🚀 go-pugleaf

I have always found the net to be a more valuable source of NeXTSTEP info than
NeXT support (and much faster, as well).  However, some of the newsgroup info
was probably learned from NeXT support, so some info could be lost, I suppose.
So I don't find NeXT's policy particularly disturbing since I won't buy support
that I've rarely used anyway.

I found encouragement in NeXT's pledge to up their support in other ways.  We
should hold their feet to the fire on this and make sure they perform.  One
thing they didn't mention is critical, I think.  How many times have you beat
your head against a wall trying to make something work that turned out to not
work due to a bug in NeXT's software?  I'd like to give my head a rest (not too
many brain cells left at this point anyway :-) and be able to access a very
comprehensive and up-to-date bug list in my own Digital Librarian before I
waste huge amounts of time and brain cells as I've done in the past.  And the
bug list should include documentation bugs as well which I define as
documentation errors, omissions, and obfuscation.  So I'd like NeXT to add this
to their list of ways to improve support outside of directly call-in support.

And for those who use call-in support, I'd like to see NeXT declare that
problems caused by their bugs won't be charged (I guess asking NeXT to pay us
for those calls is a bit much, but their undocumented bugs cost us a lot of
money, so NeXT needs to help us be more productive in this way).  There'll be
lots of gray areas, but I hope that NeXT bends over backwards to give
developers the benefit of the doubt because we form a partnership, as was
mentioned, that is based on extreme codependency (maybe NeXT's new non-call-in
support could be framed as a 12-step program :-)  So NeXT can't afford to
alienate us, and we can't afford to have NeXT keep vital info close to its
chest.

And as for the claim that NeXT's free support to Registered Developers was
forever, I guess I've never believed that anything is "forever" or "never".
I'd feel a little chafed if I just attended DevCamp and had the rug pulled
out from under me just after my DevCamp tuition check cleared.  Maybe NeXT
needs to say that all NeRD's will get X months of free support after their
graduation, but I'm sure that X < Aug. 92 - my_NeRD_grad_month, so it's not a
concern for me.

Let's all hang together and be generous with our support of one another and
there'll be little need for panic.
-- 

Art Isbell                                                      Cubic Solutions
NeXT Registered Developer #745         NeXT software development and consulting
Email: isbell@cats.UCSC.EDU                                Voice: (408)335-1154
USmail: 95018-9442                                           Fax: (408)335-2515