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From: ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Behr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: give me solid facts: Windows/Mac
Message-ID: <1991Mar28.025502.10913@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Date: 28 Mar 91 02:55:02 GMT
Reply-To: ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Behr)
Organization: Central Illinois Surfing Club
Lines: 45

dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu (Christopher Tate) writes:
>>There's a crucial point here, though -- the time required to achieve
>>*basic* proficiency at a Mac application is vastly lessened as soon
>>as the user has learned just one from scratch.  Since the user interface
>>paradigm is strictly enforced (except in Microsoft apps :-), basic
>>editing skills, etc. are easily transferred when learning your way
>>around new programs.
>
>Great! Ok...now what about ADVANCED proficiency...doing complex tasks?
>
>This concept is what I am currently harping on.

I noticed that...
My observations (relatively small sample) show that about 95% of
microcomputer users have very basic needs. Some of them even complain about
the "complexity" of the Mac OS. Like Dave Matuszek, I've spent many a night
passionately debugging assembly code for a CDC Cyber, struggling with the
(decent) Burroughs OS, doing stuff on a PC... After I got the Mac, I
noticed with some regret that those things were simply a waste of time, art
for art's sake, etc. I wrote my PhD thesis on a DEC Rainbow, and I'm mad
every time I think about how much more *thinking* I could have done (as
opposed to fiddling with settings, editors etc.) if I then had a Mac and a
Symbol font...
You are a computer professional, you say, and you find the Mac lacking?
Aha, that's a different story. Why don't you find a good Unix box and do
your stuff on it? I don't think anyone here is claiming that Mac is so
great that the Alliants, Suns, Coherents and maybe even Crays should run
away and go out of business... As you see from the address, I do use other
machines when I need them. If a complex formatting task is too difficult to
do on a Mac, I just ftp it elsewhere, use grep or something, and get it
back.
Sure, the Mac could use some gadget with which you could use line commands,
batch processing, manipulate directories en masse, do core dumps at a
keystroke, etc. etc... Rings a bell? You guessed right: A/UX. Fortunately,
it's *not* a part of the ordinary Mac OS, because if it were, then trying
to isolate the "easy" stuff from the "difficult" would take me so much time
that I'd have to get a second-hand Rainbow to do the daily chores...
Motto: contrary to popular belief, you can't have it all.

>-- 
>Dave Hayes -  dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov - ames!elroy!dxh
-- 
Eric Behr, Illinois State University, Mathematics Department
Internet: ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu    Bitnet: ebehr@ilstu