4 ms·

I get the simplicity, but I really disagree that visual aspects of a website/program are not "something useful". I would bet that a well designed and clean GUI

I get the simplicity, but I really disagree that visual aspects of a website/program are not "something useful". I would bet that a well designed and clean GUI would be easier to use for a large percent of the population than text alone..

brudgers 11y ago
Why can I use a cookie rather than a GUI to log into HackerNews? Why can I use Oauth to log into StackOverflow? Would it be better if we all had to use a keyboard wudgut? The idea that GUI's are great was good forty years ago when men worried about catching typing-pool-koodies from keyboards; college students would hire typists to turn longhand drafts into print on a page; and the only form of search was query and that query happened over a circuit based network on a mainframe running a non-relational database. Now we've all got a Cray in our pocket yet the industry is breeding faster horses.
- simoncion 11y ago
  You suggest that we use CLIs for pretty much every task? I -happily- spend most of my day in one CLI or another, but there are many, many things for which interactive graphical display of information is just the best choice. If you never have done so, find a copy of Edward Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". You really need to find a professionally-printed dead-tree version; computer screens still can't do the book justice. Oh: > "koodies" That word is spelt "cooties". ;)
  - brudgers 11y ago
    I bought my copy of Tufte almost 25 years ago (11th printing 1991). I see the $34.00 price sticker is still on the rear of the dust jacket and living within is the Graphics Press advertising collateral. Tufte is a good starting point, remove what is unnecessary. One "7/19/15" is a better user experience than three wudguts with 12-31 items each. ["Koodies" alliterates better with "keyboard" more Carrollingean like "wudguts".]
    - russgray 11y ago
      7/19/15 is immediately and irredeemably ugly to me, because I'm not in the U.S. Quick, someone from Europe types in 9/10/15, do they want to travel in September or October?
      - simoncion 11y ago
        Yep. ISO 8601 exists for a reason. :)
      - brudgers 11y ago
        This isn't an overnight batch process on a paper tape: It's the 21st century not 1962. Return both sets of results and let The user choose. Search is better than query.
        Elepsis 11y ago
        If your solution to ambiguity of date input on a flight search website is to return flight options for either date, you will have a shocking number of customers inadvertently booking flights for the wrong dates, because they're already overwhelmed with a long list of options (airlines, times of day, prices, connecting points, etc.) If you added the randomizing variable of multiple entirely different dates being in play, all bets would be off.
        simoncion 11y ago
        Your points are good. I'm pretty sure brudgers is either trolling or dysfunctional in some way.
        brudgers 11y ago
        I'm thinking out loud. A problem I am interested in has a much stronger assumption of a GUI than something like airline search. It is hard and to think about the solution space without that assumption and productive because it moves the underlying class of problems to a higher level of abstraction that offers the possibility of substantial innovation. GUI's are the conventional wisdom. But maybe it is worth asking if forty year old assumptions about computer users are worth revisiting.

brudgers 11y ago

Why can I use a cookie rather than a GUI to log into HackerNews? Why can I use Oauth to log into StackOverflow? Would it be better if we all had to use a keyboard wudgut? The idea that GUI's are great was good forty years ago when men worried about catching typing-pool-koodies from keyboards; college students would hire typists to turn longhand drafts into print on a page; and the only form of search was query and that query happened over a circuit based network on a mainframe running a non-relational database. Now we've all got a Cray in our pocket yet the industry is breeding faster horses.

simoncion 11y ago
You suggest that we use CLIs for pretty much every task? I -happily- spend most of my day in one CLI or another, but there are many, many things for which interactive graphical display of information is just the best choice. If you never have done so, find a copy of Edward Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". You really need to find a professionally-printed dead-tree version; computer screens still can't do the book justice. Oh: > "koodies" That word is spelt "cooties". ;)
- brudgers 11y ago
  I bought my copy of Tufte almost 25 years ago (11th printing 1991). I see the $34.00 price sticker is still on the rear of the dust jacket and living within is the Graphics Press advertising collateral. Tufte is a good starting point, remove what is unnecessary. One "7/19/15" is a better user experience than three wudguts with 12-31 items each. ["Koodies" alliterates better with "keyboard" more Carrollingean like "wudguts".]
  - russgray 11y ago
    7/19/15 is immediately and irredeemably ugly to me, because I'm not in the U.S. Quick, someone from Europe types in 9/10/15, do they want to travel in September or October?
    - simoncion 11y ago
      Yep. ISO 8601 exists for a reason. :)
    - brudgers 11y ago
      This isn't an overnight batch process on a paper tape: It's the 21st century not 1962. Return both sets of results and let The user choose. Search is better than query.
      - Elepsis 11y ago
        If your solution to ambiguity of date input on a flight search website is to return flight options for either date, you will have a shocking number of customers inadvertently booking flights for the wrong dates, because they're already overwhelmed with a long list of options (airlines, times of day, prices, connecting points, etc.) If you added the randomizing variable of multiple entirely different dates being in play, all bets would be off.
        simoncion 11y ago
        Your points are good. I'm pretty sure brudgers is either trolling or dysfunctional in some way.
        brudgers 11y ago
        I'm thinking out loud. A problem I am interested in has a much stronger assumption of a GUI than something like airline search. It is hard and to think about the solution space without that assumption and productive because it moves the underlying class of problems to a higher level of abstraction that offers the possibility of substantial innovation. GUI's are the conventional wisdom. But maybe it is worth asking if forty year old assumptions about computer users are worth revisiting.