Ware Ware Wizardjin ...

[Dick Dunn]

kemnitz at gaia.berkeley.edu (Greg Kemnitz) writes:
> While we who have mastered the intricacies of the computer and have high
> typing speeds may not "get any more work done" on fast computers with bitmapped
> graphics, etc, there is an entire world of new people getting work done on
> computers who would not be using them if it weren't for those Computationally
> Expensive and Wasteful (tm) interfaces...

Wrong on several counts:
	- Ordinary folks were getting work done on computers before all the
	  gee-whiz goo was added on.
	- The complaints were not aimed at convenient interfaces.  The
	  first target was the excessive complexity of today's interfaces.
	  If anything, those of us who work with computers all day long,
	  and construct software for a living, are BETTER able to deal
	  with the complexity than the more naive users.
	- The second target was wasted resources.  If machine resources
	  are being wasted, they're wasted every bit as much for the naive
	  user as for the wizard.

At the core of the argument is a non-sequitur--that more people are using
computers, and current interfaces are enormously complex and inefficient,
therefore the complexity and inefficiency are necessary to make the
machines usable.  Correlation does not imply causality.  In fact, there is
some reasonable evidence that more people would use computers, and learn to
do more with them, if the user interfaces were simple and efficient.

Worse yet, all the arcana in user interfaces has the tendency to create a
secondary priesthood among the user community--the high priests remain the
ones who create the software, the ordinary priests are the users who can
figure out how to use the software.

>...Gee, listening to some wizards, you'd
> think the bad old days had come back when computer time was more important
> than human time, and Herculian feats of engineering were required to make
> the computer do much of anything.

There's a bit of an appeal to a guilt trip in this.

For me, the moaning about wasted computer time comes down to the fact that
machines are easily an order of magnitude faster, larger (memory), and
cheaper than a decade ago--however that multiplies out to some total
magical increase--yet we've barely carried a factor of two improvement out
through all the layers of software crap to the end user.  The point is NOT
that we (programmers) are coveting the increased capacity; it's that we're
not delivering it where it belongs--to the end user.  For example, a window
manager that uses 10% of your memory and 5-10% of your CPU to give you bas-
relief window borders and cute icons is robbing you--the user--blind.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd at ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been.