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<![endif]--><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.73.2" /><link rel="start" href="index.html" title="Be Newsletters" /><link rel="up" href="volume3.html" title="Volume 3: 1998" /><link rel="prev" href="Issue3-46.html" title="Issue 3-46, November 18, 1998" /><link rel="next" href="Issue3-48.html" title="Issue 3-48, December 2, 1998" /></head><body><div id="header"><div id="headerT"><div id="headerTL"><a accesskey="p" href="Issue3-46.html" title="Issue 3-46, November 18, 1998"><img src="./images/navigation/prev.png" alt="Prev" /></a> <a accesskey="u" href="volume3.html" title="Volume 3: 1998"><img src="./images/navigation/up.png" alt="Up" /></a> <a accesskey="n" href="Issue3-48.html" title="Issue 3-48, December 2, 1998"><img src="./images/navigation/next.png" alt="Next" /></a></div><div id="headerTR"><div id="navigpeople"><a href="http://www.haiku-os.org"><img src="./images/People_24.png" alt="haiku-os.org" title="Visit The Haiku Website" /></a></div><div class="navighome" title="Home"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html"><img src="./images/navigation/home.png" alt="Home" /></a></div><div class="navigboxed" id="naviglang" title="English">en</div></div><div id="headerTC">Be Newsletters - Volume 3: 1998</div></div><div id="headerB">Prev: <a href="Issue3-46.html">Issue 3-46, November 18, 1998</a>  Up: <a href="volume3.html">Volume 3: 1998</a>  Next: <a href="Issue3-48.html">Issue 3-48, December 2, 1998</a></div><hr /></div><div class="article"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="Issue3-47"></a>Issue 3-47, November 25, 1998</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect1"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="Engineering3-47"></a>Be Engineering Insights: Comdex Report</h2></div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="author">By <span class="firstname">Bob</span> <span class="surname">Herold</span></span></div></div></div><p>
After spending two and a half days at Comdex manning the BeOS booth,
returning to Be's offices has provided a chance to reflect on the
experience.
</p><p>
I am not a Comdex connoisseur—for this I relied on the cab drivers,
who all offered hard evidence (wait times at the airport for fares,
traffic congestion, etc.) that it was less crowded this year than in
years past. Several big players—Netscape, IBM, Intel—chose to
reduce or eliminate their presence this year. Perhaps Comdex has evolved
into something less useful to both vendors and attendees.
</p><p>
Comdex, even if it has passed its apex as the Woodstock of the US
computer industry, is nonetheless huge. We were on the least desirable
floor of the least desirable event hall, and still the scale was
mind-boggling. The variety of vendors addressing all possible angles of
the PC ecosystem reinforced the wisdom of Be's decision to enter the
Intel architecture fray. Nothing is single-sourced here. From processors,
chip sets and motherboards, to mousepads, keyboard locks, and screen
visors, there is competition in pricing, quality, features, service, and
availability. It is a fertile field for planting our new OS seeds.
</p><p>
The booth traffic was good Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday it was
packed. Perhaps everyone cruised the main hall Monday, and Tuesday they
migrated to the hinterlands. On Wednesday we started to get referral
visitors, where a friend or associate had seen our booth and told someone
to check it out. Word of mouth is still high quality advertising.
</p><p>
We had several stations dedicated to showing apps. It was great to direct
visitors to see applications that demonstrate the substance behind our
marketing message (video and audio editing on commodity hardware for
under $2000). When visitors asked if we had productivity tools, we had
more stations addressing those needs. Apps will be the engine that pulls
this train.
</p><p>
We announced that Hitachi will be bundling the BeOS on PCs in Japan. They
are producing an elegant, compact box with a 400 Mhz Pentium II, and a
crisp, flat panel
<acronym class="acronym" title="Liquid Crystal Display">LCD</acronym>
display. It will dual-boot to either preinstalled
OS. An exciting announcement, which might explain booth visits from other
Japanese PC vendors eager to see what was going on.
