Rant on Mouse Based User Interface

 

 

 

One can't deny, using graphical user interface(GUI) because it has been deep rooted as integral part of the software, it has become the de facto user interface. Interacting with the software means clicking buttons, moving mouse, pressing on keyboards. Among the input device, keyboard is the most important one if someone wants to interact with their computer. There is no long history of Computer and computer based system like gun powder, or paper does. But Keyboard usage can be dated back to earliest of times when computer and its capabilities were just being recognized. When large innovations were being made in the field of computing, Xerox realized that mouse could be the next big thing but they didn't invest upon the idea. The sold it to Apple. Apple implemented the idea, and tuned in such a way that it changed how we looked at interacting with computers. The introduction to mouse was what made graphical User Interface possible. The pointer acquires some coordinates on the screen. The coordinates might be part of something interactive like button , input box etc. Upon a click a event listener that is part of the interactive entity that is being pointed invokes an action. The action is defined by the software.

Interface are the way you call an action to be performed. The point is that one just needs to invoke a action. It doesn't matter how one approached to it, Maybe you made a routine call, through your hex editor. It doesn't matter.

 

Is Mouse really a requirement?

One can't just remember all the commands to use a computer. During old days If one wanted to copy a file he had to 

        $ cp positionA positionB

why should i remember cp ? how can i know the exact positionB? This example seems fairly simple but how about this disaster 

        $ find / -iname "*.mp3" -type f -depth 3 -atime 3 -exec  mv {} /home/ash/music     


This command finds all the mp3 files in the system within the folder depth of 3 which has been accessed within 3 days and moves it to Music folder. First i had to read the manual pages. After 5 hit and trials with a google search i got it working. If i had used a graphical tool it was just a couple of check boxes and a drag and drop away.  Mouse is a requirement.  For a general user it doesn't even matter. 

 But as a aspiring programmer who has to continuously browse for solutions on the web browser with multiple tabs open, someone who needs at least one terminal session open for configuration and management of the project, another terminal session for pushing the recent commits into the git repository , IDE with multiple files on multiple tabs,  Mouse based workflow can be tedious and as data shows it can be harming. Carpal tunnel syndrome is result of continuous switching between mouse and keyboard. Ergonomics also play a huge role for the syndrome. That being said i would like to finish my rant. There is no conclusion because i am too lazy for that.