Re: it just works

[Flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

Further to comments by Russ and Patricia,
Consistent but consistently not what the user expects is, of course,
not what I meant as a desirable option.
"The success was that the interface and how the command worked within
that interface created, for the new user, a small but well defined
vocabulary that, once discovered, could be used to discover the rest of
OS and how to use their computer." Exactly. But not only small and
well-defined, but further "consistent' in the sense that, once you
master the pattern, you can accurately guess how other bits of the
system work without having seen them before because they follow the
same pattern.
A system which flummoxes the user, whether consistently or randomly,
whether via a graphical interface or a CLI, is going to meet with
frustration and disuse.
I remember trying to drive a French car some years ago. Instead of the
usual knobs for lights and wipers and so on, it had stalks coming out
of the dashboard, all unmarked. I must have spent 15 minutes twisting
and rotating and eventually yanking each one until I found where the
headlights and the hi-lo-beam switches were. In the process I
inadvertently honked the horn, too--nope, it wasn't' the one in the
center of the steering wheel.
My Webster's Third Unabridged says that 'intuitive' may be used to mean
'knowable by intuition', same as 'intuitable.' If, as Patricia says,
'intuitive' should be 'intuitable,' then, presumably,
'counter-intuitive' should be 'unintuitable.' But that would be
counter-intuitive, since most people would have to think twice what she
meant by it and possibly even ask 'don't you mean counter-intuitive?'.
And that defeats the purpose. There is an awfully thin lline between
accuracy and pedantry, and I think we're _on_ it here.