So MANY operating systems to despise; so little time, was: RE: Software solution

Subject: So MANY operating systems to despise; so little time, was: RE: Software solution
From: Emily Berk <emily -at- armadillosoft -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:26:48 -0700

On Tue, 31 Jul 2001 17:01:48 -0500, Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com wrote, meanly, nastily and impertinently and also obstreporously:
>>Also, a GUI isn't really necessary for everything.
>No, but a coherent user interface is. Note that nowhere in any of my
>statements did I require a GUI (though I *did* for contrast mention an old
>Atari system which had both a GUI and a CLI). Learn to read before you
>start throwing gas on a fire that the rest of the world finds too tedious
>to put up with.
>
>Yes I'm being mean, nasty and impertinent. Also obstreporous. I usually am
>when the OS wars start to darken the horizon.

I think what we have here is a disagreement about Operating System philosophy.

Arlen, although you may not perceive it, Unix WAS designed. It was designed to flexibly adapt to the needs of its users. Rather than incorporate all tools, and preventing others from profiting by adding new features (the Windows philosophy), Unix was designed with just basic tools included and was opened up to the world where, for nearly 30 years, a wide variety of folks have written tools that work well in that environment. (See one of my favorite books, Software Tools, by Kernighan and Plauger, for more about why they felt that enabling tool-building rather than building the tools themselves was the way to go.)

Unix HAS a user interface and that user interface WAS designed. It was designed to be CONCISE. It was designed to be customizable. It was designed to run easily on many platforms. It was not designed to be graphical. Unix may not float everyone's boat, but hey, that's why there's chocolate AND vanilla. (The more metaphors the merrier, dontcha think?)

How does this tie in with tech writing? Well, it's important to target your audience and then design your widget, be it an operating system or a technical manual, to be accessible/useful to that audience.

Windows targets the mass market and was designed by one giant company whose goal is to be in charge of and make money from every software tool on the market. The target is hegemony. It's getting there.

Unix was designed to appeal to the programmer community and to accommodate developers' needs to run on a variety of platforms, to be fast and small and flexibly adapt to many environments and uses. Unix has (obviously) done that and continues to do so.

When we evaluate these products and OUR products, we should keep the intended goals of those products in mind.

In fact, one of the banners I've been waving (and my arm IS getting tired) lately is that every one of my documents defines:

Who (what experience level, etc.) is supposed to read this document
What they are supposed to accomplish by reading the document
What they CANNOT accomplish by reading the document (that they might otherwise think they could)

--Emily


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Emily Berk ~
On the web at www.armadillosoft.com *** Armadillo Associates, Inc. ~
~ Project management, developer relations and ~
extremely-technical technical documentation that developers find useful.~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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