Re: ANNOUNCE: GNAT Programming System 1.4.0 release

[Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> I'm not making an error. You wanted a UI expert to design the IDE
> if I recall. I would rather have better and useful features based on the
> experience of the programmers.

I wanted the UI expert to design the interface in accordance with
the useful features communicated to him by the programmers, using
his expertise in interface design to arrange those features in a
pleasing and harmonious whole.

> Your error is that you think user friendly is an absolute term. LaTeX is
> user friendly for me, but Word might be more userfriendly for your, for
> example. If you want to make something user friendly you need to define
> the target audience and you need to be able to understand how they work.

Exactly. And how often does the programmer hammering out his program do that?
Microsoft has user interface labs where the observe people using Word and
their other programs, and they base improvements to the interface using
these observations.

> No, but it has nothing to do with the discussion either. 

It most certainly does. You are arguing that am interface designed by a
UI expert will lack essential features. I am arguing that the presence
of features is in a sense orthogonal to the interface.