Hello Rob,
Rob Farmer wrote:
Most general computer users will never give up the GUI, because it
involves investing in computer skills and they don't see that as
terribly worthwhile - they just want to get started on their work. I
think some UNIX fans are reluctant to accept this, and in doing so
limit its ability to grow. That's my reason for preferring GUI in most
situations.
I share your observation of user behaviour, and it is probably
appropriate: although there is many _funny_ways to use computers, most
of us just want to have some work done and GUI sometimes provide a quick
way to put our hands on it.
But in my opinion, a complete GUI software should also provide some
command line facilities. I mean, for instance, a word processing
software could be shipped with command line tools that could be used to
* inspect document properties (word count, meta information fields);
* convert the document to a publishable form such as PostScript;
* do field replacement for mailings;
and many less elementary treatments could also be useful! Some software
comes with a scripting language, but for simple operation and batch
processing, this may not be so convenient as a command line tool.
This kind of functionnalities could be a bridge from the GUI to the
command line for some users: I feel these worlds are so separated,
while they do not have to. I sometimes feel that this separation is
precisely the wall that keep many computer users to develop their
computer skill, despite they use one all day long. This ``computer
illiteracy'' is very dommageable, not only because it makes it hard for
the average user to learn from more experienced users, but also because
it let software editors be economically successful while selling
incomplete, crippled, software.
--
Best regards,
Michael
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