Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
From: doug-merritt@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Need recommendation for telecommunications program
Message-ID: <5767@cup.portal.com>
Date: 22 May 88 18:49:21 GMT
References: <4136@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 44
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4407

Harv Laser said:
>Oh, and hey, you say AmigaWorld recommended Starterm? Isn't that the same
>magazine whose Editor, Guy Wright said he doesn't like Telecommunications
>because it's "too complicated" ?? 

Yes, but that's nothing to belittle. To sneer at that editorial is to
be complacent about what's currently available.

I do telecommunications every day, both Usenet and BBS, LAN's, downloads,
uploads, ftp, etc. And I use whatever services/programs are available to do
what I want quite successfully. I've implemented transfer protocols, I'm an
OS internals hacker, and *I* totally agree with that editorial. It *is*
much harder than it should be to get things done. It's easy to be elitist,
and take that attitude "well, *I* figured it out, so anyone who says it's
too hard must be an idiot."

But that misses a point...how much easier *could* it be? If you've ever
worked in an environment that supported tightly coupled file systems,
where the network was invisible, you might not be so complacent. Also I
see no reason why user interfaces on BBS's must be so primitive that they
scare off non-expert users. I know plenty of people who just don't want
to bother, because they're so user-hostile. 

The *only* truly nice and modern user interface I've ever seen is
Apple's, that has a really nice icon-driven system that lets you
do all kinds of stuff (mail etc) over their network as easily as you
do things on your local machine. I've got a mental block on the name
of their network, but this is their internal national network that all of
the Apple offices use to talk to each other. As implemented on Mac's,
it's really nice.

I claim there's every reason to want about three orders of magnitude
improvement in the user interfaces used in both host and slave telecom
programs. People who sell commercial BBS software should be embarrassed...
as should all of the commercial service bureau's like Genie, etc. That
stuff is stone age technology. I saw high school hackers write stuff
of equivalent functionality in the mid-70's.

A plea to the world at large: It's 1988...wake up!
	Doug
--
      Doug Merritt        ucbvax!sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
                      or  ucbvax!eris!doug (doug@eris.berkeley.edu)
                      or  ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug