Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 11:30:13 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu, molter@logic.it, adrian@obiwan.psinet.net.au, vas@vas.tomsk.su, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: To UNIX or not to UNIX ;-). Was: PPP problems. Message-ID: <199706160200.LAA08719@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <9175.866423853@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Jun 15, 97 06:17:33 pm"
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Jordan K. Hubbard stands accused of saying: > > Me, with any luck. Last exam for this semester today. Yay! Now, if > > anyone wants to fund me for this exercise... 8) > > This is a highly attractive scenario - please send me some financial > estimates and I'll see if we can't perhaps put a package together. Heh. Jordan calls my bluff. (I'll mail you later today/tomorrow about this one.) > I also expect that Mike would have to send me those estimates before I > could truly say it's doable, but if this were the start of an > organized "pledge drive" then I'd toss in $10K as an initial seed > figure right here and now, not even having to think too hard about it. > This is something that really needs doing and I've been convinced for > a long time that there's nobody in their right minds who'd do it all > for free - it's just too much work. I don't think anyone needs convincing that it's worthwhile, but if anyone needs convincing that it's a long, difficult, fairly tedious job, I'd be happy to digress at some length. One of the major attractions of the modular architecture I've been expounding is that implementing a single module is a much smaller task, and thus easier, and less daunting. > The masses don't lead GUI development - they just don't. It's one of > the great ironies of human factors engineering. :-) The masses only > know a usable thing when they've seen it, and *then* and only then > they will tell you what they hate about it so that you can make > suitable adjustments. Ask them exactly what they want up-front, and > without a visible guide, and most of the rabble will say something to > the effect of "Uh.. I dunno, something graphical, I guess! I mean, > you know, like windows!" :-) *chuckle* I was actually looking for mutters of support from the potential technical collaberators. I know all about the way user feedback is usually directed at other users rather than at the developer. 8( > No, just a sign that human nature is still about the same as it's > always been. The tribes are simply waiting for you to part the red > sea and lead them across, they really aren't interested in the > facinating lecture you're trying to deliver on hydrodynamics > first. ;-) Hmm, so I should forget the evaluation-version water wings and just go right ahead with the holy thunder, and wait for the complaints about the brimstone odour afterwards? > Jordan -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
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