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. ===---