Sam Clemens

[Kirk Foster <tscom004 -at- DUNX1 -dot- OCS -dot- DREXEL -dot- EDU>]

        Along the same lines as Mark Levinson's when he said:

                "if you can't include it in 1000 pages of nine-point type,
                can you include it in the amount of disk space
                that you have time to fill before the product ships?"

        Structuring the on-line documents to apply to EVERY problem or task
        the user might want to perform would involve a great deal more work.

        There is a reason paper documentation doesn't attempt to do this,
        lack of enough trees.

        Lack of memory has kept this from happening in on-line, but this
        limitation is, IMHO, a good thing.

   On a tangent, hardcopy of some sort, seperate from the program and the
        computer, will always be necessary due to the dreaded "CRASH."

        Some reference material advising users "what to do in case of an
        emergency" must, or at least should, accompany software products.

        To give you a "real life" example of how squimish the lack of hard copy
        can make just about everyone, try this:

        A recent questionarre asked me if I liked the idea of recieving my
grades,
        course selections, etc. ONLY on-line.

        One situation should make everyone quiver, the system snafu's
        (power failure, whatever) and you don't have hardcopy to show
        to the cold bureaucratic eye...

nuff said

Kirk Foster
Drexel University