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From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers
Message-ID: <4488@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 91 14:12:03 GMT
References: <6388@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1991Jan23.003505.21615@dsd.es.com> <1991Jan24.222501.7054@research.canon.oz.au>
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In article <1991Jan24.222501.7054@research.canon.oz.au>, andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman) writes:
> In article <13985@ganymede.inmos.co.uk> conor@inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill) writes:
> >A 'user' just wants to run applications.
> 
> Aren't you a computer user?
> 
> Give (non-programmer) ``users'' some credit ... a user who understands that
> they can construct their own applications by plugging together some tools
> in the correct order would want some easy mechanism to construct pipelines
> (and pipelines aren't the only model).

There are, unfortunately, some who want the software to do all their thinking
for them.  It is only those who can be called non-programmers.  Anyone who has
to put things together is already doing programming.

As andy points out, even a pipeline is a program.  One of the problems I have
with using "packages" is that they do not allow the combining of tools.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)   {purdue,pur-ee}!l.cc!hrubin(UUCP)