Re: it just works

["Patricia M. Godfrey" PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx]

Russ Urquhart wrote:
> if an interface more closely matches the user's mental
> model of how they think things work, then the software is more
> intuitable. (Did I use that properly Patricia?)
Yes, precisely.
> they had a lot of problems, especially in trying to
> cover ALL permutations of commands and parameters. To make a long story
> short, they were over budget, and out of time, and ended up putting a
> command line interface into their GUI! :)

Ah, the ironies of life! Two further points:
1. The error, IMHO, behind the rage for the GUI is the assumption that
everybody thinks in pictures. Some people don't. If I cannot verbalize
it, it doesn't exist, but I rarely have a mental _picture_ of anything.
(One reason I cannot remember faces, or where I just put something.)
2. For some things, a GUI is a useful tool; for some, a command line.
For example, one really good thing in Windows (until XPletive sic'd that
idiotic mutt onto it; an insult to Canis familiaris no less than to Homo
 sapiens) was the Find/Search routine: looking at a stable, scrollable
list of files that meet a specific specification and can be sorted by a
click of the mouse is much more useful than the results of the DOS DIR
command. Unless, of course, you want to make a file of it or print it.
Then "DIR e:\*.dbf /s>dblist.txt" is hands-down the better option. On
the other hand, for copying, nine times out of ten XCOPY will do the job
better than drag and drop or even Ctrl-C Ctrl-V.

Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx