On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, William T Wilson wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Steve "Stevers!" Coile wrote:
>> who will? Are we to hope that UNIX will have the same, cryptic interface
>> in 10 years that it has today, or should we hope that it will improve?
>
>No, we should hope that it will improve. But replacing all the Unix
>commands with identical DOS commands is not a step in the right direction.
Don't get stuck in an "us versus them" mentality. Just because Microsoft
does something doesn't mean Microsoft's doing it wrong. If people
know and understand "dir", "ren", and "del", why not accomodate them?
We're not accomodating Microsoft, we're accomodating *OUR* users.
>Linux should not pretend to be where Microsoft was 10 years ago. It is
>important to emphasize that Linux is not DOS.
I agree, but we shouldn't ignore conventions and expectations that
have developed. We don't need to make things difficult just because
easy seems too "Microsoft".
>That will simultaneously make new users realize that it is probably
>BETTER than DOS,...
I'm afraid most people don't equate difficulty with "better". We're
talking about command names here. The best command name is one that
users find convenient. If most people thought it was convenient to type
"moosebuckets" instead of "ls" or "dir", we should accomodate that.
>...and at the same time if it does not try to pretend to be DOS then
>users will be less likely to be upset when it turns out to not, in
>fact, be DOS. A user presented with a Linux (bash) feature such as job
>control will be astounded. Is it better to think "DOS doesn't have it,
>I'm really using DOS, so I shouldn't use it here either" or to think
>"this must be one of those neat Linux features."
But shouldn't we try to ease the transition from other operating systems
to Linux? Hell, if Linux is so great, shouldn't it be able to make
users with any OS background comfortable? Conceivably, we should be
able to provide user interfaces that are familiar to people with diverse
backgrounds.
>> The problem with Microsoft is that they make it difficult to get at the
>> guts of the system. Aliases just disguise the guts, they don't prevent
>> access to them. I consider that a big distinction.
>
>Maybe for you as an experienced user, but insulating the user from
>knowing what's going on also makes for uneducated users, users who must
>continually call tech support for basic tasks.
I disagree with your implication that the average person will, if
presented with a difficult alternative and an easy alternative, will
choose the difficult alternative because it may potentially be possibly
better maybe. If UNIX is kept difficult under the pretence of encouraging
users to learn the inner workings of it, UNIX will continue to founder
in the face of simple OSes like Windows 95. Most people don't want to
learn the guts of their system. Most people don't want to have to think
about their computer, any more than they want to think about how their
car works.
>I'm not saying that users must know how to do everything, only that there
>isn't any need to actively prevent them from learning about the system.
Putting aliases around commands is NOT "actively prevent[ing] [users] from
learning about the system." NOT putting aliases in place specifically to
"encourage" users to learn more about the system is actively preventing
users from USING their system by forcing them spend time researching
operating of the system.
--
Steve Coile
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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