"Appears" vs. "will appear"

[Brierley, Sean]

If windows and dialog boxes appear, then, too, your friends appear as a
result of your calling them.

Not sure about your cause and effect argument. Click the button = cause.
Dialog box opens = effect.

Why don't I say appears? Because it seems magical. You captured my
thoughts exactly when you wrote, "Open the can of tuna.  A cat appears."
Even if you don't have one, a cat appears. It's magic, see ....

Horses for courses.

Cheers. 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sean.brierley=ipc.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sean.brierley=ipc.com at lists.techwr-l.com] On
Behalf Of Sarah Bouchier
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:50 PM
To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: "Appears" vs. "will appear"

>Use appears in other sentences and perhaps you will have the desire to 
>append, "as if by magic" or "out of nowhere."

'Open the can of tuna.  A cat appears.'

I have now thought about this issue until my brain hurts.  I think the
basic problem is that, unlike almost everything else in life, the
window/dialog box really /does/ just appear.

If you unwrap a bar of chocolate, the chocolate doesn't 'appear'; it has
been revealed by you opening it.  If you shout for a friend to come and
help you they don't 'appear'; they  have been summoned from where they
were by your shouting.  It's all entirely predictable cause and effect.
If you click on a button in an application, however, you have no way of
predicting that a dialog window will turn up on your screen.  It wasn't
hidden behind the button, it wasn't summoned from another place.  It
appeared.  Out of nowhere.  As if by magic.

Why do we avoid 'appears'?  Because we want our users to think of
computers as obeying the laws of cause and effect that everything else
does, as being stable and scientific and predictable.  But however true
that might (or, in the case of some software, might not...) be under the
covers, from the point of view of the poor schmuck trying to use it the
dialog window does appear.  Why not say so?


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