🚀 go-pugleaf

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This article is from utzoo!henry
 and was received on Fri Jun 27 18:28:37 1986
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Bruce Sesnovich writes, in part:

> Before word processors and electronic mail existed, important letters or
> documents were usually handwritten and hand-corrected, often in several
> drafts, before being typed and mailed.  The typing of the letter represented
> a finalizing and codifying process which encouraged well thought-out
> communication. Care needed to be taken, since a single error could
> necessitate re-typing the entire letter or document.

This sort of thing has been an active topic of discussion recently among
professional writers.  The argument has validity.  There is another side to
it, however:  quite often, when documents were prepared by the traditional
means, the author refrained from fixing minor problems or making modest
improvements precisely *because* there was too much overhead.  More often
than not, the alternative to error-free typing was not re-typing, but
living with the inevitable mistakes.  The price of being a perfectionist
was very high in pre-computer days, and many were unwilling to pay it.
Sometimes the high cost of a new version encouraged well thought-out
communication; more often it encouraged tolerance of poorly thought-out
communication, because doing better was too expensive.

(Enraged king holding a piece of paper:  "Torture the author of this
memo until he explains what it means!")

The argument is almost precisely analogous to that of the advocates of
batch operation over time-sharing:  "time-sharing encourages sloppiness,
because it makes life too easy".  In fact, time-sharing, like word processing,
is neutral:  it facilitates *either* sloppy work *or* good work.  Instant
turnaround encourages sloppy workers to just bash away until they get it
more-or-less right, but it also encourages careful workers not to settle
for second best.

Most professional writers who have switched to word-processing technology
feel that it has *improved* the net quality of their writing, by reducing
the practical problems of revision and improvement.  Note that these are
people who make their living selling documents, and hence have strong
incentives to produce professional-quality output.

Far too many fingers are being pointed at the machinery used to do the
work, and far too few at the users of the machinery.  Considering the rate
of functional near-illiteracy among high-school graduates (not to mention
corporate management!), is it really surprising that poorly-done documents
abound?

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

P.S. There is another aspect that just occurred to me.  If phone calls cost
$100 each, clearly there would be great incentive to plan them well.  But
many people would stop using telephones entirely, even in emergencies.
Easing communication encourages people to communicate.  Both the increased
volume and the inexperience of novice communicators cause problems, and new
ways of dealing with the problems may be needed.  Overall, though, the
change may be a good thing.