FW: Crashing?

[Lizak Kristin <LizakKristin -at- JDCORP -dot- DEERE -dot- COM>]

Forwarded per Goeff's request! (P.S. The "marketgeeks" weren't thrilled with
your response!!! ha ha)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Geoff Hart [SMTP:geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca]
> Sent: Friday, June 05, 1998 7:37 AM
> To:   Lizak Kristin
> Subject:      Crashing?
>
> Greets!
>
> Please forward this to techwr-l for additional commentary. Thanks!
>
> --Geoff
> **********
> Lizak Kristin wondered how to get around saying "crashing" because
> the marketgeeks don't like the word. I must admit, you've got me
> puzzled here about the context. If the product crashes, you're doing
> a grave disservice to the reader by pretending anything else;
> remember the mirth Microsoft provoked when they announced that they'd
> eliminated all "unrecoverable application errors" in Windows95? They
> did that by renaming them "general protection faults", not by fixing
> the problem, and lost a lot of credibility thereby. If "crashing" is
> too jargony and direct, I think your proposed solution, "program
> stops responding", is elegant (direct, correct, and not too jargony)
> and Marketing should simply learn to live with it... or persuade the
> developers to fix the problem rather than making you cover it up.
> "Stops responding" has another invaluable benefit that the Marketeers
> will probably accept: it carries the implicit assumption that the
> problem is probably Microsoft's fault! <g>
> --Geoff Hart @8^{)}
> geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
>
> Hart's corollary to Murphy's law: "Occasionally, things really do work
> right."