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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!actcsiro!news.nsw.CSIRO.AU!wabbit.its.uow.edu.au!news.ci.com.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.io.com!insync!uuneo.neosoft.com!web.nmti.com!peter From: peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Command languages versus GUIs. Date: 23 Apr 1996 15:25:18 GMT Organization: Network/development platform support, NMTI Lines: 45 Message-ID: <4lisou$2kf@web.nmti.com> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4lgo70$t3r@masala.cc.uh.edu> <4lgv09$3a5@web.nmti.com> <4lhfcf$s8m@masala.cc.uh.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: sonic.nmti.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.misc:801 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46648 In article <4lhfcf$s8m@masala.cc.uh.edu>, Woody Jin <wjin@cs.uh.edu> wrote: > The beauty lies in that normally WYSIWYG is enough. You need such > macro programming (most macro packages are already available) only when > you are in odd circumstances. Right... BUT the original threads that got me into this discussion were claiming that there was some fundamental conflict between CLIs and GUIs, and that GUIs let you avoid having to deal with a CLI at all. That's just not true. The user interface, and the underlying tools, are separate issues. The problems I have with Word come in two parts: 1. Using the WYSIWYG interface doesn't help you learn about the underlying implementation. So rather than a moderately steep learning curve that provides you with more and more capabilities as you go along, you have a shallow curve that suddenly hits a brick wall when you need more capability... and as you approach that asymptote the amount of macdinking goes through the roof. This can be avoided without abandoning the WYSIWYG approach, by thinning the layers of cotton between the underlying markup language and the user interface. Word Perfect does that to some extent (you can edit with the codes show simultaneously with the WYSIWYG interface), but it's got problems in the glue that makes this, ah, unpleasant for the novice (mainly it doesn't merge markup very well, so yu get things like (pseudo-sgml): <italic><roman>test<italic><roman> after you select a section of italic text and click on "R". 2. Once you've become used to using style sheets, the WYSIWYG interface isn't very attractive any more. And you can't get rid of it. Like... I don't *care* that level 2 headings are curently in helvetica-bold-condensed. I'll probably change that after I've had a chance to look over the first draft. Does anyone even do multiple drafts any more? -- Peter da Silva (NIC: PJD2) `-_-' 1601 Industrial Boulevard Bailey Network Management 'U` Sugar Land, TX 77487-5013 +1 713 274 5180 "Har du kramat din varg idag?" USA Bailey pays for my technical expertise. My opinions probably scare them