---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash S U N E R G Y E M A I L: NEWSLETTER 5 (1 of 3) SunFLASH Vol 45 #13 September 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is from Miyong.Byun@Corp.sun.com (Miyong Byun, User Programs). Because of its size, I have divided it into three parts. This is the first part. -johnj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWSLETTER 5 September, 1992 Distributed by the Press Relations, Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, A Sun Microsystems, Inc. Business; all rights reserved. Director of PR: Kay Hart; Sunergy Manager: Larry Lettieri; Managing Editor: Miyong Byun. Contact the Sunergy editors over email at: sunergy_information@Sun.COM. =========================================================================== = CONTENTS - ISSUE #5 = =========================================================================== 1 or 2 indicates (1) in this SunFlash (45.13) or (2) in the next (45.14) or (3) the next (45.15) 1ANNOUNCEMENTS *1* August Satellite Broadcast 1 1 1ROADMAPS TO RESOURCES *2* Book List 1 1 *3* New Book: "Global Software" by Dave Taylor 1 1 *4* "Hi-Tech Nomadness" Newsletter 1 1 1TECHNICAL TOPICS *5* Tips -N- Tricks: How to Program Your Function 1 Keys 1 1 *6* "SunWorld" Magazine: "The Myth of Ease of Use" 1 2 2 *7* Solaris 2.0 (White Paper) 2 2 3NEW PRODUCTS *8* SunPro - C Transition Pack 3 3 *9* SunExpress Announces Lower U.S. Prices 3 3 3SIG NEWS *10* SunPro Article:"Using Test Coverage Tools 3 Effectively" 3 3 3INDUSTRY NEWS *11* News From SPARC International 3 3 *12* "Lotus Shows The Way" 3 ("SunWorld" Magazine Reprint) 3 3 3UPCOMING EVENTS *13* Tradeshow Calendar --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ANNOUNCEMENTS - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************** *1* August Satellite Broadcast * ********************************** The latest satellite broadcast was live from Japan! John Gage, Director of Sun's Science Office, hosted the broadcast from the SunWorld(TM) Expo/Tokyo 1992 show. If you did not see this broadcast, here's a brief summary. Sunergy(SM) broadcasts have developed a reputation for communicating great insights about the computer industry -- not just Sun(TM) product information. If you are not tied into the broadcasts already, contact the Sunergy office today and be ready for the next one. - Introduction to Show, John Gage (Host) - Today's News, John Gage Worldwide newspapers hold interesting tidbits about the direction of the computing industry. John shared current examples. - First 10 Years, Scott McNealy and John Gage Scott and John summarized technology's evolution over the last ten years. - Today's Technology, Andreas Bechtolsheim Andy gave a "tour" of the SPARCstation(TM) 10. - Next 10 Years, Wayne Rosing Wayne predicted the major impacts that we will see over the next ten years from emerging technologies. This broadcast also took us onto the show floor and included some Q&A sessions for phone-in and attending participants. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ROADMAPS TO RESOURCES - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- **************** *2* Book List * **************** John Gage recommended the following reading list in the Tokyo Sunergy broadcast: - "Scientific American," August issue, "Encrypted Identification for Computer Privacy." - "Nomadness," a magazine about using high technology to take your life onto the road (out of the office). See article *4* in this newsletter. - "Mirror Worlds," a book by David Gelernter discusses how computers affect everyday life. - SunWorld Expo/Tokyo 1992, Conference Notes, covering all of the industry and product topics presented at this show. ************************************************** *3* New Book: "Global Software" by Dave Taylor * ************************************************** "Global Software: Developing Applications for the International Market" Written by Dave Taylor In "Global Software," Taylor, an expert in international software issues, uncovers the complex issues surrounding the design, development, packaging and marketing of software for the massive international market. He presents C source code and modifications for international support and discusses common design errors and pitfalls, with amusing anecdotal examples. An extensive explanation of the politics and legalities of export (especially with regard to encryption code) rounds out this important book. "Global Software: Developing Applications for the International Market" is available from Springer-Verlag, New York. ************************************** *4* "Hi-Tech Nomadness" Newsletter * ************************************** "Hi-Tech