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Subject:RE: Advocating Documentation and Support From:Steve Shepard <STEVES -at- YARDI -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 8 Mar 2001 12:08:22 -0800
> "Jeff Hanvey" wrote...
>
> > One person, for example, says, "None. Caveat Emptor.
> > If you lack the brains to figure it out,
> > don't buy it, or hire someone to do it. Geez."
>
Andrew responded:
> This person is right, to a certain extent. If you're going to
> buy an expensive,
> complex piece of equipment or software, you should be forced to become
> proficient. You couldn't (legally) go out and rent a
> bulldozer and just doze
> around the neighborhood.
Point taken. The majority of the people at this company don't know how to
use Word. They use it. In fact. some use it as a primary tool in their job,
but they haven't bothered to really learn how it works. 2/3 of them don't
know what "styles" are and never use them. They waste an enormous amount of
time doing things the hard way instead of learning the tool.
But it's the attitude that bugs me in the above statement. It becomes the
excuse for poorly designed software.
> People buy these systems and think they should be able to
> plug them and they
> should instantly work. People berate Microsoft to death for
> their "shoddy"
> because it doesn't instantly do what they want. Yet those
> same people will
> extol the virtues of something like Linux, which is extremely
> difficult to use.
> Weird.
Yeah, but the people that buy a computer at Best Buy and the people that use
Linux are two completely different types of people.
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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