Bob's Neighborhood

You make the point that users raised on Bob will have certain expectations ("The In-Your-Face Interface" April Editorial). I suggest that users raised on Bob won't have the required skills to figure out real-world applications. Like most kids' toys, Bob will end up forgotten in the closet after several weeks. In fact, if we ever do see users raised on Bob, they will most likely resemble people raised on TV: semiliterate, jingle-humming boobs.

Steve Rogers
scrogers@winternet.com

People said the same thing about GUIs, the same thing about the command line, and for all I know, the same thing about assembly code. ("The only real way to use computers is in binary!") Computers should be easier to use, not harder. While Bob doesn't suit my personal tastes in interfaces (nor yours, obviously), if it forces programmers to write easier-to-use applications, I'm all for it.

--Rafe Needleman

I was browsing in a software store and asked about the huge, rotating yellow smiley face that bore the words "Bob is coming." The clerk was quick to hand me a brochure, and after I read it, I became irked, annoyed, and dismayed--but not surprised. Bob wasn't an intelligent agent. Bob was a kiddie interface that makes an ATM look smart. Many successful GUIs obscure the real functionality of the computer from people in an effort to make the computer easier to use. That is appropriate when the OS can do the bookkeeping, but Windows can't. Windows programs put files in the \windows\system directory without telling you, and when you delete the applications, those files are still there. The last thing we need is another layer between naive users and Windows.

Stuart M. Pomerantz
smpst19@vms.cis.pitt.edu