Nomadness" is a quarterly journal that explores the emerging blend of technology and personal mobility that make your physical location irrelevant to earning a living. This is of growing interest to more and more people, not because they necessarily want to hit the road as full-time nomads -- but because these same tools apply directly to de-coupling from the desk, working from home, staying in control of business relationships while traveling, and introducing dramatic new lifestyle options. Founding editor Steven K. Roberts invented and popularized the concept of hi-tech nomadness. In 1983, Steve was struck by an obsession. Rather than work in an office during the week and pursue his personal passions only on the weekends, he quit his job, abandoned his Midwest suburban existence, and headed out across America on a computerized recumbent bicycle. For eight years he pedaled more than 17,000 miles around the United States, making his home in the information networks he calls Dataspace, living a life of adventure while writing books, publishing his journal, and refining the tools and technology that made his way of life possible. Over the years, Steve has rebuilt his bike, upgrading its communications and computer capabilities each time. He built its most recent incarnation, BEHEMOTH, in lab space donated by Sun Microsystems. Steve describes BEHEMOTH as a "human and solar powered autonomous mobile communication platform that's capable of interoperating with the global Internet via satellite, cellular modem, or traditional network interfaces." Weighing in a 580-pounds, BEHEMOTH is a 105-speed recumbent bicycle equipped with solar panels, Macintosh GUI, handlebar keyboard, head-activated mouse, heads-up display, satellite data link, GPS navigation, cellular phone with modem and fax, answering machine, CD stereo system, 6-level security system, distributed control environment implemented in FORTH, active helmet cooler, complete ham radio station, pneumatic landing gear ... and of course, a SPARCstation 1+ built into the front housing. "Hi-Tech Nomadness" is published quarterly and is available by subscription at the following rates: - U.S.A. $15/year (+8.25% sales tax for California residents) - International $21/year Single sample copies can also be ordered: - U.S.A. $5.00 (+8.25% sales tax for California residents) - International $6.50 The easiest way to order "Hi-Tech Nomadness" is by e-mailing Barbara Chase at: bc@lorien.qualcomm.com If you prefer placing a credit card order by phone, please call (310) 322-1655 between 8am and 5pm Pacific Time (California). You may also order by mail by sending a check in U.S. funds made payable to: Nomadic Research Labs P.O. Box 2185 El Segundo, CA 90245 U.S.A. (International subscriptions are sent via surface printed matter mail. If you'd prefer 1st class delivery, please call the number above to get a price for your particular country.) Finally, you can purchase the current summer '92 issue from any one of the Tower Books or Tower Record stores that feature magazine racks. There are 23 such outlets across the United States. If anyone has any questions, please call or email: Doug Brightwell (415) 336-0503 doug.brightwell@corp.sun.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - TECHNICAL TOPICS - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************** *5* Tips -N- Tricks: How to Program Your Function Keys * ********************************************************** by John Lewis II, john.lewis@sun.com ________________________________________________________________________ ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- | F1 | | F2 | | F3 | | F4 | | F5 | | F6 | | F7 | | F8 | | F9 | ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ________________________________________________________________________ Mail Tool, Text Editor, and Command Tool use the same file in your home directory to describe what the Function Keys will do. This file is called ".textswrc". If you don't have this file, then your Function Keys will not do anything in these applications. But if you create this file correctly, you can increase your productivity by simply pressing a button to accomplish a task. ________________________________________________________________________ THE .textswrc FILE FORMAT Create the .textswrc file in your home directory by using vi or Text Editor. Now let's program one key to see how this works. Suppose that while in Mail Tool or Text Editor you would like to press F2 and have today's date automatically appear. Here is the code to do that. F2 [tab] FILTER echo -n `date '+%a, %h %d 19%y'` The format requires that the first line has the Function Key name followed by a tab, and then