Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ark1!dtix!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Meta-literacy (was Re: a word-processor for UNIX)
Message-ID: <18924@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 89 06:20:46 GMT
References: <2147@randvax.UUCP> <1627@naucse.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 33

>In article <2147@randvax.UUCP> urban@randvax.UUCP (Mike Urban) writes:
>>.... When everyone becomes an amateur layout designer, the result is
>>inevitably a great deal of amateurish layout.

In article <1627@naucse.UUCP> jdc@naucse.UUCP (John Campbell) writes:
>With apology to Leslie Lamport, let's go back about 3000 years.  In that
>era wouldn't the paragraph above have said:
>
>"It is more useful to work with an experienced scribe in forming your 
>letters in order to create a shipping list, business report, or whatever.
>When everyone becomes an amateur literate, the result is inevitably a
>great deal of amateurish literature."

Indeed, it might have; and it would have been correct.  Not because
amateurs never have good ideas---this is clearly false---nor because
amateurs invariably do things wrong, but rather because amateurs are,
well, amateurs: often they do not know all the rules, and more
important, the reasons for those rules.  Breaking tradition is not in
and of itself a sin; but breaking it out of ignorance is certainly not
a virtue.  There is a great difference between breaking rules because
you disagree with them and breaking them because you know no better.
I myself disagree with many rules of typography, and I break them
when I think the result is clearer communication.  I do try, though,
to obey them when the result is otherwise.  And communication depends
on the hearer as well as the speaker, the reader as well as the
writer: if you do something

							unexpected

it is likely to cause the reader to stumble.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris