Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!MacUserLabs
From: MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com (Stephan - Somogyi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: the wonders of usenet
Message-ID: <41374@cup.portal.com>
Date: 18 Apr 91 00:09:02 GMT
References: <1CE00001.daikjev@tbomb.ice.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 50

time@ice.com (Tim Endres) writes:
 
>And I would like to add that the Usenet community has answered ALL of
>my Macintosh programming questions, AND in EVERY case I received,
>MORE, BETTER, and FASTER replies from the net! Apple can not afford
>to place the kind of experienced veterans you find here on Usenet in
>DTS.
 
Tim,
 
if you'd care to look, many of the more intricate and complex answers
to programming questions come from Apple, where the "kind of
experienced veterans" who write the OS are.
 
Your message was a reply to Steve Dorner's msg, which referred to
Keith's. Keith works at Apple. NOT in DTS. Yet he took the trouble to
forward a Usenet question to Guillermo (who does work in DTS), and
then post Guillermo's reply. This is the kind of service normally
reserved for Apple Partners.
 
If you want this kind of support to stop, please continue slamming the
people that, while they apparently do not help you enough, do help a
lot of people here.
 
It is my understanding that DTS is for programming questions that are
really horrid. Not for the (to provide an admittedly extreme example)
"ohmigosh, how do I outline my default button" questions. If you want
to know why DTS turn-around is at 5 working days (or so), think about
the number of simple questions that DTS gets and MUST ANSWER, because
the people asking are Apple Partners and have paid their fees.
 
Apple is beginning to make the DTS knowledge base available to the
developer community so that people can answer their own questions.
This off-loads DTS a bit so that they can deal with the more difficult
one.
 
Apple has quite a way to go in this endeavour (I still have to look in
umpteen different places to make sure that my code follows all the
relevant guidelines), but they've done quite a good job so far (eg IM
VI on the SuperBeta CD).
 
When you ask a question here, given the number of people who read this
newsgroup, you're bound to find someone who's encountered a problem
similar to yours before. Therefore it isn't surprising in the least
that you get faster responses via the Usenet that from DTS.
Statistical probability and all that.
 
______________________________________________________________________
Stephan Somogyi                          No. No. No. I'm NOT with MIS.
MacUser