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Subject:Re: Front Page Fussy From:Peter Taylor <sector_five -at- HOTMAIL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 12 Jan 1999 15:21:38 PST
>IMHO, FrontPage should only be used by people who know HTML so they can
>fix any mistakes it makes. I assume your mom's needs include the
ability
>to create pages that *work* so she doesn't have to worry about fixing
>them. FrontPage doesn't meet those needs. OTOH, if her needs are to
make
>a page that looks good on her screen, and it doesn't matter what it
>looks like to the rest of the world, she's in the right hands.
No, she knows what the tool can do and she uses it properly. She doesn't
want to do anything "fancy" (for lack of a better term). She creates her
pages to meet the limitations of the tool and it works fine. If you
expect to use FrontPage to do professional work for clients...well,
that's up to you. It's tough enough to code pages that look good on all
browsers by hand, let alone using a WYSIWYG no-code tool.
>> I find that a lot of people who bash Microsoft do so because a) it's
[snip]
>Aren't you swinging the pendulum a little too far in the opposite
[snip]
>sure the others here who used it and weren't satisfied with its
>performance feel the same way.
I'm not certain you saw the original message which attributed the
performance of FrontPage to "Microsoft attitude". That's the point I was
indirectly addressing so as not to offend the person responsible.
>> Look at it this way: You paid around $75-$100 dollars to purchase a
tool
>> that does approximately 75% of what you want it to.
>
>The problem is not that FrontPage only does 75% of the job. The problem
>is that FrontPage does 100% of the job, does about 25% of it wrong
(more
>or less, depending on how picky you are) and *doesn't let you know it's
>been done wrong.* I consider that a failure for any product.
It does 25% of it wrong *in your specific case*. You admit yourself that
it's more or less than 25% depending on how picky the user is. So what's
"wrong" for you is "right" for someone else, correct? And you consider
it a failure of the product that it doesn't satisfy 100% of *your
personal needs* even though it does satisfy the needs of many others?
That's a big egocentric, isn't it?
Like I said, if it's not doing what you want for the price you're
paying, you are free to develop or pay someone to develop the tool that
does 100% "right" according to your personal needs. It will probably
cost you in the order of 1000%-10000% more than the retail product on
the shelf, but it will do exactly what you want.
Peter Taylor.
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