By presenting us with colourful screens and buttons for us to click on, Microsoft encourages us to believe that we can force computers to adapt entirely to our preferences for visual images, without having to adapt ourselves to their preference for text. | But not only does this prevent people from getting inside the machine and keep them in a state of blissful ignorance, it also proves to be a deceit, for in the end the user still has to adapt to the machine anyway. —Dylan Evans —Smash the Windows (Guardian)
c:>print “I love the command-line interface”
Post was last modified on 18 Jan 2023 10:21 am
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This is perhaps one of the ignorant and worst articles I've seen you post on computers (coming in second to that "Java is Dead" article). I say this as a senior computer science major. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"In 50 years, perhaps much less, the ability to read and write code will be as essential for professionals of every stripe as the ability to read and write a human language is today."
Perhaps, but the language used then will be completely different than the languages we use now.
"We wait, a captive audience, while the browser painstakingly loads the next image-stuffed web page, or we click through menu after menu until we eventually realise that we are not in control after all. The Windows control us."
What does even mean? Your internet connection is slow - it happens. You click through menu after menu - what? Would this be easier if you only used text??
"Paradoxically, it is only by learning the language of the machines, by adapting to their logic, that we can free ourselves from their dominion."
Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Ok, now...Hahahaha! The author is OUT OF THEIR MIND! I've completed a degreee in computer science, and let me tell you - we go way out of our way to try to make our programs easier to use. In fact, we even go out of our way to try to make our code easier for other programmers and ourselves to understand. Code in a program is so complex, we try to use patterns, conventions, and comments to simplify it because otherwise we won't be able to our own code several months later. Code complexity in a program is so great that we, as programmers, hide the internal workings of our code from other coders!
This article is simply taking a "this is the magic pill that will make things better" approach. And the magic pill is that learning about programming and how your computer works will make things better. It's also completely opposite to reality. It's like claiming that you need to understand how your car works to drive it.
No need to apologize for commenting! And you're right -- it's not just Microsoft. The Mac's trash can icon is my favorite example of a non-intuitive interface. When you want to take your diskette out of a Mac, how natural is it to drag the icon of your diskette to the trash can?
Sorry for posting so much lately in the comments... you've got a number of juicy entries lately. I loved this one on the "ruse" of the GUI. Of course, Evans' might also be talking about the automobile or any other technology that consumers "naturalize" into their environment or work life, so it's not inherent to Microsoft. Still, I like the assertion and I read it as a broader point about our desire for "mastery" over technology...