Re: NB 8 (Trial version)

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from tebrake@xxxxxxxx on Sun, 07 May 2006 21:18:44 -0400

Bill:

> Why not cut Steve and company a little slack.

I respect them greatly. They've accomplished a lot, with very limited
resources. But there are also legitimate complaints, and a distinctive thing
about the saccharine NB maillist is that those complaints are seldom voiced.
The ones that bother me most:
-- utter absence of technical documentation, leading to amazingly inept &
ignorant users
-- mindless menu approach, which contradicts the very essence & purpose of this
word processor engine
-- a dramatic narrowing, not broadening, of the word processor's declared
capabilities
-- narrow, parochial, tiny target audience
-- failure to participate in maillist discussion

> Eventually, NB probably will have to find other sources for
> dictionaries or write their own (they did, after all, finally write
> their own very robust rtf converter because no existing ones were up
> to the task)

They commissioned it. It's one thing to write a filter. Another to compile a
dictionary.

> See if you don't agree with our own Robert Holmgren, that
> for many of us NB 8 really is a worthy successor to Xywrite 4

Although I still find Xy4 easier to use, for my purposes and needs. NB is much
more fragile, at its present stage of development.

> Indeed, I often wish there were no
> electronic spellers at all.

I agree. They're worthless, and people should just learn how to spell. It's
part of being civilized. However, that really only applies to one's native
tongue, and we are, after all, talking not only about, say, a German user, but
also (say) a Spanish user trying to write in German. (In the EU, you know,
people really are multilingual!!)

To my mind, what was valuable about the IBM dictionaries is that they included
thesauruses -- and I really do like thesauruses. They can trigger the mind in
a creative way, *especially* when working in non-native languages.

At bottom, though, surely you would agree that a capability to spell in 20+
languages represents value added. Strange, don't you think, that NB doesn't
mention it? (There's a lot they don't mention. I've been consulting with Mary
Bernard on her revision of Tony Woozley's CPG, and I gotta tell you, there is a
whole universe of stuff that NB totally ignores. They've been slack, so no
need to "cut" them more slack.)

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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