Re: Welcome to 'tool' confusion

From: kragen@pobox.com
Date: Thu Apr 19 2001 - 22:48:08 PDT


"Adam L. Beberg" <beberg@mithral.com> writes:
> Again the question to FoRKies is: "what EXACTLY that genuine real world
> average users need doesn't come already included in their $700 PC, or can be
> downloaded free?"

An operating system that doesn't need to be reinstalled and an office
suite that doesn't secretly embed traceable serial numbers in all
their documents.

A user interface they can understand and which displays the
relationships between components so they can uninstall things without
being afraid they're breaking something else they use.

A Web publishing interface they can understand. (Maybe WikiWikiWeb,
Blogger, Manila, and UltimateBB count here --- you can't download them
free, except for Wiki, but you can use them free.)

Software that works.

A programming environment they can understand and use. Excel is the
closest thing I can think of.

Encryption tools they can understand well enough to use.

When I say "understand", I mean "predict the behavior of" --- in the
same way a driver "understands" a car, not the way a mechanic
understands a car.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:25:59 PDT