</p><p>
Response to the BeOS was mostly positive, and not just because we are an
alternative to today's dominant OS. Most visitors had never seen the BeOS
or heard of Be. A few thought we had gone out of business when Apple
decided to buy a different OS. Almost all visitors were excited to see
the OS running on familiar hardware doing unfamiliar things. They were
open to running more than one OS on their systems. I think we can thank
the recent surge of Linux interest for raising multi-OS awareness in the
industry.
</p><p>
There were the usual entertaining discussions from knowledgeable geeks
criticizing this or that implementation decision. These verbal aerobics
are always welcome, as we often learn something useful for the next
release, and we also see what matters and what doesn't. My favorite was
"why did we pick 256k stack size?" 512k seemed too big, and 128k seemed
too small...
</p><p>
Most encouraging were the number of reseller inquiries—people who run
chains of computer stores seeing potential for making some money by
adding the BeOS to their product line. We need to cultivate these
relationships—these folks will be on the front lines selling customers
on the benefits of the BeOS environment.
</p><p>
All the announcements from application developers and hardware OEMs, as
well as introducing R4 itself, left me the most excited I have been about
Be. The enormity of the show made me realize we have a lot of work ahead
to build the case for BeOS being at the center of a profitable business.
We have an OS that lays the technical foundation. Now we can ship apps
that solve real problems or provide useful benefits that have customers
reaching for their credit cards. We need ways to make customers aware of
what the BeOS can do for them, and we need to make it easy for them to
buy the BeOS and applications. Many of these pieces are falling into
place, which is immensely exciting. Lets get back to work!
</p></div><hr class="pagebreak" /><div class="sect1"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="Engineering3-47-2"></a>Be Engineering Insights: The Art of Prototyping</h2></div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="author">By <span class="firstname">Tim</span> <span class="surname">Martin</span></span></div></div></div><p>
A brief introduction: My name is Tim Martin, the only Be employee with a
bachelor's degree in Industrial Design. What, you might ask, does
industrial design have to do with computer software? As a designer, my
focus is on understanding the interaction between people and products and
making it better. From a design viewpoint, creating good software isn't
all that different from creating a good power drill or a cool dish rack.
</p><p>
Interaction design isn't about what your product looks like; rather, it's
about the experience you build for users. Interface (the visual
appearance of the product) is part of what creates this experience. More
important, though, is the way the product works and the concepts on which
it is built. While a user develops an understanding of interaction, work
flow, and concept model only after days, weeks, and months of using the
product, these aspects shouldn't be neglected in favor of making a
product look superficially "cooler."
</p><p>
Today, I'll be talking about the methods and value of prototyping in
software design. Later I'll follow this up with an article about breaking
boundaries in software design. Feel free to e-mail me to request subjects
for future articles, but for now let's take on awareness and
understanding of prototyping, and how it can help all BeOS developers
make great software.
</p><div class="sect2"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="id761193"></a>What is prototyping?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Prototyping is making a pencil sketch, a mock screenshot, or a simple
program. It's a combination of these steps that creates something that
allows you analyze and evaluate design decisions. It's a way to make sure
you're doing the right thing and headed in the right direction. It can
help you figure out what application to make and what the application
does, how it does it, and what it looks like.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="id761211"></a>Why prototype?</h3></div></div></div><p>
You prototype for the same reason that you compile and run your
application more then once while writing it. You can never be sure that
you've make the correct programming decisions until you compile your code
and see the results. How often have you forgotten a close brace or a
semicolon? Worse yet, have you forgotten to declare variables or free
memory when you were done with it, or had an off-by-one error? These are
simple (but common) engineering mistakes, which require constant testing
to make sure that an application is working properly from a technical
standpoint.
</p><p>
When we make software though, there are many mistakes that have nothing
to do with programming errors, but rather with the usability and
usefulness of the application itself. What good is a bug-free application
that doesn't present the right information to the user in a useful way? I
can't even begin to count the perfectly smooth-running applications that
were useless because they made no sense, displayed the wrong information,
or just plain didn't fulfill a real need.
