Re: Fonts and other arguable issues

[Peter Gold <pgold -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Hey, kids! It's a long weekend, and nobody's working on deadline, so
let's start a software product flame war and rehash all that old stuff!!

MHO:

If you think product "X" is not intuitive, you probably mean that it's not
what *YOU* have learned to intuit from products you know. Working on a
project with an unfamiliar product is a recipe for cooking up a stew of
resentment and anger each time something works differently from your
familiar habits. Spend some time with product "X" (FrameMaker in this
case), work its tutorials, read its manuals, etc. IOW, learn it nearer to
the level of the product you know well and love. When you are comfortable
with "X's" way of working, then compare the two for usability, value, etc,
to make it a fair comparison.

If it always crashes, perhaps you should contact support and ask why, get
workarounds, etc. Did you install it correctly, as described in the
documentation, or by intuition; provide sufficient resources, etc?  You
get free support (initial, if not forever) when you buy a product, so
what's the point in not asking for it?

Are you implying that Word has no fatal bugs, is completely intuitive,
IOW, perfect?

Tim's issue is more to the point: How do writers make their stands when
assigned to projects that they feel will consume resources and still
result in a seriously flawed product? How do those who manage writers, and
those who decide on company-wide software and documentation policies
provide for participation in these decisions? "Is anyone watching the
store? If so, is it someone who cares, someone who gives voice to those
who have appropriate and direct experience?"

DISCLAIMER 1: I am a FrameMaker trainer for an independent VAR.
DISCLAIMER 2: I also use Word and don't feel I suffer from it.
DISCLAIMER 3: A word processor should know its limitations.

Regards,

Peter Gold
pgold -at- netcom -dot- com

"Information cannot argue with a closed mind."          ...Elaine May

On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, Wing, Michael J quoted Tim Altom's comments about
Word's limitations:

> ><snip>
> >e) couldn't possibly be influenced by the fact that your
> company has a large stake in the success of FrameMaker?  Does it?

> I like FrameMaker quite a bit and have used it on a few projects.
> However, it also has drawbacks.  I found it slow, cumbersome, and
> non-intuitive.  Getting things to print as the appear on screen
> (especially alignment of headers and footers) wasn't all that simple.  I
> also had many crashes (often freezing my entire system) when I
> reoriented text/graphics on the master page.

> Mike Wing


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