Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!tronsbox!bleys
From: bleys@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Mac's Microsoft Word
Message-ID: <662@tronsbox.xei.com>
Date: 16 Jan 91 01:09:25 GMT
References: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> <1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: Romantic Encounters BBS
Lines: 42

In article <1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
[stuff about MS Word deleted]
 
>  AmigaTeX, and TeX in general can do this, and has been doing so for years.
>All someone has to do is hack up a nice GUI for TeX for people who aren't
>smart enough to learn a language. (The Mac motto, hide the computer from the
>user with a blindfolding GUI. BlackBox.)

Um, I don't know if anyone else has bothered to point it out, but there
are those of us "smart enough to learn a language" who don't have time
to learn a new one for every application.  ESPECIALLY when that
application is word processing.
>
[more stuff deleted]

>  Basically, everything you've stated is either already in an Amiga
>WP, or in TeX. Some people argue TeX is hard. I disagree, some people are
>just intimidated or frightened that they may actually have to <gasp> learn
>something about their computer and the workings of computer languages.
>
>  Any other features Word has that no Amiga WP or Typesetter has?
>Does Word have an Arexx port? :-)
>

Why is it that every time someone on the net posts >anything< that even
LOOKS like they want a user interface that's made for the user, crys of
"You're not smart enough/You're too lazy to learn to do it the hard way?"

I may be commiting a sacrilege here, but why >should< someone have to
"learn something about their computer and the workings of computer
languages" in order to put their thoughts on paper in an attractive and
effective format?


-- 
 *         Bill Cavanaugh       uunet!tronsbox!bleys            *
 *     "When there is a war, the whole war is an illegal        *
 *  operation, so when there is a war, you cannot ask me not to *
 *      hit below the belt.  We are not in a boxing match."     *
 *                                                              *
 *        Abdul Razak Arisheeni, Iraqi Ambasador to France,     *
 *            speaking to 60 Minutes about terrorism.           *