</p><p>
Prototyping is one way we have to make sure we're on track with not only
the visuals of the product, but also the interaction and underlying
concept model.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="id761239"></a>Can I do this alone?</h3></div></div></div><p>
It's an excellent idea to have a trained professional designer with a
passion for human-computer interaction. Unfortunately, they aren't always
just hanging out at the 7-Eleven. The next best thing, if you're doing
this work yourself, is to learn something about how people use computers.
Don't assume that because you use a computer, you automatically
understand how people use computers!
</p><p>
Even if you're doing this alone, you'll still benefit greatly from the
input of others. Find some people who fit your user profile, people you
think would either want or need to use your software. Find some
additional people who aren't programmers to bounce ideas off of. If you
surround yourself only with programmers, chances are you'll end up with
software that is usable only by programmers. Unless that's what you want,
you need to orient yourself toward users.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="id761269"></a>How do I start?</h3></div></div></div><p>
First, get a pencil and some paper. This may seem retro, but nothing can
replace the time-tested design skill of paper prototyping. It's
impossible to test a design solution only in your mind, without so much
as a mark on paper. So rather than write code you might eventually have
to abandon, start simply.
</p><p>
Let's assume you have an idea for some software, and a good one at that.
You think that person "X" will not only want to do thing "Y," but that
they'll pay you to help them. It's good to keep in mind that the purpose
of software is usually to help someone do something useful. Games don't
seem to fit this rule, but many games simulate some sort of useful task a
player must successfully accomplish in order to save the world. With this
in mind, you should start listing the functions that are necessary to
your application, when they are necessary, and what accompanying
information must be displayed and when. Don't forget who your main users
are; it's easy to go overboard in this phase and jam-pack your software
full of features and displays and dialogs brimming with information. This
generally results in hard-to-use bloatware.
</p><p>
Start laying out maps to show how a user will accomplish the types of
tasks your application is intended for, to make sure the most often used
features aren't too hard to get to. It pays to keep in mind what's
important to users, because often they're not the same things that are
important to you! Don't forget to ask your friends what they think;
stopping people in the street isn't a bad idea either.
</p><p>
Most problems have more than one solution and for the most part there's
no one right choice. There are certainly some wrong ones though. One
advantage to prototyping is that you can explore different design
directions and variations on them without excessive time penalties. Many
features and functions in software can accomplish a task in more than one
way; others deliberately have only one way of doing it. These decisions
always depend on the situation and circumstances surrounding each case,
yet the answer may not always be clear. By mapping out and making
mock-ups of a few different methods you can evaluate which works better
for you and your users both. Try not to be too inhibited by what you
think you can or can't do. In the world of programming there are so many
ways to do things that you shouldn't let constraints box you into a
decision too early in in your process.
</p><p>
Eventually the direction that seems right will emerge from the pack for
many reasons. Beware: people may not pick the proper choice consciously.
Perhaps the variations you present are visually unpleasing, but if it's
clear that the "ugly" direction is the one that's the most useful or
presents the clearest communication, you can focus your efforts on making
variations on that direction which address the visual concerns.
Continuously reviewing your improvements and showing them to other people
helps refine the product to the highest degree possible. You can't design
products in isolation.
</p><p>
By now you can see that narrowing the path helps you find the direction
and proper variations that lead to a pleasing and successful product. But
all things must reach an end right?
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="id761312"></a>When does it all stop?</h3></div></div></div><p>
This is a tricky question... there's always room for improvement, right?
Think twice about your improvements, though. Adding features is the most
commonly thought of method for improving software, yet is often the least
effective. For many years, the feature list of a program was its selling
point. However, it turns out that what people want is smooth-running,
fast, efficient software that does exactly what they need. Most users
would prefer a few programs that work well together rather than one huge
program that does everything.
</p><p>
Design is an iterative process of concept development, refinement,
prototyping, testing, and polishing. You should never be afraid to go
back to your initial stages and take a different direction, which is why
prototyping (and rapid prototyping especially) can be important. It's
better to make several prototypes and abandon the bad choices, rather
than build layer upon layer of corrections and additions.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="id761334"></a>Today's bit of universal design wisdom?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Prototyping lets you finish a project with a clean, well thought out
product. You waste much less time making multiple versions and cause less
frustration to your users by not treating them like Guinea pigs. A lot of
thought and work always needs to be put into making the software work to
the users advantage (and the earlier the better). Simplicity is a
relative term so please remember that "simple" doesn't always mean "fast"
or "easy." Software that is truly simple to use was undoubtedly difficult
and time consuming to design. The reward of prototyping is having a
product that is useful to its users—for its intended purpose—and
that creates an experience that users prefer over other methods.
