. 
brute force and ignorance.

Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface

[anothy]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 99 bytes --]

ew! okay, so 8½ didn't _force_ one to read the
docs, but it sure as hell encouraged it.
-α.


[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1352 bytes --]

From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Re[2]: [9fans] User Interface
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 11:28:48 -0400
Message-ID: <20010820152850.EE4FA19A96@mail.cse.psu.edu>

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

not true.

cp /bin/8? /tmp
rm /tmp/8[acl]
/tmp/8*

that's how i did it when i booted plan 9 the first time. 
brute force and ignorance.