[Webfunds-devel] wizards & warlocks

Fri, 18 Aug 2000 10:40:46 -0400

(Edwin, I'm wondering whether you are perhaps missing out on the
context of earlier conversations - if so, apologies :)

Edwin Woudt wrote:
> 
> --On 08/16/00 21:21:42 -0400 Ian Grigg <iang@systemics.com> wrote:
> 
> > Well, somewhere in between.  I need a "wizard" that can be used by
> > 'advanced' users.  Which is why I'm quite happy to call it something
> > else.  Or, to put it another way, the requirement for a wizard was
> > fundamentally incorrect, we need something that is more advanced
> > than a wizard, whatever that may be.
> >
> > Preparing contracts is a difficult task.  There are many things to
> > check.  Doing it via command line is a possibility, but impractical
> > because contract-preparing people don't normally know what a command
> > line is.  In fact, they aren't in general so clued up as to what a
> > computer is ... we're talking lawyers, doctors here an exception,
> > Unix bufs are definately out of place.
> 
> You are contradicting yourself in these first two paragraphs. In the first
> parahraph you want a wizard for advanced users, in the second paragraph you
> want one for absolute beginners. Make up your mind!

Advanced users in the preparation of contracts - it is a task
where the user can quickly become as advanced or more advanced
than the tool.  Absolute beginners in the sense that they'd
rather not be seen using a computer ... and don't really use
computers for this task now to the extent that we are discussing.

Going back to using command line is not really an option for this.
(Neither is it a sensible option for any "advanced user" ... if
it was, I wouldn't be so keen on this;  as an aside, I've probably
"prepared" the same contract 30 or so times over the last week,
all by typing in the same information into the current code.  This
doesn't disappear when the code is working, it is a process that
is mirrored by real life contract preparation).

> > The issue here is that contract preparation is not a one-off serial
> > task.  It *is* mostly a linear process, but it is a line that is
> > travelled many times, backwards and forwards, and restarted many
> > times.  So maybe this thing is more of a process editor.
> >
> > My image of the perfect process - always assuming infinite budget and
> > resource - is one where the proto-contract is built up from nothing,
> > saved and restored, filling in the dialogs with its contents, and
> > gradually as time and new info is built up, proceeding to a final
> > signing.  There are even many preliminary signings, it is indeed only
> > when a contract is issued to the server, minted by the mintor and
> > finally distributed as value to innocent users that we cross a point
> > of no return.
> 
> And why can't this be done in a wizard?

My understanding is that you can't go forward unless the current
dialog is correct.  I don't mind being corrected on this point
at all, because that's what I want to do, leave incomplete earlier
screens until later, and go back to them.  (And do so over multiple
sessions.)

> It would be nice of you could draw up some requirements that can't be done
> in a wizard.

Well, I can't do that, because, evidently, I don't know what can
and can't be done in a wizard.  And, honestly, I could not possibly
care whether it can be "done in a wizard" or not.

What I can do is draw up the requirements of what I want this
piece of code to do, which is what the TODO_SCW was mostly
about.  It was pointed out that "I can't do that because that's
not what a wizard does."  To which my response is "OK, so let's
not call it a wizard..."

Dilemma.

> The only thing I have seen so far is the 'save button', but I
> explained in another mail how one would get that same functionality in a
> wizard.

I guess there are two save issues:

    * save the text component of the contract, which is done
      by adding that save feature to that particular dialog.

    * save the entire context of the session, which can be
      done by the proto-contract notion above, or any other
      way that might appeal.

There is also the issue of saving the sanitised keys, but my
current thinking there is that they can be saved as part of
the 'session save' above.  And/or sanitised on demand.

I think we are getting closer, although it is getting harder
when you are not here...  Let us know when autumn arrives :)

-- 
iang