Re: (2971) & (2972) Graphical Interface

MacGyver writes:
> 	Well, if the program is a text-only thing even when it's
> ported to things like Mac. I for one, wouldn't buy it. GUI is what
> attracts a lot of people to Mac. And if they are gamer and use Mac
> as well, it's doubtful they would buy a text-only program.
And Paul Dale writes:
>                                There have been several companies that
> produced a naive conversion of an existing program and got bitten (there
> are some exceptions: infocom, three-sixty.  The product they produced
> was of top quality anyway).

       I had thought of compatability of the interface as paramount.
With few exceptions, every gaming group meets in different places
and different times.  If you're going to sell something like this,
the referee must be able to jump into the saddle on any computer,
immediately.
        Unless you're selling a pocket computer with the package
(probably increasing the cost by a factor of 4-10), it has to run
the same way on any system the referee is going to use.  A Mac user
has to be able to take a 1.44MB floppy, copy over the files into IBM
format and be set.  The data files have to be the same and the
interface has to be the same.  Because the lowest-common-denominator
machine these days is a ten-year-old IBM PC with a VT52 terminal on
top (i'm exaggerating for effect) it must use a keyboard interface
and ASCII graphics only.
        This may jaundice the first impression a Mac/Amiga/NeXT user
gets of the package, but as I see it if a GUI is not always
avaliable its use should be _discouraged_.  I have never seen a
program that has the same effects in any two graphical operating
systems, even when the programmers have gone to great lengths to
make the two clones.  Now, sure, the user will be used to it in a
half hour, but you've just wasted a half-hour, probably bogging down
the first combat that takes place and making everyone uneasy about
depending on your program.  Furthermore, someone who learns how to
use the program with a mouse will probably be lost without one,
while when the reverse happens the user is going to be confused.
        I think 'vi' is a good example.  It's ten years old and has an
interface that at best is a trial to learn.  Yet I use it because
it's available everywhere -- on X terminals at the school, modemming
in from my dorm room, on my PC.  I've even seen a version on the
Mac.  Now, it doesn't quite fit in in any of these graphical
environments, but it gets used because it doesn't have to be
relearned.  Anyone who knows 'vi' can be editing files in fifteen
seconds.  That is the kind of program I think would be most useful.
        Something like this that is going to be not only used on
different platforms but used by the same people at unexpected times
on different platforms has got to be as definite as possible.  I'm
afraid GUI's haven't gotten to the point where they are as
ubiquitous as text-based systems, and I'm hesitant about
recommending an enterprising young programmer to invest four times
the programming effort in order to make a program that is easier to
learn but harder to unlearn.
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Wyszkowski's Second Law:           | Jack Dietz ([email removed])
  Anything can be made to work if  | Computer Engineer in Training
  you fiddle with it long enough.  | Official Yahoo of a Virtual UCSD