VMesS vs Unix Debate

[Ted Hopp]

>From "Scott M. Hinnrichs" <SMH at SRI-KL.ARPA> we get:

> RE:  "User-Friendly" systems

> 	People are always looking for reasons to keep from having to
> learn new things (read: "do work").  "User-Friendliness" is just another
> bastion of defense against having to do work.  Another free lunch myth.
>
>   ...
>
> "User-Friendliness"  <-->  "User-Laziness"

> 	The fact of the matter is that anything worth doing is going to
> take time and pain, and most people are not willing to go to the lengths
> necessary to attain their goals.

Just a few random thoughts this provokes:

Reminds me of when I took up snow skiing.  The motto then (late 60's)
concerning ski boots was, "If they don't hurt, they don't fit right."

One of the fundamentals of cult psychology is that the higher the dues,
the more the member values the membership.  This is independent of the
inherent value of membership.

Does anyone know why we dropped the nice, time-consuming, and painful
Roman number system for the user-friendly Arabic number system, other
than pure laziness?

Until someone convinces me that there ain't no better way, I will continue
to consider all the bad-mouthing of user-friendliness just so much garbage.
-- 

Ted Hopp		      UUCP: {seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!nbs-amrf!hopp
National Bureau of Standards  ARPA: hopp.nbs-amrf.umcp-cs at udel-relay
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