Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
From: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Keywords: Future, Amiga, etc.
Message-ID: <50994@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 22 Jun 91 03:03:34 GMT
References: <73@ryptyde.UUCP> <1991Jun20.160550.27873@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun20.231445.1371@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Jun21.181522.26401@sequent.com>
Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp
Reply-To: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin
Lines: 29

In article <1991Jun21.181522.26401@sequent.com> cseaman@sequent.com writes:

>This topic epitomizes my main beef with the Mac 'philosophy'.  Any user
>with a lick of common sense isn't even going to TRY to 'drag-and-drop' a
>file into an application, unless they believe (or at least suspect) that
>the application will know what to do with it.  The 'Mac way', however,
>credits the user with the intelligence of a rock.  It not only condones
>ignorance on the part of the user, it encourages and perpetuates it.

Not only does Apple encourage ignorance on the part of most users, it 
carefully isolates the user from information.  Let me tell you, for the 
majority of Mac users, it is a good thing there is no standard CLI.  

One reason the OS restricts drag and drop is that users aren't very careful
about what they are doing.  It is far easier to add capabilities once the
user is proficient than to expect them to navigate a myriad of possible
actions.

Mac users pay extra for those "guard rails" that define possible actions.  

>'Drag and drop in the Finder allows the user to avoid the step of
>launching an application...'  Pshaw.  'Drag-and-drop' in the Finder
>allows the user to remain blissfully free of the ravages of
>intelligence.

Yep, ignorance can be expensive.  On the other hand, I don't think the 40-odd
users on our departmental network would be able to get up to speed with any
other machine like the Mac allows.  And you CAN eventually get behind the
interface and work with the guts.