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From: ceb@csli.Stanford.EDU (Charles Buckley)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket here in Iceland
Message-ID: <19965@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 16 Jun 91 07:27:44 GMT
References: <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com>
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
Lines: 37
In-reply-to: mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com's message of 15 Jun 91 12:40:52 GMT

In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com>,
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes:

   From article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is>,
   by einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason):

   > I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to
   > c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!!
   > Why?  It does not allow me to type the Icelandic characters as I would
   > normally!!!!

   We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country.  If we all
   knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic
   editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters.

One shouldn't have to know, any more than one should have to know
about the other national keyboard conventions in use around the world.
MSDOS has a facility in it to deal with that, and it need simply be
respected.

   ALed provides ten macros of the form ALT-0 through ALT-9.  Evidently
   that's not enough.  What would be enough?

The whole keyboard (as with Cyrillic).  Someone's home-grown
Alt-tricks can really slow you down when you are used to hitting, say,
the US semicolon key for an accented e.  Only MicroEmacs does it right
(that I know of).  Of course, the Alt-tricks are different for each
new program.

   By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive
   disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture.

That's ok.  The seemingly universal built-in parochialism demonstrated
in so many American-written programs (and American-designed hard
goods) practically wiped us out in the export market for many years,
and has given foreigners a poor impression of our culture for quite
some time now.  I have heard Germans call us culture-colonialists.