Hello L.D.:
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 12:59:51 -0500, L.D. Best wrote:
> Sam,
> I am nearly 60 years old, a woman who has always done things that "only
> men do," I've got three grown kids, two cats, a garden, and the Sword of
> Damacles hanging over my head.
> Life has enough petty little annoyances that I already have to brush
> aside. Is it really asking too much to hope that software can be
> refined and fine tuned?
Yes, because in this case the remedy would produce side effects that are
far more unbearable than the affliction. The cure would be to have a
memory resident program continuously performing check-sums to compare a
page in memory with the page that was originally loaded into the browser.
Whenever a change is detected, then the memory-resident program would have
to signal the browser to automatically reload the page. The remedy would
eat lots of memory and it would slow down your browsing and your
mail-reading considerably. Until a better cure can be developed we will
just have to learn to tolerate the affliction. If it were easy to develop
a better cure, then I'm sure someone would have done so by now.
> And it's not fair to Michael, and everyone one else who's struggled with
> Arachne development, to compare Arachne to the programs "being marketed
> by the big bully boys." They care only about the almight dollar,
Yes, we know they care only about the almighty dollar. And they know that
there would be lots of money in it for them if they could just find a
painless cure for this silly little annoyance.
> whereas Michael seems to care about his reputation first and making a
> buck second.
A doctor who cares about his reputation would not prescribe remedies that
produce undesireable side-effects that are so much more difficult to deal
with than the original affliction.
> l.d.
> P.S. Anything that prevents software from being user friendly and
> running smoothly is a bug.
No, there is much more that could be done to make software more user
friendly, but oftentimes only at the expense of making it run much slower
and less smoothly. For example, most people feel that the Windows OS is
much more user friendly than DOS. Does Windows allow software to run as
smoothly as DOS? Of course not! Therefore, according to your own
argument, Windows is a bug.
> If you can bring it under control, and have
> it happen only on demand, it might then be considered a feature.
To bring everything under control and have it happen only on demand, just
do this: DELTREE WINDOWS. Then your computer might be considered to have
a most desireable and powerful feature.
> And
> one other thing -- when there are obvious "silly little annoyances," it
> causes one to wonder what else isn't working smoothly *behind* the
> screens.
Everyone already knows what doesn't work smoothly *behind* the screens.
Just deltree windows and everything will be alright.
All the best to you, L.D. Best,
Sam Heywood
-- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client