</p></div></div><hr class="pagebreak" /><div class="sect1"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="DevWorkshop3-47"></a>Developers' Workshop: Sweet Mystery of Life</h2></div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="author">By <span class="firstname">Doug</span> <span class="surname">Fulton</span></span></div></div></div><div class="qandaset"><table border="0" summary="Q and A Set"><col align="left" width="1%" /><tbody><tr class="question"><td><a id="id761381"></a><a id="id761384"></a>Q:</td><td><p>
Release 4 is all but out the door, on the truck, in the mail, over the
rainbow, and through the woods to grandmother's house in the valley
beyond the shadow of a doubt. When Grandma unpacks the CD, tosses a
chicken, and installs R4, what will she find in the on-line BeBook?
</p><p>
- Naughty Marietta<br />
Ovaltine, Missouri
</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top">A:</td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
Near the release finish line there's a stack of composition books upon
which sit the tech doc writers. As each engineer sprints past, a writer
grabs a book, shouts out a few unheard questions, puts finger to mouth
and starts scribbling. The game, among the writers, is to pull out the
books without upsetting the stack, although it's never been clear just
what is forfeited personally by the loser, since the lot of them end up
in a whining pile of ink and white out. It's a sad little ritual and
probably should be left on the shelf with other superstitious ceremonies
such as the chicken toss, taxes, mumblety-peg, and baptism, but it's how
the ancients did it and, as part of that history, I'm not going to jigger
tradition. Unfortunately, the rite has its dark side: Sorting the pages
and blotting the spilled ink takes time. And although we've used a
cunningly sequential numbering system to grease the collation, by the
time we look up, the door has shut and we're left outside with the leaves
clutched in our little mitts while the rest of the engineering team is
bathing in milk, gorging on figs, and trying on each others' clothes. The
perks of a job well done.
</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>
Now I'll answer your question: Not enough. Call it too many cooks and not
enough napkins, call it sloth and ennui, call it the kernel team
kidnapping a third of our technical writers, or call it the way of the
world, all flesh, and the devil—documentation always lags behind that
other stuff, just as marketing jumps on your lap before you've sat down.
</p><p>
Not enough, but not nothing: Open your BeBook to chapter Media Kit and
you'll find a few thousand nouns and verbs rubbing up against each other
like kittens tied to your ankles. And there are any number of little
tweaks and twiddles that improve the book technically and stylistically.
Of the latter, the documentation now avoids anacoluthon—do we need
examples of this? Also, we're in the process of unstuffing the priggish
and prissy vocabulary that accumulates over time: Brussels sprouts words
such as "tantamount to" and "veritable" are replaced by the brown rice
bland but digestible "almost".
</p><p>
But that's all just CD between you and me. The real action takes place on
the web site. If you're a developer, the first thing you should do when
you receive your Release 4 CD is throw away the BeBook that you just
installed on your hard disk and replace it with the one on the Be web
site. Put your thumb in www.be.com/documentation and fish around a bit.
Long lost links, such as the appendix that lists the Be message formats,
the keyboard layout information, and (god help me I toss the chicken far
enough) the chapter-by-chapter index lie simpering in submission.
</p><p>
A few weeks back, I made some waving motion that could have been mistaken
for something that might look like a promise that the UI guidelines would
make it on the Release 4 CD. (Actually, what I said was "We're going to
try to get the UI Guidelines ... on the R4 CD. But if they don't quite
make it, they'll be posted to the web site soon thereafter.") Now that
the fellow with the shaved back and the nasty look on his face is no
longer holding my head under water, I can glub that we didn't quite make
it to the CD but we'll hold to our word that the UI guidelines will start
to appear in the next few weeks on the web site. I promise, so help me
Nelson Eddy.
