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Most successful interactions with Siri/Alexa/Cortana/GoogleNow also fall under the same paradigm. They have some finite number of templates/recipes that they ca

Most successful interactions with Siri/Alexa/Cortana/GoogleNow also fall under the same paradigm. They have some finite number of templates/recipes that they can respond to, and just enough "NLP" to attempt a fuzzy matching between what you ask for, and the triggers to the recipes. The key point is that communication is fundamentally serial, in both voice and basic text consoles, whereas GUIs allow parallel communication streams (and hence "exploration") organized spatially. I find it ironic how the same people consider GUIs a more newbie friendly interaction paradigm than the terminal/console, and then say the same for voice interfaces over GUIs.

digi_owl 8y ago
https://www.osnews.com/story/6282 https://www.osnews.com/story/6282
protomyth 8y ago
It makes on wonder if an Infocom-style VM could be adapted for CLI use. They did have a database as I recall.
sharmi 8y ago
Maybe because, the cli mode means, you need to remember the commands? In GUI mode, though inefficient, you know exactly where to access help and a few basic params (like dropdown menu on top, usually save under file, cut and copy under edit) that smoothens the learning curve. They have some solid ground from which to start exploring. Whereas under console mode, there is no unifying paradigm. So each tool has a different way of doing the same thing. There is a lot of inertia at the start. Like what command is it for help 'h' or 'h?' or 'help' or 'H' ? What command is it for quit 'q' or 'quit' or 'ctrl+d' or 'ctrl+c' or 'bye' ? For example, in gmail, I expected archive to be 'a' and delete to be 'd' or atleast "DEL". Very basic operations and basic expectations. Turns out, archive is '#' and delete is some char I can't remember now (I think '{' and '}' to indicate whether to go to the previous mail or the next mail. A 'd' to go to next mail and a 'D' to go to previous email would have been a lot more intuitive). Of course, you can customize the key bindings, but then you got to go do it across all your accounts. While people may be quite happy to be able to wield so much power within the slack environment, they are very quickly going to lose their enthusiasm with the introduction of each new console tool, unless what they have learned in the slack environment translates into easier learning curve in the next console env. Basically for users to be able to adopt the console mode, there is should be some sort of standardization.
- freefal 8y ago
  Just so no one accidentally deletes an email on Gmail, 'e' is archive and '#' is delete.
  - vezycash 8y ago
    That's what ctr+z is for isn't it?
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      To stop the current job!? ;oP
      - vezycash 8y ago
        Press delete accidentally or intentionally and you should see a notification about the delete. If you want to undo, then Ctr + Z. At least that's the way computers have worked for eons. Ctr + Z is the reason I prefer computers to typewriters. Software without the ability to undo or reset actions are devolving the user experience to typewriter age.
        majewsky 8y ago
        > If you want to undo, then Ctr + Z. At least that's the way computers have worked for eons. You're missing the joke. Way before Ctrl-Z started to mean Undo in GUI programs, it was (and still is) assigned to "stop current job" in terminals.
        vezycash 8y ago
        Thanks. Learned something new.
  - tomxor 8y ago
    Also ctrl+enter is send email (immediately) which is very annoying after working in google sheets for a while where ctrl+enter is newline...
skykooler 8y ago
It would be interesting to make an Alexa-style device, which instead of natural language used a set of composable voice commands, like Bash and the unix utilities but pronouncable.
- Galaxeblaffer 8y ago
  Google home already kind of have this, don't know about Alexa. I'm amazed at how simple commands can be when you learn the simplest form of a command. And you could of course go nuts with ifttt and create your own syntax
  - jackthetab 8y ago
    Details wrt the first paragraph, please.
  - ekovarski 8y ago
    Are you referring to Google Home being able to stack up a few commands or the routines feature? eg Google, whats the weather and set a timer for 15min? On Alexa you can enable a follow up mode which listens to the next command for a bit. It's a bit more natural, e.g. Alexa, whats the weather... you wait for her to complete, she then listens again and you can say, Set timer for 15min, she completes and listens, Read news, etc. Sometimes I just feel like the machines are teaching us how they would like to be talked to vs us teaching them, as some commands require specific verbal markers in proper order to complete as otherwise they just give you a completely random answer or they simply don't process it at all.
- ProxCoques 8y ago
  Yes. At the moment, voice interfaces are a novelty and it makes sense that we're assuming they will use the language we use. But I wonder if that will continue? Given one of the problems with voice interfaces is false triggering between humans and machines and humans and humans ("You want to know what?" "No, I was just talking to Alexa!" "Sorry, I can't find any results for that.") I wonder if in the far future we will have worked out a "machine language" partly for this reason. It might be a bit like radio procedure words mixed with "machine syntax". So rather than "Alexa, give me a list of the top ten companies by market capitalisation", or "Alexa, who was the director of the Poseidon Adventure?" you'd say "Chip list market capitalisation companies ten" or "Chip, director Poseidon Adventure", where "Chip" is the universal signal for invoking voice commands (followed optionally by the name of the device you're addressing) and the grammar of the query is ordered from general to specific. This would minimise linguistic ambiguities and allows accurate but imprecise answers if necessary (eg if the machine can't order by market cap). It might also be sufficiently different for humans in earshot to screen it out. There might be specialised words too, similar the Bash and the unix utilities you mentio (eg for recalling queries and modifying them, stealth mode invocation, even piping perhaps).

