We have the occasional flamewars over this.... but this guy really gets the big picture. Helped to crystallize some ideas which I've understood subconsciously but couldn't have said so well. http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/06-01/dilger.html Also brings up the point that choosing power rather than ease of use (as most linux users do) is primarily a male attitude. Now go contrast it with this... http://catalog.com/hopkins/unix-haters/preface.html which is all about how it doesn't make sense to go out of our way to do things in backwards and difficult ways, when we know of better ways. Good UI design straddles a line between two extremes - making an artificial veneer over the truth of how the software actually works, so that you can't understand it, but don't need to (until it breaks, or you want to do something that falls outside the provided box); and on the other hand, slavish dedication to inappropriate metaphors (like the metaphor that everything is a file, and files must always be arranged hierarchically). In the latter case the UI is very truthful and powerful, but artificially difficult because the metaphor doesn't match the task. Another tradeoff is between accurately modeling the real world in software, and making "magic" - modeling as we wish the world appeared. The use of computers gives us that choice; if all the problems in the real world were accurately duplicated in the virtual world, then there would be no point. Judicious improvement is the whole point. But in either case the UI should exactly match the chosen model; if the model is wrong, then change that, don't veneer over it. -- _______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud@bigfoot.com (_ | |_) http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud kb7pwd@kb7pwd.ampr.org __) | | \________________________________________________________________ Get money for spare CPU cycles at http://www.ProcessTree.com/?sponsor=5903