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Why is that ironic? The obvious use case for a computer is to, you know, compute things, and the most obvious way to do that is to use a program designed for th

by OskarS 6y ago

Why is that ironic? The obvious use case for a computer is to, you know, compute things, and the most obvious way to do that is to use a program designed for that very purpose.

qsort 6y ago
Because a computer is obviously more powerful than a desk calculator (unless you happen to have a programmable calculator, which would itself be a computer.) Transposing the metaphor of a desk calculator verbatim is inefficient and unproductive, graphical gimmick exclusively. Unix bc, which predates Windows calculator by a couple decades, is Turing-complete and in fact close to a full-featured modern dynamic language. Today's equivalent would be a {python|ruby|node|perl} REPL.
- ak217 6y ago
  The UX of a REPL sucks if you're not an expert. A calculator UI gives you a lot more guidance about what's available. Accessibility is everything. I would guess the skeuomorphic calculator apps have 5 orders of magnitude more users than bc, and 4 more than the REPLs (not that the REPLs were even built for this purpose). I think they will evolve over time away from skeuomorphism, but not into anything resembling a plain REPL.
  - qsort 6y ago
    Excel has the same accessibility as a calculator UI. I'll have that, in a smaller window :) Also, the UX of a REPL sucks because it lives in a white-on-black terminal and prints scary version messages about a thing called "clang". Do the same thing with nice colors and friendly messages and I doubt the usability would be any worse.
    - ak217 6y ago
      This is precisely what I'm trying to illustrate. No, Excel does not have the same accessibility as a calculator UI. Excel is somewhere in between a calculator UI and bc in terms of how discoverable and usable it is. Engineers fall into this trap a lot - projecting our own preferences onto what we think other people should find accessible. Most people require training before they can use Excel. The training required to use a calculator is so minimal, they teach it in elementary school. And a REPL is gibberish to the vast majority of people, even if you dress it up with nice colors and friendly messages (which to be fair help a lot).
allendoerfer 6y ago
To explain the irony for OP: A computer is or has been basically a fancy calculater, so putting a program called calculator on it, seems redundant. It would make more sense to call it e.g. algebra and have other programs called geometry and so on.

by OskarS 6y ago

Why is that ironic? The obvious use case for a computer is to, you know, compute things, and the most obvious way to do that is to use a program designed for that very purpose.

qsort 6y ago

Because a computer is obviously more powerful than a desk calculator (unless you happen to have a programmable calculator, which would itself be a computer.) Transposing the metaphor of a desk calculator verbatim is inefficient and unproductive, graphical gimmick exclusively. Unix bc, which predates Windows calculator by a couple decades, is Turing-complete and in fact close to a full-featured modern dynamic language. Today's equivalent would be a {python|ruby|node|perl} REPL.

ak217 6y ago
The UX of a REPL sucks if you're not an expert. A calculator UI gives you a lot more guidance about what's available. Accessibility is everything. I would guess the skeuomorphic calculator apps have 5 orders of magnitude more users than bc, and 4 more than the REPLs (not that the REPLs were even built for this purpose). I think they will evolve over time away from skeuomorphism, but not into anything resembling a plain REPL.
- qsort 6y ago
  Excel has the same accessibility as a calculator UI. I'll have that, in a smaller window :) Also, the UX of a REPL sucks because it lives in a white-on-black terminal and prints scary version messages about a thing called "clang". Do the same thing with nice colors and friendly messages and I doubt the usability would be any worse.
  - ak217 6y ago
    This is precisely what I'm trying to illustrate. No, Excel does not have the same accessibility as a calculator UI. Excel is somewhere in between a calculator UI and bc in terms of how discoverable and usable it is. Engineers fall into this trap a lot - projecting our own preferences onto what we think other people should find accessible. Most people require training before they can use Excel. The training required to use a calculator is so minimal, they teach it in elementary school. And a REPL is gibberish to the vast majority of people, even if you dress it up with nice colors and friendly messages (which to be fair help a lot).

allendoerfer 6y ago

To explain the irony for OP: A computer is or has been basically a fancy calculater, so putting a program called calculator on it, seems redundant. It would make more sense to call it e.g. algebra and have other programs called geometry and so on.