</p></div><hr class="pagebreak" /><div class="sect1"><div xmlns="" xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" class="titlepage"><div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="title"><a id="Gassee3-47"></a>Giving Thanks</h2></div><div xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"><span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="author">By <span class="firstname">Jean-Louis</span> <span class="surname">Gassée</span></span></div></div></div><p>
First, congratulations and thanks to the sharp-eyed and gentle-penned
readers who spotted a lapsus abaci, a slip of the exponent, in my last
column. Many wrote to congratulate us on achieving a billion dollar
valuation. Some even asked how we managed to find investors willing to
buy into the company at such a valuation.
</p><p>
The humbling secret is a typo. I dropped a zero in stating Be's worth
compared to Microsoft's market cap. I should have written that our
investors value our company at between 1/2000th and 1/3000th of what Wall
Street says Bill's company is worth—not 1/200th.
</p><p>
We're back from Comdex and, by the time you reach my column you'll
already have seen Bob Herold's report. It was a productive week in Vegas,
following a great one in Tokyo. My thanks go to all who made it possible,
from Sylvie Pelaprat, our PR &amp; Marcom Manager, who masterminded and
delivered the event; to the engineering team who delivered R4; to BeOS
developers who showed what they could do with our platform; to our
friends at Intel who came out and supported us; and to all who took booth
duty seriously and graciously.
</p><p>
I usually come back from trade shows feeling good after meeting users,
developers, and business partners in rapid succession—it's a
concentrated reality check. Returning from Comdex, I feel better than
ever about the nature and size of the opportunity ahead of us. No slam
dunk, but readier acceptance of "other than Microsoft" ideas. Combined
with the significant progress made with Release 4, and the emergence of
BeOS applications, it all adds up to a sense of critical mass in the
making.
</p><p>
The last three words signify. This is not a time to make premature or
extravagant claims, but rather to say that we're grateful for the
increasing support from our key constituencies.
</p><p>
And speaking of thanks, a special word for Valerie Peyre, who left us to
return to the Old Country. She came to Be in 1995, right after the Agenda
Conference, recommended by Dan Dahle, a Be alumnus now at Intel. One of
her first tasks was to start this newsletter, which she did, cajoling and
goading contributors into delivering copy week after week. She quickly
demonstrated the ability to shoulder more responsibilities and, before
she left, was in charge of Developer Programs. She'll be missed and, as
she returns to France we hope she carries with her a little bit of the
gratitude her skills and dedication have created. And we secretly hope
she'll miss the crazy Silicon Valley soon enough.
</p><p>
Happy Thanksgiving!
</p></div></div><div id="footer"><hr /><div id="footerT">Prev: <a href="Issue3-46.html">Issue 3-46, November 18, 1998</a>  Up: <a href="volume3.html">Volume 3: 1998</a>  Next: <a href="Issue3-48.html">Issue 3-48, December 2, 1998</a> </div><div id="footerB"><div id="footerBL"><a href="Issue3-46.html" title="Issue 3-46, November 18, 1998"><img src="./images/navigation/prev.png" alt="Prev" /></a> <a href="volume3.html" title="Volume 3: 1998"><img src="./images/navigation/up.png" alt="Up" /></a> <a href="Issue3-48.html" title="Issue 3-48, December 2, 1998"><img src="./images/navigation/next.png" alt="Next" /></a></div><div id="footerBR"><div><a href="http://www.haiku-os.org"><img src="./images/People_24.png" alt="haiku-os.org" title="Visit The Haiku Website" /></a></div><div class="navighome" title="Home"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html"><img src="./images/navigation/home.png" alt="Home" /></a></div></div><div id="footerBC"><a href="http://www.access-company.com/home.html" title="ACCESS Co."><img alt="Access Company" src="./images/access_logo.png" /></a></div></div></div><div id="licenseFooter"><div id="licenseFooterBL"><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" title="Creative Commons License"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://licensebuttons.net/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a></div><div id="licenseFooterBR"><a href="./LegalNotice.html">Legal Notice</a></div><div id="licenseFooterBC"><span id="licenseText">This work is licensed under a
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