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From: "Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Advantage of XML based GUI? (was Re: Ada-inspired OS/Language)
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 12:19:57 -0400
Organization: Michigan State University
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"Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:3D8358E1.9080703@cogeco.ca...
> This doesn't always work out well with the "user". This is the same
problem
> with the McAfee Firewall software. They start with the premise of locking
> everything down (which is good) and then asking questions of the user
> as they progress through their normal tasks.
>
> The problem with this model is that the end user
> does'nt understand the questions! If the user is presented with a prompt
> to allow/disallow TCP port 23 incoming access, he is stuck. The user
becomes
> impatient and will then:

Agreed, I have given some thought about this.  In my view all programs
should come will installation information.  This information must be
submitted to the OS at install time before it can be considered executable
by anyone.  Each installation lists what capabilities the program needs and
should be accompained with a plain text description of why the program needs
that capablility.  The operating system can also maintain a list of
capability descriptions so the user can compare the needs with the expected
usage.  Based on this information the user can grant the program
all/some/none of the requested capabilities.  If the user wants to install a
program that does not have the accompanied installation information, they
could run it in the interactive mode Nick described.

-CRM