Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!wuarchive!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!hp4nl!sci.kun.nl!cs.kun.nl!hansm From: hansm@cs.kun.nl (Hans Mulder) Newsgroups: comp.editors Subject: Re: What do writers want from a word processor? Message-ID: <3097@wn1.sci.kun.nl> Date: 23 Apr 91 21:23:12 GMT References: <1991Apr22.145525.10150@njitgw.njit.edu> Sender: root@sci.kun.nl Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands Lines: 30 In <1991Apr22.145525.10150@njitgw.njit.edu> ken@hertz.njit.edu (ken ng cccc) writes: >I would say that some of the things I would want are functionality, >consistency, customizing, and performance (gee, doesn't everyone?). Some people argue vehemently *against* customizing, claiming that (1) Many users want to process words, rather than editing their Preferences files. (2) If the user can't reconfigure it, the designer must spend quite some time finding the optimal configuration (before hard coding it). Packages that you can endlessly customize tend to come with a lousy configuration and the claim that the user is going to reconfigure it anyway. (3) You can't help other users if their Preferences file is too different from yours, and they can't help you. And then there are all sorts of trade-offs. Sometimes, I'm willing to sacrifice some functionality if it buys me performance. Sometimes I'm willing to sacrifice consistency if it buys me functionality. For instance, vi's regexp syntax is pretty inconsistent, but I wouldn't want to miss the functionality. For the rest, I agree with Ken. -- Have a nice day, Hans Mulder hansm@cs.kun.nl