5 ms·

Reminds me of “The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion.” — Larry Ellison

SllX 8y ago
This actually resonates with me, maybe not in the way Ellison intended as I’m not familiar with the context he said it in. A bit off the main topic but the more I revert to just using emacs for some task I previously used a .app bundle or web page for, the more I question how much we the computer industry has just been spinning its wheels for the last 30+ years. I honestly can’t really tell what value WIMP-centric GUIs have brought to the table besides fashion, let alone the endless debates in the form of actual implementations about the best way to build one. Possibly the best argument ever made died with Mac OS 9. I suspect that in a year I’ll be using what is effectively an Elisp machine with an Apple logo paired with an iPhone.
- jfb 8y ago
  > I suspect that in a year I’ll be using what is effectively an Elisp machine with an Apple logo paired with an iPhone. It's been working for me for quite a while now. And it's depressing, but here we are.
  - SllX 8y ago
    It isn’t all bad. My laptop is 6, almost 7 years old at this point and it has received a few upgrades in that time. This change in habits does lower the minimum system requirements for its eventual replacement from “runs Mac OS X” to “runs emacs”, but I might be able to stretch its life out a bit longer now.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Discoverability and self documentation is generally the advantage of GUI systems. Well built systems can be understood in a few moments without needing to consult a manual. That's almost impossible in a pure CLI environment. Of course it's entirely possible to screw this up, modern phone-centric design standards are really bad about it for example, but in general you need to consult the manual (or Google) far less often.
  - SllX 8y ago
    I’m not convinced these are inherent properties of GUIness. We have had GUIs in use for long enough that many elements even across slightly different GUIs are familiar enough, this had allowed conventions and then conventional wisdom to develop. Early GUI developers also put effort into making their GUIs at least somewhat intuitive, but they also bundled thick books of documentation on how to use their systems. To a degree, they are self-documenting, but not because of their GUIness so much as their design choices; menus helped a lot with this. Menus actually are a good subject to touch upon, they are definitely one of the better conventions we developed, and they were based upon and analogous to a restaurant menu. However their very nature as a list of commands you can issue a GUI does also typically but not always, limit the application. If the only options available to you are what is on the menu and there is no other interface, then an application is much more limited. This isn’t even true of most restaurants which will often allow you to issue an order for something not on the menu if they have the ingredients, equipment and expertise to make it. But as a convention, it is not limited solely to GUIs, you can incorporate menus into any interactive interface. I think the real innovation wasn’t GUIs, it was interactive software. The innovation beyond that is scriptable software. What is important isn’t GUIness, but the developer’s intent. If you develop software with the intent to be self-documenting and discoverable, you will end up with an interface that is both of these things provided you did a competent job of it. A GUI might help, relying on platform conventions might help, and using common cultural conventions might help, but these aren’t the necessary ingredients for those qualities. Emacs has the quality of self-documentation, but it is emphatically not a GUI even though it is interactive. I would say well built systems, provided you intend to do anything productive and even slightly complex, should have a manual included, or else it isn’t a well built system.
- romeisendcoming 8y ago
  vi, cvs|svn, C, bash, awk,sed, python and tcl. Linux (rpm based) or FreeBSD. Firefox or lynx. Haven't changed much in 20 years.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- chrisoverzero 8y ago
  > I honestly can’t really tell what value WIMP-centric GUIs have brought to the table besides fashion […] Literal billions of users.
  - SllX 8y ago
    Billions of users of which things that are worthwhile?

SllX 8y ago

This actually resonates with me, maybe not in the way Ellison intended as I’m not familiar with the context he said it in. A bit off the main topic but the more I revert to just using emacs for some task I previously used a .app bundle or web page for, the more I question how much we the computer industry has just been spinning its wheels for the last 30+ years. I honestly can’t really tell what value WIMP-centric GUIs have brought to the table besides fashion, let alone the endless debates in the form of actual implementations about the best way to build one. Possibly the best argument ever made died with Mac OS 9. I suspect that in a year I’ll be using what is effectively an Elisp machine with an Apple logo paired with an iPhone.

jfb 8y ago
> I suspect that in a year I’ll be using what is effectively an Elisp machine with an Apple logo paired with an iPhone. It's been working for me for quite a while now. And it's depressing, but here we are.
- SllX 8y ago
  It isn’t all bad. My laptop is 6, almost 7 years old at this point and it has received a few upgrades in that time. This change in habits does lower the minimum system requirements for its eventual replacement from “runs Mac OS X” to “runs emacs”, but I might be able to stretch its life out a bit longer now.
jandrese 8y ago
Discoverability and self documentation is generally the advantage of GUI systems. Well built systems can be understood in a few moments without needing to consult a manual. That's almost impossible in a pure CLI environment. Of course it's entirely possible to screw this up, modern phone-centric design standards are really bad about it for example, but in general you need to consult the manual (or Google) far less often.
- SllX 8y ago
  I’m not convinced these are inherent properties of GUIness. We have had GUIs in use for long enough that many elements even across slightly different GUIs are familiar enough, this had allowed conventions and then conventional wisdom to develop. Early GUI developers also put effort into making their GUIs at least somewhat intuitive, but they also bundled thick books of documentation on how to use their systems. To a degree, they are self-documenting, but not because of their GUIness so much as their design choices; menus helped a lot with this. Menus actually are a good subject to touch upon, they are definitely one of the better conventions we developed, and they were based upon and analogous to a restaurant menu. However their very nature as a list of commands you can issue a GUI does also typically but not always, limit the application. If the only options available to you are what is on the menu and there is no other interface, then an application is much more limited. This isn’t even true of most restaurants which will often allow you to issue an order for something not on the menu if they have the ingredients, equipment and expertise to make it. But as a convention, it is not limited solely to GUIs, you can incorporate menus into any interactive interface. I think the real innovation wasn’t GUIs, it was interactive software. The innovation beyond that is scriptable software. What is important isn’t GUIness, but the developer’s intent. If you develop software with the intent to be self-documenting and discoverable, you will end up with an interface that is both of these things provided you did a competent job of it. A GUI might help, relying on platform conventions might help, and using common cultural conventions might help, but these aren’t the necessary ingredients for those qualities. Emacs has the quality of self-documentation, but it is emphatically not a GUI even though it is interactive. I would say well built systems, provided you intend to do anything productive and even slightly complex, should have a manual included, or else it isn’t a well built system.
romeisendcoming 8y ago
vi, cvs|svn, C, bash, awk,sed, python and tcl. Linux (rpm based) or FreeBSD. Firefox or lynx. Haven't changed much in 20 years.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
chrisoverzero 8y ago
> I honestly can’t really tell what value WIMP-centric GUIs have brought to the table besides fashion […] Literal billions of users.
- SllX 8y ago
  Billions of users of which things that are worthwhile?