the keyword "FILTER". The next line is the UNIX command to be executed. Save the file, and then bring up a new Mail Tool or Text Editor and press F2 to see what happens. ________________________________________________________________________ SOME SIMPLE EXAMPLES Let's use some comments in the file to see what each key will do. A comment line starts with the pound symbol "#". Suppose we want F3 to shift selected lines to the left one tab and F4 to shift lines to the right one tab. When you add the required lines of code and your file should look like this: # Add Today's Date. F2 [tab] FILTER echo -n `date '+%a, %h %d 19%y'` # Shift Selected Lines Left. F3 [tab] FILTER shift_lines -t -1 # Shift Selected Lines Right. F4 [tab] FILTER shift_lines -t 1 ________________________________________________________________________ SOME COMPLEX EXAMPLES Now let's look at some commands that take more than one line. Suppose you want F5 to spell check selected text and display misspelled words in the console window. And suppose you want F6 to send selected text to the printer with required formatting, so that RETURN characters are inserted automatically if needed. Your file will look like this: # Spell Check Text And Display Misspelled Words In The Console. F5 [tab] FILTER cat|tee $HOME/.extraz;echo ' '>>$HOME/.extraz;\ echo ''>/dev/console;\ echo '*** START SPELL-CHECK ***'>/dev/console;\ spell $HOME/.extraz|fmt -46 > /dev/console;\ echo '**** END SPELL-CHECK ****'>/dev/console # Send Highlighted Text To The Printer. F6 [tab] FILTER cat|tee $HOME/.extraz;\ echo '' >> $HOME/.extraz;\ sed 's//(+L=)/g' $HOME/.extraz|fmt -81 -s|sed 's/(+L=)//g'|lpr;\ echo '' > /dev/console;\ echo '**** SELECTED TEXT ****'>/dev/console;\ echo '**** SENT TO PRINTER ****'>/dev/console ________________________________________________________________________ COMMAND TOOL EXAMPLES Let's use F7 - F9 for commands that will be entered at the prompt in the Command Tool. F7 will show our current directory, F8 will show the contents of a directory, and F9 will show all of the files (including dot files) in a directory. # pwd F7 [tab] FILTER echo "pwd" # ls -F F8 [tab] FILTER echo "ls -F" # ls -Fa F9 [tab] FILTER echo "ls -Fa" ________________________________________________________________________ ADVANCED TOPICS The .cshrc file is read each time you press a Function Key. This really slows down the operation and sometimes causes ugly messages to appear on the console. You can put the following code in your .cshrc file to fix the problem. After the path statement, enter this line: if ( "`tty`" != "not a tty" ) then At the end of the .cshrc file, enter this line: endif This should speed up the Function Keys, especially if you have a lot of aliases, and get rid of any error messages on the console. What if you use all of the Function Keys for text processing, but still need some keys for the Command Tool? This is a problem because Mail Tool, Text Editor, and Command Tool all read the same .textswrc file. Here is one way around the dilemma. Create a second file called .textswrc.cmd with all of the commands needed for the Command Tool, by using F1 - F12 if needed. Then create an alias by doing the following: (1) move the .textswrc file with text filters out of the way, (2) change the name of .textswrc.cmd to .textswrc, (3) launch a Command Tool that will read this file for the Function Keys, and (4) replace the .textswrc file in case you launch a Mail Tool or Text Editor. Here is the alias to do this trick: alias Fcmdtool 'cp ~/.textswrc ~/.textswrc.tmp;mv ~/.textswrc.cmd mv ~/.textswrc.tmp ~/.textswrc' (Note, this must be one continuous line without returns.) When you type "Fcmdtool", you get a Command Tool with Function Keys that are programmed differently than for Mail Tool or Text Editor. _____________________________________________________________________________ CONCLUSION You can enhance the productivity of your entire organization by incorporating the most-used (or most-required) commands into Function Key Commands. All it takes is a little work, creativity, and UNIX(R) knowledge. ********************************* *6* "The Myth of Ease of Use" * ********************************* "The Myth of Ease of Use: People really don't want a computer that is easy to use, no matter what they tell you." By Bruce Tognazzini Few words strike terror deeper into the hearts of UNIX program designers--and even many UNIX users--than "ease of use." Why? After all, the only things programmers must do to an application to make it easy to use are pull out two-thirds of the functionality, remove all of the shortcut keys, deny access to the console, and then make the program conform to some brain-dead consistency