]> Matt Gushee <mgushee@havenrock.com> writes: [...] > > Oh, these poor little users that want to use software without any > > effort, that's so lovely ... > > > > Any computer user must have read and understood the licence (or, less > > bad than nothing, a digest) of the software it uses. This is pointless > > to care of the ones that do not. Even if they come from the whole > > majority, faults must not be agreed but fighted against. > > In principle I agree that users should not expect to be able to use > software without effort. I certainly have invested considerable effort > to develop my own skills, both as a user and a developer, and I am proud > that I have done so (and continue to do so). But I also believe that > computers and software developers should serve society, not vice versa. I perfectly agree, and i take bringing the words: " You have to be responsible, mature, to stand on your own, no one will do your job for you, etc. etc. " and preventing people from a 'puerilistic' (what a beautiful word :) laziness, as an *important* service to the society. > You are entitled to take whatever attitude you choose toward users; I > choose a different attitude from yours. I am currently the *only* user for my software :) that is mainly oriented to help in my computer ady to day use, and sometimes drawing pretty pictures. > One reason is that I am interested in using my software to attract > consulting business, and perhaps at some point to develop a commercial > product. So for me, users are potentially customers, and if I made > statements like yours I would not have any customers (actually I have > none right now anyway, but I'm working on that ;-). I think it is a lie to pretend one can be able to use a computer without knowing anything about them. A friend of mine was bond to this believe, he bought a computer and one week later was turned crazy by the easy-to-use-and-user-friendly-interface-it-has. The only help i accepted to give him was a hundred questions list, with a little introduction on how to use search-engines and usenet, to give him tools for the answer quest. It did not work since he is a little bit too lazy, but what else can i do ? will not bring the food to his mouth, would i do ? [Not pretending you are a lier, i feel you are someone sympathetic. Sincerely] > You should also note that I am an American living in the U.S., and you > have to be a little bit stupid to get along in this society. That is one > of many things I don't like about American culture, but there's not very > much that one person can do about it. You can turn (some parts of your softwares :) into Socrates, or meet a country ground where people are in better spiritual dispositions. Nothing get me more sad than seeing almost all peoples are like old children, that have lost childs qualities [aspire to justice, aspire to communion, aspire to knowledge] and only the flaws remains [fear, laziness, seek for forgiviveness]. > I agree with you also that one should fight for principles and > right-thinking, but you have to be moderate if you want people to > listen ... at least I, in my country, have to; maybe your situation is > different. > > In any case, if I were uninterested in challenging the status quo, I > wouldn't be using OCaml, would I? Objective Caml, the computer language that discriminates philosophs :) -- Michaël Grünewald <michael-grunewald@wanadoo.fr> ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners