Alternatives
In a modern system, i.e. one where processing is cheap and competing interface standards are high, users should simply not be left to enter data for long periods without some automatic interaction to guide, validate, or to tailor the system according to the developing state of the data they've so far entered. Leaving them alone to "just get on with it", then validating everything at the end, means that the corrections needed will be detected further and further from when that data was entered. As an a priori principle, corrections needed should be highlighted as soon and as close to when they are either entered, or could first be identified.
In an event-driven interface, most events triggered by the "completion" of a field will present an opportunity to either validate that field, or to guide the choices for entering the next. They may even control which field the user is taken to next: sub-sections of a form are often made relevant or irrelevant by values entered early on, and users should not need to manually skip these, if it can be done for them.
In this scenario, the programmer draws the user interface first and then writes the business logic in the automatically created methods.
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Famous quotes containing the word alternatives:
“The last alternatives they face
Of face, without the life to save,
Being from all salvation weaned
A stag charged both at heel and head:
Who would come back is turned a fiend
Instructed by the fiery dead.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“The literal alternatives to [abortion] are suicide, motherhood, and, some would add, madness. Consequently, there is some confusion, discomfort, and cynicism greeting efforts to “find” or “emphasize” or “identify” alternatives to abortion.”
—Connie J. Downey (b. 1934)