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Autocomplete, IMO is a crude effort to make text based interfaces more interactive. While it does address some shortcomings of text based interfaces, text base

Autocomplete, IMO is a crude effort to make text based interfaces more interactive. While it does address some shortcomings of text based interfaces, text based interfaces are inherently flawed to provide enough feedback or context to the user. The only reason we are still using text based interfaces is that the computing system has revolved around UNIX and the command line. The fact that autocomplete is needed for sanely using text based interfaces (especially the command line and programming languages) are proving that we need a better interface. GUIs became popular due to providing the users instant feedback of what the user can and cannot do, providing context implicitly with the user interface elements. Autocomplete's corresponding features are flag/function name completion, context (like the current directory) based completion... but they really don't do their job well. I do not have any ideas about what the interfaces of the future will be... but text based interfaces won't be the future. Hence autocomplete might become obsolete... <Sorry for the useless rant :-(>

j88439h84 7y ago
Well said
cloverich 7y ago
Text is generic. With interfaces you have to design abstractions that are suited to the application. Like code, great UI abstractions make solving problems easier and pleasant. Wrong abstractions do the opposite, leaving users powerless to accomplish their goals. Text both fills a gap for when no abstraction is present and provides a fallback when the abstraction isn't good enough or discoverable.
catalogia 7y ago
GUI and autocompletion aren't mutually exclusive. In fact I think they compliment each other well. See: your browser's address bar, google's search form, etc. If you're doing anything non-trivial with a GUI, chances are you're using a keyboard of some sort at the same time, and those interactions often benefit from autocompletion. The reason we're still using keyboards, which are basically late-19th century technology, is because we've yet to figure out a faster and more precise method of getting words out of a human brain and into a machine. You could quibble over qwerty vs dvorak or chorded stenotype keyboards, but all share the premise of speaking using your fingers. (Voice recognition isn't there yet and probably never will be if human-to-human interactions are anything to go by (it's common for humans to use text to communicate with each other when they need to be precise, even when both share a common spoken language.))

j88439h84 7y ago

Well said

cloverich 7y ago

Text is generic. With interfaces you have to design abstractions that are suited to the application. Like code, great UI abstractions make solving problems easier and pleasant. Wrong abstractions do the opposite, leaving users powerless to accomplish their goals. Text both fills a gap for when no abstraction is present and provides a fallback when the abstraction isn't good enough or discoverable.

catalogia 7y ago

GUI and autocompletion aren't mutually exclusive. In fact I think they compliment each other well. See: your browser's address bar, google's search form, etc. If you're doing anything non-trivial with a GUI, chances are you're using a keyboard of some sort at the same time, and those interactions often benefit from autocompletion. The reason we're still using keyboards, which are basically late-19th century technology, is because we've yet to figure out a faster and more precise method of getting words out of a human brain and into a machine. You could quibble over qwerty vs dvorak or chorded stenotype keyboards, but all share the premise of speaking using your fingers. (Voice recognition isn't there yet and probably never will be if human-to-human interactions are anything to go by (it's common for humans to use text to communicate with each other when they need to be precise, even when both share a common spoken language.))