David Brown wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 09:44:27PM -0700, Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade wrote:
>> On Mar 27, 2008, at 8:57 PM, Lan Barnes wrote:
>>> Whose interface guidelines, we ask.
>>
>> Not yours, apparently. :)
>>
>> I can't quote page and verse, but I'm reasonably sure Apple strongly
>> suggests that progress indicators be provided for long-running tasks when
>> the user is expecting a result. I don't know that Microsoft has interface
>> guidelines...
>
> Both do, and I've quoted page and verse in another email :-)
>
> I think that Lan's concern here is scriptability, which is important. But,
> having a --quiet option is sufficient for this. But, showing progress
> should be the default. Most users will start pressing ^C and other things
> for even a command line program that doesn't print anything for a few
> seconds.
Most non-unix users "will start pressing ^C and other things for even a
command line program that doesn't print anything for a few seconds." I run
long running programs commonly. I expect the prompt back when it's finished,
or I'll background it. I don't expect progress indicators by default. But then
my first computer ran Xenix and used a green screen. I learned that in *nix no
message is success. Failure is the only message I expect from a program. I did
recently find the --showdots option to sa-learn and it's kind of cool. I have
run sa-learn for years without it, and never thought about it. Some people
just need a lot of hand holding and reassurance.
Dave: Hello HAL do you read me?
HAL9000: Hello Dave!
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