On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Nicolas Anquetil <[email protected] > wrote:
> > This remind me of a discussion a very long time ago on a newsgroup > > - a young zealot of GUI (windows, buttons, mouses) was asking himself and > the community how people could deny that this was the best interface on > earth or how anybody could prefer text based interface > > - a seasonned sys. admin then started to explain all the clicks he had to > perform to create one new user account. Result: for one new user some > minutes of work > He then added that he had to create HUMDREDS of user every year and was so > very happy that he did not had to do it all by pointing and clicking but > had some scripts to do it. > > So the answer to all this is that there are very good and valid reasons to > prefer text to all the shiny interfaces of he world. > And you don't even have to look very far to find some. > > As for programming with in a graphical way, the ability has been around > for decades. > I believe we can safely assume that if people are still using textual > interface after such a very long period (in computer science time frame), > it is most certainly because natural selection has favoured the choice that > had most advantages ... > Coral, where are you? > > nicolas > > PS: which does not mean that GUI are completely useless > > On 21/04/2015 20:03, kilon alios wrote: > > Funnily enough I am in the exact opposite opinion, of Graphical > approach being vastly superior to text based approach including programming > languages. 25 years using computers and coding with them and still cannot > fathom why programming languages are still a think and why developers and > "power" users rely so much on text based approach. But whether I like it or > not the coding world is dominated by text based solutions. > > Its a pointless debate though when it comes to pharo will depend on the > people doing the work. Personally I don't have the time of going very deep > into this and doing all the hard work it requires. My focus is elsewhere. > But I welcome any contribution. > > As a lawyer myself and a coder, I cannot even begin to compare Latex to > the convenience of Libreoffice I use at work. Its not even a debate . > Latex is something I never heard of until Pillar introduced me to it. > Can't imagine who in the right mind would use this to document things, but > I guess they have their reasons. > > I started with command line and CP/M back in 1988 but even back then when > GUIs were not mainstream (at least in my country) I was dreaming of > graphical intefaces that would lift me from the restrictions of text based > approach and the dreaded command line. I wish I had found out about > Smalltalk back then and its elegant solution to this problem. > > I love Pillar because its simple and I like the syntax, but yeah in the > end I would choose a Graphical Documentation Tool no questions asked. > > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Dmitri Zagidulin <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 12:15 PM, Sean P. DeNigris < >> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> I dream that all documents in my Dynabook are WYSIWYG. However, the >>> computing world seems to have regressed into writing documents in various >>> forms of assembly code. >> >> >> Completely disagree, that it's a regression in any way :) Text-based >> document writing has enabled so many more features than WYSIWYG approaches >> have ever dreamed of. I would be happy to debate the merits of the two >> approaches, feature-for-feature. >> >> You're basically pining for the equivalent of VisualBasic drag & drop >> programming, versus the flexibility of writing code in an editor. The >> latter wins, no contest. (Now, that is not to say that text-based code >> editing can't be /improved/ with better IDE tools, that's what we're all >> about after all.) >> >> > > >
