On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 4:12 PM, Barry Wark <barrywark@gmail.com> wrote:
I think what Stef is getting at is that effective scientific software may need to match its user model to the user's world model. In other words, the "workflow" matters. If the software requires the user (scientist/engineer/etc.) to deal with data or process in a different order than the order implied by their experiment, the software is not as good as it could be. In my view, this is why we build UIs--so that we can match the software model to the user's model such that the software is "invisible" to the user in doing their work. I contend that it is a rare case when a CLI interface is the *best* fit to the user's world model.
Workflow is defininitely the key reason why I want a GUI. Perhaps Gael's point is that building a flexibile workflow is one of the most challenging parts! I'm glad to see tools being developed that are a more natural fit for the way I think about data and interfaces.
Of course, as Gael points out, writing GUIs takes time. The tradeoff then is efficiency of use for the user versus efficiency of delivery time for the developer.
And this tradeoff is compounded when user and developer are the same - finite time and all that! -Eric