Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!tmyers
From: tmyers@athena.mit.edu (Tracy S Myers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Windows 3.0
Keywords: dos, windows
Message-ID: <1990Jun11.144945.8191@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 11 Jun 90 14:49:45 GMT
References: <1990Jun10.153244.6180@athena.mit.edu> <1990Jun10.154243.6742@athena.mit.edu> <1990Jun11.021254.14167@agate.berkeley.edu>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 58

In article <1990Jun11.021254.14167@agate.berkeley.edu> dankg@typhoon.Berkeley.EDU (Dan KoGai) writes:
>In article <1990Jun10.154243.6742@athena.mit.edu> tmyers@athena.mit.edu (Tracy S Myers) writes:
>
>>Please excuse this garbled message, my news program crashed when
>>I tried to post it. Below is the (hopefully) intended version.
>
>	You can easily cancel your message with Captal-C if you are rn
>user.  And other newsreaders have capability of canceling article.  Even
>though you have none, you can still post in control newsgroup to cancel
>message.

While I am recovering in the burn ward, I will have lots of time to find out
if I can cancel an article in the situation I was in.  I realize that I 
probably did not make myself clear.  I again apologize for posting my first
message which included only the contents of the article I was submitting a
follow-up to. Here is what happened. I edited my response and tried to send it.
At this point rn crashed and my terminal hung.  I logged back in (which takes
a long time on athena) and instead of my edited article being posted 
my article only included the text of the article to which I was responding.
I was not aware that I could cancel the article at this point (i.e., once I
had posted it and it shows up as a new article in my news).  If I can in
fact cancel the article at this point would some kind soul please let me
know how to do this (by email). 

Before my fingers become too charred to type, let me try to clarify my point.
I am very much interested in informed comparisons of various computers.  What
I objected to in a rather impolite fashion for which I humbly apologize is that
the author of the original article posted a scathing review of a product
which he used only briefly.  Imagine a DOS user posting an article on
how he used a mac for a few minutes and then saying how superior MSW and
DOS are.  If you are going to evaluate a product then you should at least
be sufficiently knowledgeable about the product to make specific points. 
Sweeping conclusions of the sort the original author made only serve to
muddy the waters.  If you claim there exists a hardware compatability
problem, then tell us what it is.  

I have been repeatedly flamed for being a DOS apologist.  I am not.  In
the DOS groups, people who have never or only briefly used a mac go on and
on about how superior some DOS software is compared to the mac.
I have been similarly flamed in DOS groups for questioning the
hype that MSW 3.0 has generated.  Before MSW 3.0 was even released
people who had never used it felt free to comment on its features and the 
effect it would have on the PC and the Mac.  This is like Tipper Gore wanting
to censor a song she has never listened to. 

I use both macs and DOS machines.  Each has its merits and each has its 
weaknesses.  Since I use both PC's and Macs, I am always interested in 
comparisons of the two because an intelligent comparison helps me to choose
which machine is more suitible for a given task.  Knowing these strengths and
weaknesses allows one to make informed computing decisions.  Zealotry only
serves to misinform people, and the vague sweeeping statements in the original
article serve precisely this purpose, which is just asking for another one of
these my computer is better than yours wars. So, if you want to compare
products please be familiar with all of them, make sure your remarks are
based on direct experience, and make sure your facts are correct. Finally,
please avoid sweeping religious statements and unsubstantiated gossip.

Tracy Myers