VMesS vs Unix Debate

[Henry Spencer]

Jym Dyer says:

   	Now, you may prefer tokens like `>&' and such over qualifiers like
   /OUTPUT; I agree, somewhat:  they save typing.  They *are* cryptic, though, and
   the naive user might find English words easier.  Anyways, frequently-typed com-
   mands can be replaced with command symbols.

It is a popular misconception, almost totally without foundation, that
naive users find an English word easier to use than an arbitrary symbol,
when both are being used as "magic words" which must be exactly right.  The
small amount of real evidence that exists suggests that, in the presence of
a help facility at least, the naive users actually find cryptic symbols
*easier* to use correctly.  The reasons are somewhat conjectural, but the
obvious one is that an arbitrary bit of gibberish does not carry the mass
of extra connotations that an English word does, and hence is less likely
to be used incorrectly in the belief that "the computer understands English".

Yes, Virginia, people make fewer errors if you call it "grep" than if you
call it "search".  Really.  Check out the papers in the 1983 ACM SIGCHI
proceedings if you doubt me -- I'd give a more exact reference, but I don't
have the proceedings handy to pick out the particular paper.

"`User-friendly' really only means marketing-friendly."
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry