Re: tlug: Linux Users Old and New (was: High-end vs Low-end Linux)

[Jonathan Byrne - 3Web <jq@example.com>]

On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Chris Sekiya wrote:

>*snicker* I thought he might have been referring to me.

Yeah, I thought he was too ;-)

>Agreed, of course.  If the massive influx of Linux users included a fair
>amount of coders, then perhaps we wouldn't lose as much.  Unfortunately,
>though, such does not seem to be the case.

Never is.  The programmers are at the tip of a pyramid which grows from the
top down.  At least Linux will probably always have a thicker top than most
other pyramids.

>> I've also written that I think tools emphasizing ease-of-use often
>> lead to technically poor output, at least when coupled with the
>> "instant gratification" of WYSIWYG, but that's an orthogonal issue to
>> those of "community." 
>
>Again, agreed.

Agreed that it's orthoganal or agreed that ease-of-use tools encourage a poor
end product?  If it's the second one, I don't buy into that, for two reasons.
One is just that a person who doesn't know jack about how to not make an ugly
page can make just as ugly of a page with TeX as they can with a graphical
word processor, or a visual (but not graphical) one from the DOS days.

Reason number two is that the very worst HTML I've ever seen - garbage even
worse than what is produced by MS Office when it exports to HTML - was hand
coded.

If a person lacks competence, they will produce junk either way.  A graphical
word processor makes it easier to produce the junk, but the end result is
about the same.  A graphical word processor also makes it a lot easier to
produce something good, if you know how.  (Note: I do not apply this to
WYSIWYG HTML editors, of which there are only two varieties: ones that suck
and ones that really suck.)

Cheers,

Jonathan Byrne
Media and Content Section
3Web - Your Internet Solution! <URL:http://www.threeweb.ad.jp/index.en.html>
3Web Channel <URL: http://www.3web.co.jp/index.en.html>

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