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The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

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Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#31

Post by bawolff »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #27
bawolff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the cli is any less of a metaphor than the desktop is. Its just a different metaphor. Its not like shell pipelines are really pipes between two processes or a filesystem is the same as a physical system of files.

A pipe(2) in Unix is actually a piece of memory arranged so that it can be used as a FIFO, written and read to. There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe, and the "|" refers directly if tersely to that object. A filesystem is fundamentally a way toorganize blocks of data on a storage medium. It consists of an actual physical medium with various attributes, which is used by a rule-driven system ("the…

> There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe

If you open up your computer and get out your microscope, you're not going to find the pipe.

Computers are metaphors on top of metaphors. There's nothing wrong with that but you have to go way way down the abstraction tree before you are dealing with anything "physical"

> The CLI is not a metaphor - it's an abstraction.

I'm unconvinced there is a difference (other than abstractions being hardcore)

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#32

Post by dafoex »

dwighttk wrote: post #28
moron4hire wrote: post #16

> At recent user interface conferences, several speakers have lamented that the human interface is stuck. We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore. Ooof, and here we are, 25 years later, with an intervening opportunity to completely redefine HCI (smartphones), and it's still basically all WIMP.

Weird, my hand computer only has icons out of those 4.

I feel many touch interfaces are still fundamentally WIMP. You can only use one, maybe two apps at a time, but they are still windows - just tiled, not floating, and always accessed from a list, not a stack. Icons are obviously still a thing, but I think we hit the nail on the head with those as uniquely shaped pictograms are easier to parse quickly than descriptive text. Menus are often minimal, but they still exist to the extent of "ordered list of things to interact with", and the only thing I think that can really be argued we've got rid of is pointers - but from where I see it, I just think we've added nine more pointers.

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#34

Post by Phrodo_00 »

bawolff wrote: post #31
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pipe(2) in Unix is actually a piece of memory arranged so that it can be used as a FIFO, written and read to. There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe, and the "|" refers directly if tersely to that object. A filesystem is fundamentally a way toorganize blocks of data on a storage medium. It consists of an actual physical medium with various attributes, which is used by a rule-driven system ("the…

> There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe If you open up your computer and get out your microscope, you're not going to find the pipe. Computers are metaphors on top of metaphors. There's nothing wrong with that but you have to go way way down the abstraction tree before you are dealing with anything "physical" > The CLI is not a metaphor - it's an abstraction. I'm unconvinced there is a differenc…

> If you open up your computer and get out your microscope, you're not going to find the pipe.

You should be able to, though. The pipe has a (OS) memory location, which, after a bunch of redirections, is an absolute location in memory, which is a bunch of capacitors and transistors. Now, you could argue that those redirections are akin to metaphors, though.

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#35

Post by dgb23 »

bawolff wrote: post #31
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pipe(2) in Unix is actually a piece of memory arranged so that it can be used as a FIFO, written and read to. There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe, and the "|" refers directly if tersely to that object. A filesystem is fundamentally a way toorganize blocks of data on a storage medium. It consists of an actual physical medium with various attributes, which is used by a rule-driven system ("the…

> There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe If you open up your computer and get out your microscope, you're not going to find the pipe. Computers are metaphors on top of metaphors. There's nothing wrong with that but you have to go way way down the abstraction tree before you are dealing with anything "physical" > The CLI is not a metaphor - it's an abstraction. I'm unconvinced there is a differenc…

As I understand it, the difference is that an abstraction is a sign for a computational object. A metaphor is a sign for something else, outside of the computer, and only indirectly related to the computational object it represents.

