Re: ANNOUNCE: GNAT Programming System 1.4.0 release

[Preben Randhol <randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@pvv.org>]

On 2003-11-24, Dale Stanbrough <MrNoSpam@bigpoop.net.au> wrote:
> I think people dismiss too easily the skills and professionalism of
> other workers; putting at naught their training and experience.
>
> I often see engineers who -think- they don't need professional 
> programmers because -they- can program a small C program.
> One such program I saw had -no- indenting at all. All column 1
> code!
>
> You are doing much the same to GUI people. No one was saying that
> a GUI designer sits in isolation, weaving their magic without 
> consulting anyone. Just as we would not expect a systems analyst
> to do a requirements without the customer.
>
> The GUI designer will sit -with- a programmer (the customer) and
> work with him/her, each bringing their own insights and skills to
> the problem at hand. 
>
> To think that the programmer could replace the GUI designer is
> like an automotive engineer dismissing a car designer, or a 
> fruit vendor dismissing a chef.
>

Again, you don't get my point.

Say I'm making a program for some thermodynamical calculations. I may
use the program to do calculations for my experiments. It all works fine
and I'm content. Then somebody else wants to do calculations on a bigger
system and using my program would require a lot of calculations before
one get the final answer. These people would probably prefer that one
added features to the program so one can define a more complex system
and the program handles all the intermediat calculations and then just
spits out the result. It doesn't help so much if one rearrange the
buttons and menus of the GUI if the underlying features are not there. 

Now to the origin. I said I am happy that programmers have made an IDE
for programmers, as then I will expect that most features that saves the
programmer time are included due to the experience. Hyman wanted IDE
made by GUI experts. I would not be happy with a programmer making me a
program to do thermodynamic calculations if he knows nothing about how I
do my job as he wouldn't have the foggiest idea about what will help me
and what will hinder me. But perhaps this person you describe as GUI
expert is the go-between. If so what is the GUI? Is it general user
interface or graphical user interface etc...? In many cases the
graphical UI is not appropriate.  Incidentally I read in the newspaper
today that out of 800 000 people that bring part or the whole day in
front of a computer some 20 000 are at home and cannot work because of
the "mouse sickness". Don't know what it is called in English, but the
problem one can get from using the computer mouse all day thanks to the
wonderful design of say Microsoft and other major companies with GUI
experts.

I use vim as my IDE and I'm happy with it as it lets me use the keyboard
a lot and it saves me time too due to the nice features it has (such as
macros and word completion). However a GUI expert wouldn't have helped
so much improving it IMHO.

-- 
"Saving keystrokes is the job of the text editor, not the programming
 language."