3 ms·

>GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file... You know the secrets on

by bregma 6y ago

>GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file... You know the secrets on how to use the Microsoft Windows 95 GUI so it's easy for you. Consider the person who has not been trained over years in its use. The concept of a context menu that pops up at the mouse position when clicking button number two is not intuitive or discoverable. My wife, for example, grew up before Windows 95 and its descendents were invented, holds multiple post-secondary degrees, and works with computers every day. She has no idea a second mouse button exists let alone that she can use it to perform file manipulation operations. She doesn't quite get the idea of "home directories" or "nested folders" or anything that is hidden like menus (or, frankly, tabs in the browser.. or multiple browser windows in fullscreen mode). Those things are not intuitive or discoverable in any way if you haven't been trained in their use. I, too, often forget the context menu is there although with practive I'm getting better. I certainly would never forget the `df` command though because it's second nature to me after over 40 years of use. People need to be very careful when making an argument that something is better because it's what they're familiar with as if they are some definitive exemplar.

ryanbrunner 6y ago
You're right that there's some irreducible aspects to even GUIs that isn't intuitive and you just need to be told how to use it once, but GUIs have an advantage in that the overall 'language' of those things is far more limited at a basic level. Once you've figured out that mouse movements correspond to moving the pointer, clicking your left button usually means you want to do the primary interaction with whatever you're clicking on (opening a program, pressing a button, checking a checkbox), and right click gives you additional things you can do with the thing you're right clicking on, you've figured out enough to be able to at least use the system (I agree you're by no means proficient in it though). To get comparable proficiency with a command line requires a much larger set of things to remember for even basic usage.
jodrellblank 6y ago
> "People need to be very careful when making an argument that something is better because it's what they're familiar with as if they are some definitive exemplar." That is not the argument they made, they said right-click acts as a "tell me what I can do with this file" discoverability tool, not that right-click is itself discoverable. There is approximately no way to discover this on a command line, but if you right-click and "play with Windows Media Player" is there, it tells you something useful. But I'm going to make the argument that it is discoverable. Why isn't the context menu second nature to you after over 25 years of use? You put your hand on the mouse, it has two buttons, you click one of them in ordinary operation, what kind of hyperbole is it to say that "clicking the second button does things" is "not discoverable in any way"? You discover that by accidentally mashing it one day, if nothing else.
- mellavora 6y ago
  what if your mouse doesn't have two buttons? In fact, some mice don't have any buttons. (apple, over the years)
  - millzlane 6y ago
    That's apple's problem. I've been fixing apple devices since the puck mouse. They choose to go against the grain on purpose. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it makes absolutely none.
    - fouric 6y ago
      ...and, to build on this: the fact that this is Apple's fault means that it's not the fault of the GUI paradigm - just Apple's implementation of it.
      - bregma 6y ago
        It means it's not the fault of the Windows 95 GUI paradigm most middle-class North Americans millennial age or younger have been trained with. Windows 95 is not the GUI paradigm, it's one single product that implements a GUI paradigm.
jcelerier 6y ago
> You know the secrets on how to use the Microsoft Windows 95 GUI so it's easy for you. Consider the person who has not been trained over years in its use. it's easy because MS has spent years in formal user studies for almost every element of the 95 UI to make sure that it was easy for pretty much everyone.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Meh if my grandma can get folders and hidden menus with just using simple box in a box analogies and a couple of drawings of the difference between RAM, hard drive, and CPU I'm sure your wife can too. Sometimes there's just the lack of curiosity about such things that prevents people from learning it, not age. I had a friend who mf'ing wizard at spreadsheets and vba because she likes what you can do with it. I tried to talk her though just installing an adblocker and newpipe install for better access to youtube and I might as well as have walked outside and started talking to my wood fence to get the same end result. So she drove over and I installed it for her.
cptnapalm 6y ago
I work in a public library and it has come to be my opinion that there's nothing at all intuitive about MS GUIs. Of special note is the awfulness of printing about which I'm asked 3-6 times a day, every day.
imtringued 6y ago
The thing about graphical interfaces is that a lot of the lack of standardization is purely cosmetic. A context menu may have rounded corners, or a black background and so on but the user doesn't have worry about these differences. Cosmetic differences in CLI applications are actually important to get them to work in the first place. dash vs double dash, equals sign or no equals sign. CLI parsing is completely nonstandardized. Each command reinvents parsing and is completely unpredictable. The only way you could possibly solve this is by letting the shell parse CLI arguments and just pass them as a JSON like object to the application. The ship for that has sailed a long time ago.

