Re: good, reliable window manager?

From: Tom Ryerson (no_at_spam.please)
Date: 03/16/04

  • Next message: Antoine Jacoutot: "Re: portupgrade Question" 
    Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 09:32:26 GMT

    Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
    >
    >
    > Someone wrote:
    >>>>
    >>>> So true...GUIs should be considered *training wheels* for the computer.
    >
    > No, they should be considered *memory aids* for the computer user.
    >
    > Good GUIs allow a program to be used pretty-much without a manual.
    > They ether present you with available choices or somehow guide you
    > through a process of some kind so that you don't have to memorize a
    > complex command, when it's not worthwhile to do so and you can't put
    > it in a script. (This depends upon the task and your memory, of
    > course.) For many things that many people do, learning text commands
    > is a poor use of time and GUIs are better. Of course, programs should
    > support both ways of working. (Which is why I like Xemacs with its
    > Gnus news & mail reader.)

    Good points. But you don't need a *G* UI to do this. Pure text menus
    can do the job just as well.

    Clicking on an icon or entering a number accomplish the same thing and
    with a fraction of the system resources.

    As for a complex command that you can't put in a script, I do not believe
    there is any such thing. They are one and the same thing.

    I guess you didn't read my previous posts. I have not at all been talking
    about entering commands manually. Far from it. Wouldn't dream of suggesting
    that someone should enter, for example:

    mkisofs -L -R -V $1 -C $jjj -M /dev/scd0 -o image.iso -graft-points \
    $klp/=/$2

    in order to create an iso image prior to burning a CD.

    You just choose [1] from a menu and it happens. The script is run. Just
    like it happens when you click on an icon.

    The difference here is that the command is there to modified at will with
    a little help from the man page if you need to.

    No need to wait for the developers to *possibly* come up with just the right
    icon for you in some future release.

    And there are MANY options and arguments and combinations thereof to mkisofs
    that are useful for various tasks.

    With the GUI you get but a few of them, if that.

    Tom

  • Next message: Antoine Jacoutot: "Re: portupgrade Question"

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