7 ms·

I remember people complaining about GUIs, how CLIs were so much better and more powerful, how the mouse and cursor are so inefficient. When you change things pe

I remember people complaining about GUIs, how CLIs were so much better and more powerful, how the mouse and cursor are so inefficient. When you change things people are used to, people are going to complain.

userbinator 13y ago
They still are for anything but graphical tasks (photo editing, drawing diagrams, etc.) E.g. what's the fastest way to get a sorted list of all the .jpg files in a directory?
- mjhagen 13y ago
  Type .jpg in a search field in the Finder vs. google how to do that using grep I guess?
  - chinpokomon 13y ago
    Why would you use grep?
    - mjhagen 13y ago
      You tell me
  - userbinator 13y ago
    Now you want to get that list of files in a text file, so that you can email them to someone or put them in a document or etc.
m_mueller 13y ago
This kind of comment really annoys me. CLI: You need to memorize at least a basic set of commands. There is contextual help once you know those commands, but there is no help to find out which commands do what in the first place. Clearly intended for what we now call power users. Win9x/NT4+ GUI: All required operations are discoverable through reading what's on screen and going through the menus. No manual or googling required. Mac since OS1/.Net GUIs: Even better, hotkey commands can be discovered in the Menus -> users can learn how to become faster while just using the programs. OSX since 10.5: Any program on your HD, installed or not, and any operation within these programs can be discovered through system wide search, clearly indicated by the search symbol staying in the top right of your screen as well as the Help menu. Typing after clicking on Help will even point out the command's placement in the menu such that you can memorize for next time. Win8/Ubuntu: Trololo who needs discoverability - let's hide most of the functionality behind non trivial gestures (we heard people like them on Macs[1] so let's go all in on them) => the UI now has similar discoverability properties as a CLI - you need to read the manual or google a tutorial to get started. [1]Note: There is currently exactly one gesture that is really needed in the default settings on OSX (which I find a bad idea btw.): Two finger scrolling.
- mjhagen 13y ago
  > Clearly intended for what we now call power users. You would think that, but in the DOS vs Mac days a lot of non-power users advocated the DOS way, I still don't know why though. A Mac is a toy, was the argument back then.
  - m_mueller 13y ago
    People who call Mac toys have probably never used one for a good amount of time. There are legitimate ways to criticize Macs - this is not one of them.
    - mjhagen 13y ago
      You did read my comment, didn't you? I was talking about the DOS days, as in 'not today'.
      - m_mueller 13y ago
        Yes, I did read it. I'm implying that this hasn't changed - there's enough people who still think Macs are toys and a Windows PC is the computer for serious work.
- mateuszf 13y ago
  > There is contextual help once you know those commands, but there is no help to find out which commands do what in the first place. man command or command --help
  - m_mueller 13y ago
    Is this an example to what I wrote or a way to prove me wrong? If it's the latter, please read it again.
- fauigerzigerk 13y ago
  You are absolutely right about discoverability. This is the major difference compared to CLIs. But what happened is that on mobile you have very popular UIs that have no discoverability whatsoever. You can't even hover a mouse cursor over something you suspect might be a control because there is no mouse cursor and what is and isn't a control isn't always clear either. Lots of secret gestures and lots of change in every version (at least on Android). I'm a bit baffled as well as to why this can work. I suspect it might be because people don't use these devices for productivity and hence they only use a relatively small number of features. They don't need to discover new stuff all the time and when they do it's for entertainment more than anything. Or maybe it's because there's a new generation of mainstream users that sees everything as a kind of adventure game where discovering hard to find treasures is the whole point. Maybe Microsoft's problem is that their technology people ignore the very message their marketing people are trying to get across: PCs are for productivity, for creating things. If you're at work trying to get things done you're not in the mood for figuring out obscure features and the latest UX fashions.

userbinator 13y ago

They still are for anything but graphical tasks (photo editing, drawing diagrams, etc.) E.g. what's the fastest way to get a sorted list of all the .jpg files in a directory?

mjhagen 13y ago
Type .jpg in a search field in the Finder vs. google how to do that using grep I guess?
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  Why would you use grep?
  - mjhagen 13y ago
    You tell me
- userbinator 13y ago
  Now you want to get that list of files in a text file, so that you can email them to someone or put them in a document or etc.

m_mueller 13y ago

This kind of comment really annoys me. CLI: You need to memorize at least a basic set of commands. There is contextual help once you know those commands, but there is no help to find out which commands do what in the first place. Clearly intended for what we now call power users. Win9x/NT4+ GUI: All required operations are discoverable through reading what's on screen and going through the menus. No manual or googling required. Mac since OS1/.Net GUIs: Even better, hotkey commands can be discovered in the Menus -> users can learn how to become faster while just using the programs. OSX since 10.5: Any program on your HD, installed or not, and any operation within these programs can be discovered through system wide search, clearly indicated by the search symbol staying in the top right of your screen as well as the Help menu. Typing after clicking on Help will even point out the command's placement in the menu such that you can memorize for next time. Win8/Ubuntu: Trololo who needs discoverability - let's hide most of the functionality behind non trivial gestures (we heard people like them on Macs[1] so let's go all in on them) => the UI now has similar discoverability properties as a CLI - you need to read the manual or google a tutorial to get started. [1]Note: There is currently exactly one gesture that is really needed in the default settings on OSX (which I find a bad idea btw.): Two finger scrolling.

mjhagen 13y ago
> Clearly intended for what we now call power users. You would think that, but in the DOS vs Mac days a lot of non-power users advocated the DOS way, I still don't know why though. A Mac is a toy, was the argument back then.
- m_mueller 13y ago
  People who call Mac toys have probably never used one for a good amount of time. There are legitimate ways to criticize Macs - this is not one of them.
  - mjhagen 13y ago
    You did read my comment, didn't you? I was talking about the DOS days, as in 'not today'.
    - m_mueller 13y ago
      Yes, I did read it. I'm implying that this hasn't changed - there's enough people who still think Macs are toys and a Windows PC is the computer for serious work.
mateuszf 13y ago
> There is contextual help once you know those commands, but there is no help to find out which commands do what in the first place. man command or command --help
- m_mueller 13y ago
  Is this an example to what I wrote or a way to prove me wrong? If it's the latter, please read it again.
fauigerzigerk 13y ago
You are absolutely right about discoverability. This is the major difference compared to CLIs. But what happened is that on mobile you have very popular UIs that have no discoverability whatsoever. You can't even hover a mouse cursor over something you suspect might be a control because there is no mouse cursor and what is and isn't a control isn't always clear either. Lots of secret gestures and lots of change in every version (at least on Android). I'm a bit baffled as well as to why this can work. I suspect it might be because people don't use these devices for productivity and hence they only use a relatively small number of features. They don't need to discover new stuff all the time and when they do it's for entertainment more than anything. Or maybe it's because there's a new generation of mainstream users that sees everything as a kind of adventure game where discovering hard to find treasures is the whole point. Maybe Microsoft's problem is that their technology people ignore the very message their marketing people are trying to get across: PCs are for productivity, for creating things. If you're at work trying to get things done you're not in the mood for figuring out obscure features and the latest UX fashions.