RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

I agree, Lou. Any studies of performance and throughput would need to consider 
the kind of work. If you are drawing a picture, don't use a keyboard - can be 
done (AFP stuff on AS/400 come to mind for anyone? anyone actually use it?) If 
you are entering text only, a mouse will definitely slow you down. Touch typing 
with all its speed is deeply dependent on not having to watch what is 
happening. Anything mouse-driven will be inherently slower - the eye needs to 
see where you are going to guide you - so a Windows app that is well-designed 
will, IMO, always have useful keyboard equivalents. I mean, doesn't it make 
sense that oscillating between mouse and keyboard has to take time? Good grief, 
we have only so many cycles in our computers, the same goes for our bodies.

One fact - perception IS reality - hence our struggles, to some degree.

I have been thinking about the input paradigm some lately - the car is a great 
example, IMO, of a complex process controlled by a very simple input mechanism. 
Computers are really not anywhere close to that, I think. But then, most modern 
computers are multi-purpose machines, not single-purpose as cars are, mostly. I 
used to copy parts (musical for orchestras) and I will almost guarantee you 
that I am still faster with a nice calligraphy pen then someone using Finale. 
No music notation software has the "flow" of a pen on paper, where everything 
you do is what you might call real-time entry - with the software methods you 
keep going back, over and over, the same passages to add dynamics (loudness), 
articulations (short, long, etc.), and all the other modifiers you need. But 
with a pen this is done in one swell foop - I long for some more natural entry 
mechanism.

Oy!


-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Lou Forlini <lforlini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 

> At 2:00 PM -0400 4/28/06, Wilt, Charles wrote: 
> >But I'd be willing to bet that in most cases, you could find some 
> >improvements in changing from green screen to GUI. 
> > 
> >The ROI might take a while, but eventually it would pay off. 
> 
> For my part, I refuse to concede that point unless I see some 
> serious studies that prove it. Any papers I've read show the GUI 
> having a small gain in the initial learning curve, followed by a 
> measurably lower productivity cap for experienced users. Surveys 
> that show "users like it better" don't count. Neither do surveys 
> that say "users say they work faster". They may generate a lot more 
> activity to end up doing the same amount of work. 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> - Lou Forlini 
> Software Engineer 
> System Support Products, Inc. 
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