From: utzoo!decvax!cca!Feinler@SRI-NIC@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.works
Title: End User Interface ala Augment/NLS
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.2054
Posted: Mon Jul 12 11:42:29 1982
Received: Tue Jul 13 05:28:39 1982

I have worked with several different user interfaces over the years
and I too prefer the command completion mode used by AUGMENT/NLS
and MSG.  The single character (or enough characters)  recognition
I find less winning because one almost always has to type spaces
between the characters which means thousands of extra keystrokes
over a period of time.  In AUGMENT/NLS or MSG one types one or two
letters and the commands are completed and displayed, thus if one
made a typo it is obvious.  I have never found that the command completion
slows me down although I have heard that argument from time to time.

Also, I feel I must dispell a myth about AUGMENT/NLS because
I have heard it so many times and it just isn't true.  It is NOT a
difficult system  to learn.  I have trained several people who don't
even LIKE machines to do useful work with less than a
day's training.  It is much easier to teach someone to use than say
EMACS, in my opinion.  AUGMENT/NLS is a very rich set of tools all
under one 'umbrella' and it is true that for someone to learn to do
everything that is doable under AUGMENT would take quite some time
since it has text editing, programming, text processing, mixed text
and graphics capabilities, data base management, etc., etc., etc.
A user can do most of what she wants with the system rather nicely,
which has nothing to do with the fact that if one wants to program
this may take somewhat longer to learn than if one wants to do simple
text editing.  The point I am making is that when comparing
apples with apples (text editing with text editing, for instance)
AUGMENT/NLS is quite user friendly, powerful, and easy to learn.

Jake Feinler
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