[Traced to Flip Wilson's Geraldine
character c.1970]
Describes a user interface under which What You See Is What You
Get
, as opposed to one that uses more-or-less obscure commands that
do not result in immediate visual feedback. True WYSIWYG in environments
supporting multiple fonts or graphics is a rarely-attained ideal; there are
variants of this term to express real-world manifestations including
WYSIAWYG (What You See Is Almost What You Get) and
WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More or Less What You Get). All these can be
mildly derogatory, as they are often used to refer to dumbed-down
user-friendly interfaces targeted at
non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands (compare
WYSIAYG). On the other hand,
EMACS was one of the very first WYSIWYG editors,
replacing (actually, at first overlaying) the extremely obscure,
command-based TECO. See also
WIMP environment. [Oddly enough, WYSIWYG made it into the 1986
supplement to the OED, in lower case yet. —ESR]