From kragen@dnaco.net Sun Sep 13 14:42:37 1998 Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 14:42:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: systalk@ml.org Subject: Re: [ST] Re: systalk Digest 10 Sep 1998 21:55:11 -0000 Issue 150 In-Reply-To: <199809110054.UAA11384@prabbit.dyn.ml.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 1877 Status: O X-Status: On Thu, 10 Sep 1998, Mike Anderson wrote: > At 09:55 PM 9/10/98 +0000, you wrote: > > Kragen Sitaker > >I don't do .INI, .BAT, .DLL or .SYS files. I don't assign apps to files. I > >don't configure peripherals or networks before using them. I have a computer > >to do all that. I have a Macintosh, not a hobby. -- Fritz Anderson > > no, you just have a box that does things exactly the same way for you as it > does for john doe, jane q. public and everyone else using a mac...it's a > 'one machine fits all' but i've found custom-tailored fits way better...:) > (just my $0.02 worth) I don't actually have an operational Mac, and never have. I hope to correct this soon. Nevertheless, I think the idea that people who want to do things like write letters, balance their checkbook, etc., should be required to do as little as possible that doesn't actually help solve their problem. Repartitioning your hard disk, assigning an IP address, etc., doesn't help you do anything useful. If the necessity to do these things were removed -- for example, filesystems that grow incrementally avoid the need to partition your hard drive, and IPv6 (and AppleTalk, of course) avoids the need to manually assign IP addresses. It's true that custom-tailored pants always fit better than 34x32 Levi's, but the 34x32 Levi's take much less effort to make (and therefore much less effort to pay for). Lots of people would rather do something else with their time other than make pants that fit marginally better and would rather do something else with their money than pay someone else to spend *their* time making pants that fit marginally better. In the cases where the extra effort on the part of the user doesn't actually lead to *any* improvement in their experience -- like having to configure peripherals before using them, instead of having the peripherals automatically and reliably just work -- there is no excuse for it! (My current machine, by the way, is a Linux box I assembled myself from four different sources, with a custom paint job, running Slackware96 with RPM and OpenDOS running inside dosemu. My desktop environment includes AfterStep and some Tk applets I wrote myself for fun. So don't assume I'm ignorant of the joys of customization.) I'm sorry I took three days to reply. I had more than 200 unread mails in my inbox. Kragen (usability, dammit, and customizability too) -- Kragen Sitaker The sages do not believe that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself. -- Wang Yang-Ming