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RD:
>I'm applying for a job that requires Interleaf
>experience. Has anyone used Interleaf? What could you
>tell me about it? Is it similar to FrameMaker?
I haven't used Interleaf since the late '90s, but if they're using an older
version...particularly something like Interleaf 5, which was UNIX based,
there are a couple of annoying learning-curve things to watch for.
One, the interface is awful. In fact, at an Interleaf User Group meeting,
the president of the company even admitted "The user interface wasn't even a
consideration when we designed Interleaf 5." (The NT version, Frame 6, at
least followed Microsoft conventions so things like file saving, copying,
and pasting were right where you'd expect them to be.)
The second item relates to the fact that on the UNIX version (at least
Interleaf 5, I don't know if it changed later), the files are represented by
icons. If you're working on a networked system and sharing files, some of
those icons will be on your system, but some icons are just links to files
on other systems. Thus, it's fairly easy to become confused about where the
file actually resides. Worse, if you network to another system and copy a
file to your desktop, you may -think- that you made a copy but there's a
good chance that all you did was create a link to the other system file.
That means it's quite possible at some point to delete what you think are
files on your system, when in reality you're reaching out across the network
and deleting -other- people's files. One could, in theory, wipe out
thousands of pages of documentation across the entire system in a matter of
minutes. This would be greeted with great dismay by co-workers and
management alike.
Not that I would ever have done that. No siree. Don't know what you heard,
but that wasn't me that day. I was...ummm...travelling. Yeah, travelling.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
--Rick Lippincott
Lockheed Martin
Saugus, MA
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