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Re: why

** Reply to message from Harry Binswanger  on Fri, 16 Dec 2005
17:32:56 -0500

Those are good answers to Jordan's questions, Harry. But putting aside the
largish question of whether either shoes or cars are "sensible" (after all,
torching the planet is hardly sensible), you need to define your terms: What
does "lousy" mean? What is "sensible", anyway? "Intuitively"? Does
that
mean, "reads your mind"? Flexible friendly and forgiving? These are
impossibly contradictory requirements. The "intuitive" stuff, e.g. Adobe
Acrobat, is far too simple to be useful. If you want power, you require
complexity -- I don't mind reading the manual instead of trying to operate
intuitively, as long as it will let me perform sophisticated tasks. Real
flexibility involves choices, and there aren't many ways to express your choice
except through a series of user-issued instructions. The more flexibility, the
more instructions. I've been tweaking a sui generis keystroke macro program
for the last year +, and believe me, it doesn't just "do one thing".

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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