standard. What's the big deal? Fortunately, people really don't want a computer that is easy to use, no matter what they tell you. Take the much-vaunted Macintosh(R). It was easy to use, once upon a time: from January 1984 to January 1985. It had a rich choice of two applications, a few shortcut keys, no cursor keys, and the greatest simplifier of all, no network. Apple(R) ran a brilliant advertising campaign, which boiled down to "A computer so easy to use that even a complete fool like you can use it!" The company sold about 13 Macs that year. In 1985 the AppleTalk network appeared, and a flood of powerful software hit the market. The advertising pitch changed to, "A computer you can accomplish useful stuff with," and sales took off. The real role of ease of use People don't want computers that are easy to use; they want computers that make them productive. Which is where ease of use comes in. (And you thought ease of use just went out?) Computer scientist and industry luminary Bill Buxton said last April at the CHI'92 conference, that the goal of designers should be not to make systems easy to use but, rather, to accelerate the process by which novices perform like experts. This is a good starting point, but ease of use can also enable experts to push well beyond their current abilities. Ease of use is a strategy, not a goal. It and all the other strategies of design can ultimately be traced back to only two goals: increase human productivity and increase human satisfaction. So what's the problem? During Sun's first decade, Sun focused primarily on bringing tremendous power and productivity to the computer. If you have a dedicated application, the only logical choices (he said, being somewhat biased) are SPARCstation and Cray, and Cray sells for a lot more money. Dedicated applications may not need a lot of effort put into them to make them easy to use. Even if a program requires user interaction, operators just learn how to work that single application, so little need exists for interapplication consistency. All this will change in the next decade as we enter the era of "ubiquitous computing." For many, the workstation will continue to be a lump on their desk. For millions, the computer will become woven into the fabric of their lives, not only through portable computing, but in the number and types of tasks on which they will bring the computer to bear. Sun users a decade from now will not perform one, two, or three tasks, but hundreds, webbed together in a technological complexity we can only begin to imagine today. Bill Buxton has done some imagining and has come up with several charts that may illustrate the future. For example, his projections for the increase in the technological complexity of computers has an impressively rakish (42.75 degrees) upward slope. (Bill claims he has proven the accuracy of this angle through careful research. All that remains for him to solve is the unit scale of the vertical axis. For now, he only describes it as "very, very big.") Technological complexity is going to go through the roof during the next decade. At the same time, Bill easily has estimated that human evolution won't improve our capacity to handle such complexity. Only one known vaccine will guard us against that epidemic: ease of use. If we do not start now and put massive effort toward making our machines easy-to-use, by the end of the decade they will not be merely difficult to use, they will be impossible. Tog's law of freeways One could argue that just because technological complexity can be increased doesn't require us to increase it to the point where it becomes painful. I respond that people insist on a certain level of pain in their lives. If they don't have it, they will find a way to get it. Take the U.S. Interstate Highway System, for instance. It allegedly was designed to help people get to where they're going safely, quickly, and in relative comfort. A perfect example of regulated ease of use. But what happened? People moved farther away from where they work, shop, and play. They used up all the ease of use; so today, in America, it is just as painful to get to work or play as it was in 1950. Has it all been some grand waste? No. People have the freedom now to select from a much larger pool of jobs. They can live in the country and still drive to the city for a needed dose of culture. Giant retailers, offering wide selection and low prices, can locate in low-density, low- overhead locations and still garner all the customers they need. We have traded in the ease of use that freeways offered for a wider range of personal, cultural, and economic freedoms. In that trade, our lives became more productive and more