Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!gatech!hubcap!disd
From: disd@hubcap.UUCP (Gary Heffelfinger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Mr. Pournelle is brain-dead.  News at 11:00.
Message-ID: <3081@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: 28 Sep 88 22:14:20 GMT
References: <6206@dayton.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Lines: 103

From article <6206@dayton.UUCP>, by joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson):
> 
> Personally, I suspect Dr. Pournelle is a little brighter than he lets on
Er.. sorry, *Dr.* Pournelle.  Easy to forget that sometimes.

> in his articles.  I suspect he's quite capable of handling the code-a-wheel.
> However, he also knows just how to say things to achieve some effect.  One
> would be a little naive to believe he actually had a problem using it.  But
> he was annoyed enough that he wrote what he wrote.
Not naive, ticked off.  If it annoys him, he should say that it annoys
him.  To tell his readers that it is hard to use, is lying to them.
Yes, it is obnoxious, and yes, it should not be there, but no, he should
not tell his readers that it's harder than the game.  It's neither
clever, nor true.  And it's condescending to his readers.

> 
> I mean, come on!  Anyone who can co-author brainstorms such as "Oath of
> Fealty" can handle a little computer technology.  But his article probably
Haven't read the "Oath..." but I feel that it's Larry Niven who makes
their collaborations as good as they've been.  But that is more a
subject for rec.arts.sf-lovers.

> DOES reflect what the average Joe out there is going to think.  Those stupid
I think it's insulting to the "average Joe" that he thinks that Joe
can't handle a code wheel of this nature.  "Listen kiddies, I know
you're all morons and take everything I say as gospel, so I'm gonna tell
you that you won't be able to handle something so tough as a code wheel.
Therefore, you shouldn't even consider this product."   

> code-a-wheels are a pain in the butt.  And when he complains that the Amiga
> crashes from time-to-time, he's exactly right.  It *does* crash every now
Certainly the Amiga crashes from time to time.  No one denies that.  But
every other microcomputer I have ever used, has crashed from time to
time, and some of these are quite popular machines.  The Amiga does
*not* crash often enough to warrant the kind of condemning bad-mouthing
we've seen from Jerry.

> and then.  Manx "z" (at least version 3.4A) has bugs in its garbage collection,
> for instance, that gives you reproducable crashes.  The average guy out there
> isn't going to be real understanding when his 1-hour edit session was just
The average Joe isn't going to be using Z either.  :-)  I've gotten no
reports from my writer friend about Word Perfect guruing and loosing
hours of his work.   Now I admit that DOS's nasty way of teaching one to
patiently wait for a drive light to turn off before removing the disk,
can be a problem, but I don't think the Apple's solution of not putting an
eject button on the drive is the right one either.

[Some comments about how dumb users are, omitted]

Yes, I've run across my share of "dumb" users.  Most of them were
perfectly capable of using the computer given enough time and
education.

> 
> So people can take offense at what Dr. Pournelle writes, but when it comes
> right down to it, I haven't heard anyone quote anything from his article that
> was that far off the wall with what the users are going to feel.  Don't bitch
Ah.  But that's exactly what I don't like about "Chaos Manor", it
Assumes that it knows exactly what users are going to feel.  It thinks
for the user.  It doesn't give the user the chance to form his/her own
opinions.

> about how dum he is but maybe think "Gee, maybe he's right.  Maybe it SHOULD
> be a little easier to install such-and-such."  If you want the average Joe out
That is what Jerry should be doing.  And I often agree with him when he
says that product so-and-so has a feature that is not right, would the
product's manufacturer please remedy this situation.  What I *don't*
want to see, are the kind of statements so common in his column, like
"The Skeezix word processing system is trash because it doesn't use ^s
to save my document, like good old Write used to do."  or "Don't buy the
Plingsnort XL monitor because it's not nearly as good as the
mumble-mumble monitor I used on my old pal Zeke."

> there to want an Amiga, it can't crash.  It has to be easy to install and
> should work right the first time.  My Amiga crashes.  My Amiga has a cronic
I'm sorry that you're having hardware problems.  We all know that C= has
a few quality control problems.  I wish that they all could be as rock
solid as my old 1000 was and as my new 2000 appears to be.  On the
subject of ease of installation,  I agree with you that they should all
be as painless as possible, but in this real world they are not all so
easy.  Apple, with its Mac, has gone a long way towards making things
easier for the average Jane, but the Clone world has not come so far.
If one wishes to blast one computer because things are less than user
friendly, than one should blast all computers who have this problem.  I
don't see this blasting coming from Dr. P.  I have spent more time
scratching my head over the arcane ways of the Clones than I have with
the Amiga.

> Don't bitch about what he says.  Fix it. -Joe
Do you think you can get me a monthly gig with Byte?  I'd be happy to
try to fix it.
    
Sorry.  Don't mean to be screaming at you. Jerry just gets my goat.  I'd
like to see his place taken by someone who has more time to devote to
examining things more closely, rather than dismissing something just
because he had some initial problems with it. 


Gary
-- 
Gary Heffelfinger   ---   Employed by, but not the mouthpiece of 
                          Clemson University.
---===      Amiga.  The computer for the best of us.     ===---