Third-party or "out of the box" plugins [was "re: Frame's future"]

[eric.dunn at ca.transport.bombardier.com]

Marcus Carr <mcarr at allette.com.au> on 02/22/2007 10:46:17 PM:
> For our mechanically gifted friend, I'd be 
> inclined to provide a graphic interface and a touch screen that let him 
> drill to the warp drive than compel him to hunt and peck on a toughened 
> keyboard. An index may have its place, but it's a much smaller home than 

> where it used to live.
> 

Now what exactly is the difference between "hunt and peck" and "drill". 
And how is a toughened and oil covered touch-screen and more elegant than 
a toughened keyboard? It's poor form to use derogatory terminology for one 
option we don't support and positive terminology for the one we do. The 
statements also unveil a certain snobbery of IT superiority by denigrating 
those that work in other fields. Denigrate anything linked to the awful 
old hands-on industry and try to enlighten it with beautiful IT derived 
terms and symbology.

Graphical interfaces have their advantages. And when applied where they 
are the best choice/toll for the application they're great. But a purely 
graphical interface is a poor option in terms of efficiency. The mouse has 
it's place, but for MANY actions keyboard shortcuts are the best option. 
And would you suggest the stupidity of a graphical only interface and 
touch-screen with  the abomination of a touch-screen pop-up keyboard for 
data and text tasks?

There is no "hunting or pecking" not "drilling" in either a well designed 
graphical interface or a well designed index if the thing being searched 
for is at the top level (say the engine). But, when searching for 
something more arcane down in the bowels, what is faster and more 
efficient? A bad paper index and a bad on-line index (or ghastly full-text 
search) may both list "hood" or "wrench". But only a good index (hardcopy 
or electronic) will quickly redirect you when you search for "bonnet" or 
"spanner".

Drop the prejudice against indices as a hardcopy only issue and recognise 
that index information is useful metadata, regardless of how it is 
ultimately searched and presented.

Eric L. Dunn
Senior Technical Writer

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