Re: A Few Ideas

[Tim Moore <tmoore tembel org>]

On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Quantum Seep wrote: 

> On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Tim Moore wrote: 
> 
> > On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, J.W. Bizzaro wrote:
> > 
> > > Haukur Hreinsson <hawk@london.is> wrote:
> > > ...
> > > the "cryptic commands"?  If GNOME is to make Linux/UNIX on
> > > par with Windows and the Mac in ease-of-use (as all these
> > > magazine articles are claiming it will), shouldn't there be
> > > a *graphical* way to do something like this? That's all
> > > I'm saying.
> > 
> > Frankly, doing system administration of a Unix system is not and, IMO,
> > will *never* be something that a newbie can handle. The superuser/normal
> 
> I see this argument all the time.  "Let's make a GUI way to do XYZ to make it
> easy for the newbies."  "The newbies won't want to do XYZ, so let's not."
> 
> Did anyone ever think that the expert users might want a graphical way to do
> XYZ?  That they'd rather not have to always jump into the shell?

I didn't mean to argue that we shouldn't make a graphical way to do this
(in fact, in a seperate message, I proposed two!). In fact, I meant to
disclaim my original message with that point, but forgot to do so before
sending it. My only point was that we should be aiming our sysadmin tools
towards power users who like graphical interfaces, not towards newbies. I
think linuxconf is doing a good job at making a great sysadmin tool. I
hope that it can be generalized to cross-platform-gnomeconf.

I'm all for powerful graphical interfaces.

> 
> Frankly, I think GUIs today don't nearly exploit their potential.  Shells
> have evolved to do some pretty powerful things.  The UNIX philosophy says
> each tool should "do one thing, and do it well."  Then, using powerful
> synthesis mechanisms such as shell control constructs, pipes, and
> environment variables, these tools can be combined to do whatever you want. 
> I think the GUI could do the same thing, if we want it to.  Drag-n-drop is
> one way.  It's a start.

Absolutely. I think the more powerful step is Baboon, which will allow all
sorts of powerful component wirings.

> 
> Instead, GUIs today cater to the newbie.  "This program does X, then Y, then
> Z," complains the expert.  "I want to do X, then J, then Z."  "Sorry," the
> GUI designers reply.  "Use the shell."  There has to be a way to make *both*
> happy.

I think NEXTSTEP is the ideal existing model for what we want to do. It
was powerful, it was buzzword-compliant, it was Unix, but you never had to
touch a shell to do anything unless you really wanted to (and with the
great graphic designers they had, who would want to?)

Tim