Re: Intuition

[Peter Evans peter@xxxxxxxx]

I read with incredulity:

> Programmers can still feel somewhat in control of their working
> environment, but users no longer can. This small community of
> XyWrite users is thus apparently the last group of users to
> experience the incomparable feelings of security and freedom that
> result from being in control of the computer program that you are
> using.

Eh? Consider, for example: (i) Nota Bene has a command line; (ii) like
it or loathe it, even MS Word is highly configurable; (iii) real women
(and men) anyway use emacs and TeX or similar; (iv) most people using
Xy-anything are doing so with all the "security" provided by a more or
less rickety Microsoft operating system.

And factual issues aside, this talk -- "We Understand; the rest of the
world does not" -- of how the dwindling number of users of a word
processor forgotten or ignored by the rest of the world constitute a
lucky or valiant elect . . . it's the most awful tosh. Dave Erickson and
associates produced a fine tool -- not, please, a church of the
subgenius.

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Peter Evans peter@xxxxxxxx