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From: hack@watson.ibm.com (hack)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Language support for  flexible handling of system-detected
 errors.
Date: 29 Mar 2002 17:08:47 GMT
Organization: IBM_Research
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 <ned-124A97.16335828032002@news.apple.com>
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In article <ned-124A97.16335828032002@news.apple.com>,
Ned Holbrook  <ned@mac.com> wrote:
>In article <u4rj0bo22.fsf@wanadoo.fr>, Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr> 
>wrote:
>
>> How do you do that with "clickodrome"* IDE ?
>
>With a scripting language. As it turns out, a UI is just that. Most well 
>designed systems also have interfaces for non-user-driven input.

Note the *well designed* in the above!  I am a very strong believer in
the concept of non-user-driven input, and am constantly frustrated by
applications which only offer a GUI -- or an overly complicated private
"scripting" interface.  The nice thing about a CLI is the universal nature
of the interface:  pass a command string, collect a reply string (or strings)
and a return code to distinguish success from failure.

I wish it were the case that "a UI is just that", because it would indeed
permit fairly universal control.  An example is the "smit" application in
AIX for system management: it is just a front end for traditional Unix CLI
configuration commands.  It has a "preview" feature that shows what commnds
would result from a given GUI button, making it clear that this is just an
improved UI to what would otherwise deserve the bad reputation ("inscrutable")
of the Unix CLI.

Michel.