From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,be23df8e7e275d73 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-11 10:56:47 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!sn-xit-04!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: Al Christians Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: "is ada dead?" A challenge for all of us? Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 11:00:24 -0700 Organization: Public Property Software Message-ID: <3B4C9438.9443D810@easystreet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <0zS27.187213$DG1.31590366@news1.rdc1.mi.home.com> <3B4C65F5.B304D12A@earthlink.net> <9ihvff$l7i$1@nh.pace.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:9815 Date: 2001-07-11T11:00:24-07:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic wrote: > if all the gold lies burried that deep, I'd blame the tool for > that - not me. If what it has is so spiffy, howcum it isn't > immediately visible? > If you want to produce a product that stands tall in comparison to products produced by , realize that they have human factors experts who help them reduce (or increase) the dumbth of their user interfaces to match user expectations and increase user satisfaction (no fooling). I don't want to complain about emacs or any other particular piece of open software, because it is extraordinary that such wonderful things are freely available, but I somehow get the idea that maybe emacs, etc, weren't designed with human factors suited to the average person according to the experts foremost. There are many more things besides programming language that determine whether or not software meets its objectives. One of these is human factors of the UI. If you are not an expert in this area, you probably can't estimate accurately the percent of otherwise users lost on account of the UI if you build and emacs-like interface -- 0%, 1%, 10%, 50%, or 99%? I surely DK. Presumably, with good software, this is all user-configurable. But it is daunting to a new user to try to reconfigure emacs, and this is not something that a product that is aimed at drawing new users should count on. To gain a big number of new users, I'd guess you've got to have a standard Windows look and feel either standard or not more than 2.5 clicks away from the default set up. I have seen an emacs setup that actually has hot keys on the pull down menus and responds to the Windows standard control keys for cut and paste, etc. Could one combine that kind of setup into the Ada mode for emacs? If someone could write a program that would get all the emacs haters to like emacs, I'd nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize. Al