On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 09:50 +0100, James Fuller wrote:

> Just getting to the critical mass of functionality in an application
> lets say like 'notepad' is heroic in my opinion, Word is massive,
> emacs....well I wont even start.
The upside is that a 'dumb' user can use emacs... nearly Word
without consideration for the 80%.
I'm sure Len can quote properly that saying
about 'easy for easy stuff' doable for hard stuff.

> 
> 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.
> 
> 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)
> 
> as a seperate thought....how long will it be before we start seeing
> automated composition of documents for human consumption...not talking
> newspages on Yahoo, or rss aggregation; we have a 10 finger speed limit
> on the creation of documents currently...with magnitude increase of data
> (live and historical) I can see a tipping point where are at a minimum
> assisted authoring may come more into effect. How does this affect the
> authoring experience within an application like Word?

I don't know Jim. I don't know.
When someone integrates them all into (Erics definition of) web 2.0?
If I have to fight the app for stupid numbering the way I want,
I won't bother.
If it just works, I'll use it.
  I don't have the time to become a Word expert.
... elisp just *might* be worth learning.


-- 
Regards, 

Dave Pawson
XSLT + Docbook FAQ
http://www.dpawson.co.uk