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From: terry@nrcvax.UUCP (Terry Grevstad)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: 'vi' vs. other word processors
Message-ID: <713@nrcvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 12:29:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: nrcvax.713
Posted: Thu Sep 18 12:29:56 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Sep-86 20:45:18 EDT
References: <1307@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: terry@nrcvax.UUCP (Terry Grevstad)
Organization: Network Research Corp.  Oxnard,CA
Lines: 60

bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) says:
>
>As I heard someone say once, the most amazing thing about all the
>technological devices we use are the people who use them.
>
>The funny thing is, the people who talk about what certain people
>are too stupid to do seem to be working from modus ponens and
>some sort of wierd extrapolation.
>
>I think the only thing important with a lot of these activities is
>being able to understand the goal, and I think most secretaries
>understand what a well typed memo should look like (how many TeX/Troff
>etc wizards do? Swell, beautifully typeset but not worth a damn
>according to the style guide, hmm, who's the idiot?)
>
>    (liberally edited)

Loved this article.  I tried to get this same idea across to my boss
many years ago.  At that time I was a word-processing supervisor.  My
boss, whose only experience with word-processing was dictating
letters and signing them when they came back, made all the decisions
on the software we were going to use.

He decided that we needed new software.  At the time we were using an
embedded command type of software written especially for us.  It would
do virtually anything I decided it needed to do, with a minimum of
confusion.  And I had part-time university students doing the input
for me, most of whom never stayed longer than 6 months.  I was
constantly training people and found it very easy to train them to use
the system.

He decided that the software was ``too difficult'' for the secretaries
to use.  Well, the secretaries never used it--the word-processors used
it.  They gave us what they wanted typed and we did the work.  (turn
around time ~30 minutes, less in a pinch)

What he finally decided on was a menu driven system that was so slow
we about died.  Prompt questions for everything, and it only did
letters and memos.  He was quite nonplused when he found that his new
word-processing system would not produce the paper he had to write, or
create copies of the speech he had to give, or even provide a means to
produce documentation for itself.

We, the people who used it, the people who had to work with it, were
never consulted on what it should be capable of doing.  ``We'' were
``too dumb''.  ``We'' got out of that job and went on to bigger and
better things.


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without a                                              Terry Grevstad
 ECNALG                                  Network Research Corporation
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