[COFF] Re: On Bloat and the Idea of Small Specialized Tools

[Arno Griffioen via COFF <coff@tuhs.org>]

On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 06:22:15PM -0500, Nevin Liber wrote:
> GUIs were better at discoverability.  The menu at the top made it easy to see
> (and constantly reinforced) what was possible, at least until we got into the
> era of contextual menus, gestures and force presses.

At the risk of really sounding like a grumpy old fart... This in spades..

I have to laugh whenever there's a new iPhone/Android/Home-automation/Car
or other 'touchscreen' device out and these days it seems required to watch 
about a dozen Youtube video's before you even know what new 
tap/touch/button/squeeze action you can or have to do now to access some 
feature.

Supposedly we didn't want CLI's anymore because they were 'not intuitive' and
'hard to access for lay persons'. (fair ciriticism..)

... and now we have these devices that often show a pretty picture, but *no* 
outward sign or indication about possible inputs/actions you can perform. 

It's.. Almost like it's getting as bad as a '$ ' prompt for the 'uninitiated'

For fun, give a heavy iPhone user an Android phone or vice-versa and see
smoke coming out of their ears as they fight with it..  :)

							Bye, Arno.