satisfying. In the same way, computer users trade in every ounce of ease of use for increased productivity and satisfaction. Ten hours of pain: A personal constant Fourteen years ago I wrote a little program that let me use an Apple II computer as an Etch-A-Sketch machine, with fifteen glorious colors and a grand total of 1,000 pixels on the screen. Constructing this game- paddle-controlled drawing program took only 10 tortuous hours of fiddling with Integer BASIC code and receiving syntax errors. The result was a low-resolution graphics program, and a great deal of personal satisfaction. Seven years ago I used SuperPaint from Silicon Beach to lay out a sprinkler system for my Japanese garden. SuperPaint was the first program I found that made it easy to both draw and paint, and I was able to knock out this project in only 10 tortuous hours. The result was a one-bit, black-and-white landscape layout with lines representing sprinkler pipes, and a great deal of personal satisfaction. A couple of months ago I used Vellum 3D to create a precise 3-D CAD model of an elaborate Japanese roofed gate for my entranceway. At the end of 10 torturous hours, the result was a complete se For each project, I spent 10 hours pushing my own knowledge and abilities to the limit, and I was pushing hard against the application's ease of use limitations. But I also solved progressively more difficult problems and produced progressively more useful results. Seven years from now, I suspect I'll be spending 10 hours on some new and exciting project, like using my depth camera to feed 3-D, real-world objects into a solid-model animation package, featuring a viewer-controlled fly-through of my latest dream house. Whatever it is, I will be taxing my learning and productivity skill to the maximum, and I will be driving the capabilities of my computer to and beyond the raw edge. Vellum 3D: Doing it right Vellum 3D sports the most advanced human-interface concepts in existence today. It has an agent that actively works with you, enabling you to produce a 3-D drawing as fast as building a balsa wood and glue model, with the advantage that when you are done, you have a precision model from which you can effortlessly extract angles and dimensions. Vellum 3D shatters many of our cherished myths about human interface trade- offs. It is trivially easy to learn. I've had eight-year olds learn the basics of Vellum 2D in less than 10 minutes, able to perform operations that take weeks or months to learn with other CAD systems. The 3-D product is almost as easy. But Vellum is also hyper-productive. I gave up on the last 3-D application I used after more than 100 hours, and went out and bought modeling clay and foam board. Having gone through a terrible learning experience once, no user relishes the thought of going through one again. But when people can not only see a 1,000 percent increase in productivity, but know they can gain it with only a few hours of learning, the objections fall away. The growing success of Vellum is tribute to the economic value of building software with power and ease of use. The Sun Freeway project Most UNIX workstations today are not easy to use -- by any stretch of the imagination. Fortunately, Sun, at least, has seen the ease-of-use writing on the wall and is responding to user demands. Sun has assembled what is likely to be the largest human engineering team in any computer software-development organization anywhere. And that team (of which I am a member) is busily launching a new human-interface effort that should put the Interstate Highway System project to shame. (I am given to occasional hyperbole.) Does this mean the great snarling beasts that were Sun workstations in the '80s are destined to become wimpy, emasculated pussycats in the '90s? Will your powerful Sun computer be reduced to being as simple to operate as a battery-powered pet vacuum and become about as useful? The answer is an emphatic "no." If our team is successful, you will be routinely carrying out tasks with your Sun computer in the next five to ten years that you would not even attempt today. Programmers and users alike will be in command of skills that today baffle them. That is the true value of ease of use. I will be reporting to you on our progress along the way. As we proceed, I need to hear from you. Please send me questions, comments, tirades, and suggestions. I will publish the most interesting, with my responses, and pass the rest on to the other members of the human interface community at Sun. -- Bruce Tognazzini is Human Interface Evangelist for SunSoft(TM). He spent 12 years at Apple influencing interface design for the Macintosh group. He can be reached at tog@eng.sun.com.