🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3_800_842_fidonet2b28d6ba@Kralizec.fido.zeta.org.au> michael.smith@f842.n800.z3.fido.zeta.org.au (michael smith) writes:
>Original to: dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu

>
>This is a 'leading wordprocessor that everyone on the atari would love to
>have.' Not.

I would love to have it--bugs and all.

>
>As usual, too much time was spent making them look 'pretty' so that
>brainless salespeople could sell it to brainless executives and the like,
>and not enough making them _work_.

Actually, you do realize that Word and Word Perfect are the most
frequently purchased word processors on the market, right?  And I 
guess that if they really *were* that buggy, ie that EVERYONE had
such problems, we are all just stupid enough to continue to purchase 
it, right?  In reality, these programs don't crash that often,
for example my WP for Atari ST, which everyone seems to hate, works
just fine, rarely do I have any trouble(twice a year, maybe?) and
when I do the auto backup feature covers me everytime.  Not only
that, but I can take the files I make with WPST and copy them
to a disk and load them on the IBM lab downstairs allowing me
to use a laser printer--something I can't afford and given the
fact that the university doesn't use Atari in their labs, I'm
quite thankful.  I am a liberal arts graduate student which renders
me to use this software almost perpetually and given the fact
that I have used the same version for the last 4 years and 
have been able to churn out paper after paper on it, I have no
complaints.  The spell check works fine, the thesaurus is great,
its editing features are lovely, it's fast and above all, once
one is familiar with WP commands, it's easy to use.

  The problem you have fallen into is that you assume that the
program should be perfect and this is a fantasy.  No program has
ever been perfect, not one of that caliber.  Nor have I
been entirely satisfied with any of the other "best" word processors
for the ST--which, btw, are buggy themselves.  These programs,
Word and Word Perfect, get the extensive use they get because they
are easy to use and are basically bug free.   Unless you happen
to think that most people happen to enjoy using buggy software
and don't mind the fact that "every time" they load Word
they will run out of memory?  The fact is this rarely happens
and when it does, it's frustrating.  But that's the price we
pay when we turn our lives over to computers--hell, this happens
with typewriters as well, that they breakdown.

>
> d> Dave Baggett
>
>\`miff`                                                       /|\
>
>--- ScanMail 0.68 X0501
> * Origin: That Which Is Not, ST in SA. 61-8-232-5722 (3:800/842)


-- 
Charles O. Onstott, III                         (coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu)
Graduate Student in Religion and the Human Sciences
The University of Chicago Divinity School
           "For [the study of] history, too, has its fashions."  (Anouilh)