Subject: Standardizing Interfaces

From: David Giesen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 09:22:40 -0500

Careful, there may be some grouchy rumblings ahead, but I promise not to
mention any programs by name.. :)

Who would have thought that simply asking for more user-friendly
interfaces would have raised such animosity???  When you get right down
to it, a plea to standardize interfaces is about being user-friendly. 
If I know how to use 15 different molecular drawing GUI's, but I can't
easily figure out how to delete an atom or measure a bond length in a
new program, than I don't care how cute the buttons are, it isn't user
friendly.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that every aspect of a comp chem
program can be standardized.  Lots of people smarter than I have
hammered that point home over the last few days.  But just because one
program can view biological molecules using helices and sheets, does
that mean that the button for deleting a bond has to look like a paper
towel dispenser, while the program for building 20 atom derivatives of
benzene must use a button for the same purpose that looks like a
skyscraper being attacked by giant eagles?  Obviously, I've broken into
hyperbole to make a point (and now just gotten redundant), but other
software industries have caught on to standard interfaces, why must we
be so haughty as to suggest that 'we do too many different things' to
care about the user?  The spray paint icon in the latest version of a
$$$ package like Adobe Photoshop purchased in 2000 for a PC looks
virtually identical to the spray paint icon in the shareware Mac program
I was using in 1988.  When I see an icon of a disk, I know it means to
save my document, whether I'm using a Word processor, spread sheet,
molecular editor (etc etc etc), the year is 1984 or 2000, and the
platform is Mac, PC, SGI or Linux.  So please don't tell me that comp
chem software is too new, or too varied, or that not standardizing is
fighting the good fight against software tyranny.  There is a basic
functionality that most comp chem interfaces share.  They could be very
easily standardized.  Of course, what the standard is and who decides
that would be a ten year debate, but that doesn't mean it can't be done,
only that it hasn't.

Wow - I must have skipped breakfast today to get this grumpy!

Dave

-- 
Dr. David J. Giesen
Eastman Kodak Company                           [email-masked]
2/83/RL MC 02216                                (ph) 1-716-58(8-0480)
Rochester, NY 14650                             (fax)1-716-722-2327