Dave Pawson wrote:

>The upside is that a 'dumb' user can use emacs... nearly Word
>without consideration for the 80%.
>  
>

I think when u mean 'dumb user' u might mean a different group; I cant
imagine anyone using emacs outside of developers and authors and when I
have tried to teach people outside of this group it fails within the
first 5 minutes. As for expecting anyone to use elisp in anger outside
of this group, the same thinking applies.

>I'm sure Len can quote properly that saying
>about 'easy for easy stuff' doable for hard stuff
>
+1

>>I think that multiple overlapping interfaces/functionality is one way to
>>ensure adoption/usage across a broad spectrum of users with
>>software....so the argument could be that everyone gets a measure of
>>bloatware for the common good (an analogy could be made with
>>biodiversity and everyone/thing living walking around with lots of
>>useless genetic code).
>>    
>>
>Is that how M$ have filled the coffers? I don't know.
>  
>

nothing wrong with making money, as long as its me....hehe

>>for my 2 crowns, i generally agree with Uche O. comments and would like
>>to always be able to escape to my own home cooked xml format for whatever.
>>    
>>
>+1
>When you need to.
>I was thinking of the simple report
>the 'note' to a colleague
>the 999999 uses we all have for text (and occasionally bits of graphics)
>each day.
>I need to let X know about Y.
>  Word used to be the application that sufficed for that.
>(I now use emacs)
>  
>
I hope these 'tactical' style documents (and their formats) get sorted
by multiplicity of emerging XML microformats...something should stick.

IMHO we should be looking at things like W3C compound documents activity
http://www.w3.org/2004/CDF/ to hang our hat on e.g. how to solve 'the
ultimate XML language for Word like documents' problem discussed in this
thread.

Instead of looking for 'the ultimate xml markup for documents' why not
create a predictable package whereby svg, xhtml, atom, microformats and
whatever can co-exist freely and just let the 'bazaar' sort out the
various payloads.

cheers, Jim Fuller