digi_owl 8y ago

https://www.osnews.com/story/6282 https://www.osnews.com/story/6282

protomyth 8y ago

It makes on wonder if an Infocom-style VM could be adapted for CLI use. They did have a database as I recall.

sharmi 8y ago

Maybe because, the cli mode means, you need to remember the commands? In GUI mode, though inefficient, you know exactly where to access help and a few basic params (like dropdown menu on top, usually save under file, cut and copy under edit) that smoothens the learning curve. They have some solid ground from which to start exploring. Whereas under console mode, there is no unifying paradigm. So each tool has a different way of doing the same thing. There is a lot of inertia at the start. Like what command is it for help 'h' or 'h?' or 'help' or 'H' ? What command is it for quit 'q' or 'quit' or 'ctrl+d' or 'ctrl+c' or 'bye' ? For example, in gmail, I expected archive to be 'a' and delete to be 'd' or atleast "DEL". Very basic operations and basic expectations. Turns out, archive is '#' and delete is some char I can't remember now (I think '{' and '}' to indicate whether to go to the previous mail or the next mail. A 'd' to go to next mail and a 'D' to go to previous email would have been a lot more intuitive). Of course, you can customize the key bindings, but then you got to go do it across all your accounts. While people may be quite happy to be able to wield so much power within the slack environment, they are very quickly going to lose their enthusiasm with the introduction of each new console tool, unless what they have learned in the slack environment translates into easier learning curve in the next console env. Basically for users to be able to adopt the console mode, there is should be some sort of standardization.

freefal 8y ago
Just so no one accidentally deletes an email on Gmail, 'e' is archive and '#' is delete.
- vezycash 8y ago
  That's what ctr+z is for isn't it?
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    To stop the current job!? ;oP
    - vezycash 8y ago
      Press delete accidentally or intentionally and you should see a notification about the delete. If you want to undo, then Ctr + Z. At least that's the way computers have worked for eons. Ctr + Z is the reason I prefer computers to typewriters. Software without the ability to undo or reset actions are devolving the user experience to typewriter age.
      - majewsky 8y ago
        > If you want to undo, then Ctr + Z. At least that's the way computers have worked for eons. You're missing the joke. Way before Ctrl-Z started to mean Undo in GUI programs, it was (and still is) assigned to "stop current job" in terminals.
        vezycash 8y ago
        Thanks. Learned something new.
- tomxor 8y ago
  Also ctrl+enter is send email (immediately) which is very annoying after working in google sheets for a while where ctrl+enter is newline...

skykooler 8y ago

It would be interesting to make an Alexa-style device, which instead of natural language used a set of composable voice commands, like Bash and the unix utilities but pronouncable.

Galaxeblaffer 8y ago
Google home already kind of have this, don't know about Alexa. I'm amazed at how simple commands can be when you learn the simplest form of a command. And you could of course go nuts with ifttt and create your own syntax
- jackthetab 8y ago
  Details wrt the first paragraph, please.
- ekovarski 8y ago
  Are you referring to Google Home being able to stack up a few commands or the routines feature? eg Google, whats the weather and set a timer for 15min? On Alexa you can enable a follow up mode which listens to the next command for a bit. It's a bit more natural, e.g. Alexa, whats the weather... you wait for her to complete, she then listens again and you can say, Set timer for 15min, she completes and listens, Read news, etc. Sometimes I just feel like the machines are teaching us how they would like to be talked to vs us teaching them, as some commands require specific verbal markers in proper order to complete as otherwise they just give you a completely random answer or they simply don't process it at all.
ProxCoques 8y ago
Yes. At the moment, voice interfaces are a novelty and it makes sense that we're assuming they will use the language we use. But I wonder if that will continue? Given one of the problems with voice interfaces is false triggering between humans and machines and humans and humans ("You want to know what?" "No, I was just talking to Alexa!" "Sorry, I can't find any results for that.") I wonder if in the far future we will have worked out a "machine language" partly for this reason. It might be a bit like radio procedure words mixed with "machine syntax". So rather than "Alexa, give me a list of the top ten companies by market capitalisation", or "Alexa, who was the director of the Poseidon Adventure?" you'd say "Chip list market capitalisation companies ten" or "Chip, director Poseidon Adventure", where "Chip" is the universal signal for invoking voice commands (followed optionally by the name of the device you're addressing) and the grammar of the query is ordered from general to specific. This would minimise linguistic ambiguities and allows accurate but imprecise answers if necessary (eg if the machine can't order by market cap). It might also be sufficiently different for humans in earshot to screen it out. There might be specialised words too, similar the Bash and the unix utilities you mentio (eg for recalling queries and modifying them, stealth mode invocation, even piping perhaps).