Re:An API is a user interface
by slightwinder on Wednesday November 25, 2020 @05:59AM
(#25207943)
> The philosopher in me doesn't mean to be snarky, but what the author concedes here is that APIs actually aren't like user interfaces. Because when we're talking about UIs, there are most definitely "ways of doing things" and "ways of not doing things"
There are definitly things you should not do, but there hardly is a list ot things you always should do. There is just no gold list of thing in UI, just customs and established conventions to enforce the "intuitive level" of interactions.
But even between different platforms you have strictly different conventions, sometimes even competing with each other. Yet most of them are good on their own and it's wrong to use one of them.
> after 50-odd years of user interfaces, we ended up with scrollbars and buttons and tabs for a reason.
Yet wie have working interfaces without scrollsbars, buttons and tabs, even where they could be used, and some cases where using them even makes the interaction worse.
UI is more a kind or prioritylist of things you can add, not a checklist of things you should add.
There are definitly things you should not do, but there hardly is a list ot things you always should do. There is just no gold list of thing in UI, just customs and established conventions to enforce the "intuitive level" of interactions.
But even between different platforms you have strictly different conventions, sometimes even competing with each other. Yet most of them are good on their own and it's wrong to use one of them.
> after 50-odd years of user interfaces, we ended up with scrollbars and buttons and tabs for a reason.
Yet wie have working interfaces without scrollsbars, buttons and tabs, even where they could be used, and some cases where using them even makes the interaction worse.
UI is more a kind or prioritylist of things you can add, not a checklist of things you should add.