by bregma 6y ago

ryanbrunner 6y ago

You're right that there's some irreducible aspects to even GUIs that isn't intuitive and you just need to be told how to use it once, but GUIs have an advantage in that the overall 'language' of those things is far more limited at a basic level. Once you've figured out that mouse movements correspond to moving the pointer, clicking your left button usually means you want to do the primary interaction with whatever you're clicking on (opening a program, pressing a button, checking a checkbox), and right click gives you additional things you can do with the thing you're right clicking on, you've figured out enough to be able to at least use the system (I agree you're by no means proficient in it though). To get comparable proficiency with a command line requires a much larger set of things to remember for even basic usage.

jodrellblank 6y ago

> "People need to be very careful when making an argument that something is better because it's what they're familiar with as if they are some definitive exemplar." That is not the argument they made, they said right-click acts as a "tell me what I can do with this file" discoverability tool, not that right-click is itself discoverable. There is approximately no way to discover this on a command line, but if you right-click and "play with Windows Media Player" is there, it tells you something useful. But I'm going to make the argument that it is discoverable. Why isn't the context menu second nature to you after over 25 years of use? You put your hand on the mouse, it has two buttons, you click one of them in ordinary operation, what kind of hyperbole is it to say that "clicking the second button does things" is "not discoverable in any way"? You discover that by accidentally mashing it one day, if nothing else.

mellavora 6y ago
what if your mouse doesn't have two buttons? In fact, some mice don't have any buttons. (apple, over the years)
- millzlane 6y ago
  That's apple's problem. I've been fixing apple devices since the puck mouse. They choose to go against the grain on purpose. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it makes absolutely none.
  - fouric 6y ago
    ...and, to build on this: the fact that this is Apple's fault means that it's not the fault of the GUI paradigm - just Apple's implementation of it.
    - bregma 6y ago
      It means it's not the fault of the Windows 95 GUI paradigm most middle-class North Americans millennial age or younger have been trained with. Windows 95 is not the GUI paradigm, it's one single product that implements a GUI paradigm.

jcelerier 6y ago

> You know the secrets on how to use the Microsoft Windows 95 GUI so it's easy for you. Consider the person who has not been trained over years in its use. it's easy because MS has spent years in formal user studies for almost every element of the 95 UI to make sure that it was easy for pretty much everyone.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Meh if my grandma can get folders and hidden menus with just using simple box in a box analogies and a couple of drawings of the difference between RAM, hard drive, and CPU I'm sure your wife can too. Sometimes there's just the lack of curiosity about such things that prevents people from learning it, not age. I had a friend who mf'ing wizard at spreadsheets and vba because she likes what you can do with it. I tried to talk her though just installing an adblocker and newpipe install for better access to youtube and I might as well as have walked outside and started talking to my wood fence to get the same end result. So she drove over and I installed it for her.

cptnapalm 6y ago

I work in a public library and it has come to be my opinion that there's nothing at all intuitive about MS GUIs. Of special note is the awfulness of printing about which I'm asked 3-6 times a day, every day.

imtringued 6y ago

The thing about graphical interfaces is that a lot of the lack of standardization is purely cosmetic. A context menu may have rounded corners, or a black background and so on but the user doesn't have worry about these differences. Cosmetic differences in CLI applications are actually important to get them to work in the first place. dash vs double dash, equals sign or no equals sign. CLI parsing is completely nonstandardized. Each command reinvents parsing and is completely unpredictable. The only way you could possibly solve this is by letting the shell parse CLI arguments and just pass them as a JSON like object to the application. The ship for that has sailed a long time ago.