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From: df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket here in Iceland
Message-ID: <27140@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 17 Jun 91 15:58:00 GMT
References: <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <3254@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu
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In article <foo>, einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes:
> In article <bar> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes:
> >  This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your*
> >needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space".  What an
> Well, think of a book in your favorite language.  This is a great book, but
> it has one bad look.  There are *NONE* of the following letters in the
> book:
> 	'a', 'A', 'e', 'E', 'r', 'R', 's', 'S'
> I am sure you could read it, but it is not enjoying.  You would have to
> guess where you should put those letters.

  Well, it wouldn't be my "favorite language" then, would it?  :-)

> Now think of another thing.  Let us imagine that you are a writer writing
> in a language that *does* contain the above letters.  Suddenly one day you
> get a great idea for a book (or letter or article...) and you sit down and
> start to write.  What would you do if you would find your pen (typewriter,
> pencil...) writing everything you want *EXECPT* for the above letters?
> Even if the language *requires* "aAeErRsS"    ????

  The problem I see with your analogy is that if I was in that situation,
and I had this faulty editor or pen or whatever, I would just use another
one.  I wouldn't blame the typewriter or program, I would just switch.
I think if *all* programs and pens and typewriters were like what you
described, then you'd have a much better case, although, perhaps, your
language might not have developed in the same way, if no one could write
it :-)

> >egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program
> >is used by whiners in the frozen north.  One of you even said that
> >it looked like a useable editor, but just because it lacks a feature
> It was I who wrote that.  Let me tell you one thing.  If you were a local
> person here in Iceland, you wouldn't call us whiners.  Then you would
> understand my comment.

  :-)  Well, perhaps.  If I was living in Iceland, perhaps I would have
written to the author, or just dismissed the program as yet another
ethnocentric program from those damn americans.  I don't think I would
have flamed the program, although who can tell a man's breaking point?  :-)

> >I think it looks like a fine editing program -- but even if I hated it,
> >what good would flaming it here do me?
> Perhaps the message that we *must* have the 8th bit available would reach
> more programmers?
> 
> I only hope that this has started someone to think and reconsider if they
> are going to write an editor??  

  I only hope in the future, people will consider their methods of
communication a bit more.  The comment about "whining" I made may have
been out of line (ok, it was :-)), but I still stand by the points I made.
You called the program useless, and said "SHAME" to the author... I
merely think it would have been more helpful to mail to the author and post
your explanations (that you later posted), instead of getting into a
flame war about how terrible american (and others, I guess) programs are.

 -- dan