🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <TIM.91Apr1174124@kahlo.cstr.ed.ac.uk> tim@cstr.ed.ac.uk
(Tim Bradshaw) writes:

   1. If the program includes some kind of extension language (Emacs) and
   the user wants to make it do something that is not supplied with it
   (say, support a new programming language mode).  Or if the user is
   using the extension language to do something and their program
   contains bugs.  Neither of these could reasonably be autoconfigured,
   and both involve things I would consider to be `support'.

I would consider these to be "consultation" or "teaching" more than
"support," actually.  Also, they don't involve the use of the product
itself, but of teaching the person enough to get their own code to
work.  This is certainly a useful service, but I don't think that it's
the same sort of thing as "helping someone to use Emacs."

   2. If the program is a compiler (gcc) and the user wishes it to
   produce code for a new architecture.  Or if the program needs general
   porting to some system.  Neither of these cases are autoconfigurable
   given the current state of the art.

Once again, I would classify these more as consultation than "support."
There will always be a need for this, but it's hardly something that
will (or should) be needed by most users of a product.  Most people
that use gcc, for example, simply unpack it and use it.

   [...] and in general cannot be easy since it's unavoidably a
   programming problem.

Which is, in a nutshell, why I don't classify it as "support."

--
Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
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There can't be a crisis next week--my schedule is already full.