Blame this on Taylor:
>>Couldn't agree less (you knew that, though). Damnit, the computer is a
>>TOOL, not an end. I like the car analogy better....it's NICE to be able to
>>work on your car, but you shouldn't have to be able to rebuild an engine to
>>drive a car. The skill involved is more like knowing how to operate a pen
>>than knowing how to read and write. Right now, we're not there, but why the
>>hell should someone who wants to operate a computer have to deal with coding
>>or dip switches or IRQ's or DMA's? It's ridiculous....
>
>But a car is a tool that deals with transportation. A computer is a tool
>that deals with information. Therefore the closest tool we have to it is
>language. That's why I keep using the analogy.
The car is also a tool, agreed. But operating the car DOESN'T involve
knowing how to work on it, it involves knowing how to operate a steeting
wheel and pedals, maybe a stick shift, and being able to understand what's
on the dash (maybe....I've seen a lot of folks who didn't).
>I don't expect people to deal with IRQ files, or DMAs or INI's and what
>have you. I think that DOS/Windows is a terrible interface. I'm not to
>set on the mac either, I feel that it sacrifices functionality for ease of
>use and that it encourages the view that all computer operations must be
>done by hand.
>
>What I'm talking about is communicating with the machine in a language that
>is native to both the person and the machine, i.e. Not English or any other
>human language, but something on a much higher language than C or C++. One
>where we can conceptualize tasks/desires/artistic expressions in, then
>communicate to the computer without translation, and the computer would
>then run the program (again without translating it). This seems to me to
>be the most powerful, invisible, and useful interface.
>
>I also don't mean that we should do away with the concpts of windows,
>icons, or psudo-psyical data representations either. Just that the main
>input avenue for human computer interaction should be language, be it
>spoken or written.
I'm not sure it isn't in Windows. I'm not sure GUI isn't more like
hieroglyphics in most of its incarnations than any truly "real world"
representation. I think we're working to a point of covergence aside from
that, though....that putting together an interface that works as seemlessly
as possible is of primary importance if this emergent computer technology is
going to be fully realized. The problem, I think, is your hybrid language.
Every computer language north of ML is a hybrid language, from Fortran to
Cobol to Basic to Logo to Java. OS's work, more or less, in the same way,
whether we're talking about Bash or Korn or MS-DOS or MPE/iX or OS/2 or
CP/M. Some of them are higher-level languages, some are lower. But at
root, they have to talk binary. And if we have to translate to binary, why
worry about a hybrid?
Adam D. Barnhart
adamb@cfmc.com
ydnt85a@prodigy.com
"War doesn't determine who's right, it determines who's left."