This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Keith Ray. Original Post: Irritating, Dumb Servants and Smart Servants Feed Title: MemoRanda Feed URL: http://homepage.mac.com/1/homepage404ErrorPage.html Feed Description: Keith Ray's notes to be remembered on agile software development, project management, oo programming, and other topics. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Keith Ray Latest Posts From MemoRanda

Alex Bunardzic explains why "Clippy", "Microsoft Bob", etc., are "dumb servants" and why they are irritating.

1. They are intrusive
2. They are phony
3. They are insincere
4. They are manipulative: They would declare to know what to do, but as soon as a human user falls into the trap of engaging them in a conversation, they will turn the tables on humans and would saddle them with unasked-for responsibilities
5. They are unaware of time
6. They are insensitive to the context: All that Clippy can detect is a trivial fact that the email client has been activated by the user, [...] But that’s a far cry from ascertaining the real context of the situation.
7. They are visual: Dumb servants, such as Clippy, suck at language.

He also writes about Smart Servants:

• Smart Servants are Aware of the Context: If the servant is smart, he will know that he needs to wait for the opportune moment [....] He knows that there is a difference between the situation when his master is lounging, and when his master is absorbed in a more important activity.
• Smart Servants Possess Very Reliable Memory: So, a dumb servant (and you cannot possible get any dumber than Microsoft Word) is easily identifiable as someone who isn’t paying any attention to his master’s preferences. In addition, this dumb servant tends to promptly and merrily forget everything his master had showed him and had instructed him to do. [Such as saving files in the "Drafts" folder instead of the "My Documents" folder.]
• Smart Servants Make Correct Assumptions: Furthermore, smart servants assume that their master prefers to be treated with respect.
• Smart Servants Never Insist that their Master is the Wizard: This ‘wizard’ was supposed to come equipped with the expertise needed to install the product [...] But then, all of a sudden, and without any forewarning [...] the ‘wizard’ was asking me how should he perform the next critical step, while at the same time warning me that a wrong decision on my part could jeopardize the entire installation.

My observation about Microsoft's "My Document" folder and related matters.

Have you noticed that the default setup on a Windows machine doesn't have a "Other Documents" folder? Where are you supposed to put all those documents that people send you, that you don't want to claim as your own? The recycle bin? I suppose Microsoft used "My Documents" in order to copy (but not copy exactly) the "Documents" folder that Apple provides its Mac users, but they didn't think beyond having a single folder.

In fact, a smarter system would recognize who sent you the document (either the email sender, or detect an "author" name within the document) and suggest filing the document under folders (automatically created as needed) with names like "Documents from Jane" or "Spreadsheets from Tim".

Using hard-links or soft-links (a.k.a. "Alias" for Mac users, "Shortcut" for Window users), smart software could also make a document accessible from several "author" folders if there were several authors, or even "project" folders (detected from email subject lines or document titles or keywords).

A year ago, there were articles about Apple's Spotlight search technology that predicted the end of folders. I haven't noticed folders going away. I just tried saving a spotlight search (which creates a so-called "smart folder") to the desktop, but it didn't save it there. I had to find it by doing another spotlight search for "search". It got saved to "~/Library/Saved Searches" and I had to move it from there to the desktop. It's called a "saved search query" (a.k.a. "smart folder") and looks like a folder with a gear image in it. You can't save a file into a these pseudo-folders, so you still have to put the files in a real folder somewhere. It is nice that these pseudo-folders are accessible from applications' File/Open dialogs, so you can open files from them.