Actually, my position is "Microsoft software is horribly broken under
the hood but at least pays lip service to user-interface design and
human factors stuff". In practise, most software seems to be either a
shiny and easy to try to use Edsel or a Mercedes-Benz with parts and
rivets showing everywhere, requiring actually shorting wires together
and stepping on hydraulic tubes to operate the thing because nobody
bothered to put the actual paneling, upholstery, and proper controls
on the surface after they got the engine to start.
Basically, on the one hand we have Microsoft's "The interface is
snazzy and it compiled? Ship it!" and on the other hand we have an
attitude of "It works perfectly and you can toggle in some sort of
data to make it run? Ship it!"
I can respect that attitude, since I do agree that neither user
interface alone nor under-the-hood features alone are enough to call a
product a great product. However, what has frustrated me about your
posts and attitude is that you have not been presenting yourself as
such. In the "Modernization of Emacs" thread you come across as a
zealous devotee of the "standard" user interface that Microsoft
products established, which leads to a fair inference that you are a
fan of Microsoft, or at least of their products. Then you have come
here and posted angry diatribes against them and their ilk, arguing
about all the things that are wrong with them.
I realize that in one case you are talking about user interfaces and
in the other you are talking about business models and software
features, but there is still a stark duality in your attitude toward
Microsoft and their products.
In short, the position you have stated here is one I don't mind, but
the position I saw in your posts was self-contradictory.
Who is "us" here? I need to know who this subset of people is that are
infallible and whom I am strictly disallowed to disagree with even on
matters of opinion. (Then when I have a list of names I'll be making
some calls to lawyers, the electronic frontier foundation, the
ACLU, ...)
There is a difference, at least among the civil, between disagreeing
with someone and telling them outright that they are wrong, not to
mention refusing to accept any arguments they make or evidence they
offer in defense of their thoughts. When I and several others in the
"Modernization of Emacs" thread pointed out that we had an easy time
starting out with emacs, a reasonable person would have said, "Well
then, I guess emacs is just not intuitive to me and some others, but I
guess it works for some people," and been on his way. You, on the
other hand, actually suggested that we might have been /lying/, just
because your experience was different.
I am not asking you to stop disagreeing, or to change you opinion, or
to stop posting on Usenet, etc. I am asking you to stop presenting
your opinions as though it is impossible for anyone to disagree. I am
asking you to stop insisting upon yourself. And this time I'll ask
nicely, since I was rude yesterday:
Please don't tell people they are wrong unless the disagreement is
over facts and not opinions. Please allow others the right to think as
they think, at least in subjective matters, and especially in
superficial ones.
I'm sorry, but this is Usenet, not Scrabble. You don't get any extra
bonus points for forming some obscure word using all seven of your
letter tiles including the Q and the Z and landing on triple word
score. Rather, here you get bonus points for communicating clearly and
coherently. Not to mention civilly.
TMTOWTDI is a Perl slogan: "There's more than one way to do it." I had
hoped, since you have presented yourself as one who knows more (and
better) than the rest of us, that you might know this piece of
programmer's dialect. My apologies for underestimating you. No
promises about it happening again though.
. )