Re Leaving

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Robert wrote: ≪users have become _less_ adept at problem solving than
they were, say, ten
years ago. General knowledge of computer innards has actually
deteriorated, as operating systems increasingly mask the guts with
Wizards and what-not.≫

Absolutely, positively. I don't want to get off on another Anti-Redmond
rant, but you know whom I blame. Granted, we are complicit in our own
enfeeblement. But the flakiness of the supposedly "user-friendly" opsys
eats up time that we should spend understanding the internals of the
system. (Not to mention the things that BBBG doesn't think we need to
know.)

In an earlier post, he also wrote (speaking of XyWrite's abandonment):
≪we have a stable engine that doesn't change, so you can write
applications that are reliable or good "for all time".≫

That's another problem with Windows: the blasted thing is always
changing. (Is Bill Gates Thales redivivus?) You get used to one set of
weirdnesses, and then you have to upgrade and cope with another. I really
think there has to come a point where people say "Enough" to this
continual forced "upgrading" of hardware and software. Never mind what it
does to the environment. Lead, gallium arsenide, cadmium--all going into
the groundwater. Mind you, some of the hardware upgrades are tempting,
and if your system just plain dies, you've got to upgrade. (Possibly
interesting factoid: I know of two desktop systems in 19 years that just
spontaneously died. Three others were fried by power incidents. The rest
were still running when they got sent to recyling as hopelessly obsolete.
So hardware is pretty sturdy.)

As for ZIPView, WOW! but I never knew it was there. And yes, I do read
through the .inf file on occasion, because I know there are all sorts of
goodies in there. The problem is, ALL computer documentation is written
backwards: it says, "These keystrokes [menus, commands] do thus and so."
But what the end-user needs to know is "What keystroke [menu, command]
should I use to do thus and so?" The XyWrite III manual came closest to
doing that. I am NOT blaming the programmers; documentation writing is a
different skill, requiring a different mindset. Very Big Corporations
should realize that and hire real writers, but they don't. We cannot
expect it of volunteers spending their own precious time... Well, I don't
want to get maudlin, but we DO appreciate all Carl and Robert have done.
Patricia