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#36

Post by nimbleal »

bawolff wrote: post #31
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pipe(2) in Unix is actually a piece of memory arranged so that it can be used as a FIFO, written and read to. There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe, and the "|" refers directly if tersely to that object. A filesystem is fundamentally a way toorganize blocks of data on a storage medium. It consists of an actual physical medium with various attributes, which is used by a rule-driven system ("the…

> There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe If you open up your computer and get out your microscope, you're not going to find the pipe. Computers are metaphors on top of metaphors. There's nothing wrong with that but you have to go way way down the abstraction tree before you are dealing with anything "physical" > The CLI is not a metaphor - it's an abstraction. I'm unconvinced there is a differenc…

> Computers are metaphors on top of metaphors

This may be true of our perception of “real life” too, of course, in which case computer interfaces are not something different, just an extra couple of layers

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#37

Post by dafoex »

I recall reading this and some related papers a while ago, and for the fun of it I tried my hand at mocking up a UI based on the ideas laid out. The basic premise was that the application menu was replaced with a "new document" menu (like Google Drive has) that would take you to the relevant place to get things done automatically. Standard apps could still be run, but like you might go "new>text document>template" you'd go "new>app>terminal" for example. The File Edit View menus were also gone, replaced with a search function much like the Unity Desktop HUD where you just type what you want rather than drill through menus and point at what you want. Window management would be mainly tiling except for dialog boxes related to the programme that made them, but ideally the search function would handle most cases where you need a dialog box, employing a simple command parser reminiscent of Zork and the like, where you would just type out what you want to be done in mostly natural language and the agent responsible for the programme will automate as much as possible. Finally, window switching and virtual desktops would be handled by an exposé similar to GNOME 3 Activities or macOS Mission Control. While I don't think its the best approach, a little bit of intelligent arrangement of windows so that maximised windows move to a new workspace, remembering what apps are opened together on the same workspace, and encouraging the user to keep to about three or four tiled windows per workspace just for the benefit of keeping clutter low, and I think it could be easily managed without too much effort - and some keyboard combos or trackpad gestures would go a long way to quickly switching workspaces.

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#38

Post by amyjess »

> At recent user interface conferences, several speakers have lamented that the human interface is stuck. We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore.

Alternately, you can say that UX design stabilized on a known good pattern.

This reminds me of how some people will refer to stable software projects that only receive the occasional security patch as "abandoned". They're not abandoned, they're just stable.

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#39

Post by anyfoo »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #27
bawolff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the cli is any less of a metaphor than the desktop is. Its just a different metaphor. Its not like shell pipelines are really pipes between two processes or a filesystem is the same as a physical system of files.

A pipe(2) in Unix is actually a piece of memory arranged so that it can be used as a FIFO, written and read to. There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe, and the "|" refers directly if tersely to that object. A filesystem is fundamentally a way toorganize blocks of data on a storage medium. It consists of an actual physical medium with various attributes, which is used by a rule-driven system ("the…

> There really is a physical object corresponding to the pipe, and the "|" refers directly if tersely to that object.

By that argument, there really is a physical object corresponding to the desktop. That, too, is made up of pieces of memory.

> It consists of an actual physical medium with various attributes

Not necessarily. I mean, yes, ultimately it does because we live in a physical reality. But ultimately even I start think about a filesystem in my head it exists on a physical medium, my brain.

Are the trees that modern filesystem usually consist of nowadays actual trees growing in my computer, or are they metaphors? Named after their biological counterpart because they roughly look and act like them in very specific aspects? Like a desktop, or a window?

Are the "folders" or "directories" that you interact with in your shell actually those pieces of objects, or are they a metaphor?

> The CLI is not a metaphor - it's an abstraction. It removes details that you don't need to know about (mostly), but provides you with a way to operate directly upon the objects (concepts)

I don't see the distinction. The desktop provides you with a way to operate directly upon the objects/concepts of the OS. In both cases, there is usually a multitude of abstractions before you reach any actual physical object.

> the way that the kernel of macOS isn't responsible for most of the way that desktop functions today [...] leaving the kernel to deal with the same sorts of objects you'd describe with the CLI

You mean the same way the kernel is not responsible for the way the CLI functions?

Why is an open() system call (which can refer to numerous virtual, abstract, immaterial things) more "real" when the piece of memory it has been passed has been collected through a multitude of abstractions and maybe originated from a sequence of keystrokes on a keyboard via USB, than if it had been collected through a multitude of abstractions and maybe originated from a sequence of mouse movements via USB?

Re: The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

#40

Post by nappy »

amyjess wrote: post #38

> At recent user interface conferences, several speakers have lamented that the human interface is stuck. We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore. Alternately, you can say that UX design stabilized on a known good pattern. This reminds me of how some people will refer to stable software projects that only receive…

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