[Am-info] Word Processing Features

[Dan Strychalski]

Quoting and responding to Geoffrey (esoteric@3times25.net), T. Guilbert
(ethical@1of1.net) posted --

> "|I maintain that macros are not worth the effort of the software
> "|company.  Why?  Because, unfortunately, macro users are a huge
> "|minority.  I'd bet  less than 5% of word processor users even know
> "|what a macro is.
> 
> As 95% of word processor users are probably Windows users, your bet is
> a safe, even conservative, one.  But I understood Sujal to be

The problem is not that 95% are Windows users, but that 100% have been
indoctrinated to believe that you have to be a genius to do anything but
click the buttons on a button bar -- and that it doesn't matter, because
Big Brother -- the "smart people" in Redmond or Cupertino -- will take
care of everything for you.

One of the guys in my section has installed Linux (actually all of them
have, but he's the only one who boots it up regularly, even if I rarely
see anything but the Mandrake screen saver on his screen), declared that
he wants to "learn Linux programming," and even bought a book on the
subject. One day I mentioned something about understanding hex and ASCII
-- the most basic of basics, which I, a math dunce and non-programmer,
picked up before anything else -- and he immediately said, "Oh, no no
no, I don't want to learn that stuff."

Well. What would you think of someone who wanted to learn chemistry but
absolutely refused to study the periodic table?

This is not normal. This is not the way we approach other subjects, and
it is not the way we approached computers -- even if our involvement was
accidental and we'd used one happily and productively for more than a
year without knowing the first thing about it, as in my case -- when
computers began proliferating in homes and offices.

Something has happened -- something ugly and dangerous. And when I see
Microsoft blocking the appointment of a technically knowledgeable
special master, objecting strenuously to a quick primer in digital
technology for the Appeals Court judges, and setting itself the goal of
putting "Microsoft-literate" -- not "computer-literate" -- people in as
many schools as possible (this was in the white paper submitted to Judge
Motz that Wendy gave us a preview of), I am hard put not to suspect that
Microsoft has played a big role in it.

I also note that the elements of my CP/M system that made it possible
for me to gain a basic understanding of digital tools -- correctly
labeled and arranged ASCII tables, and working ASCII command keystrokes
-- were missing from Microsoft's MS/PC DOS products from the beginning.

Again, I don't wonder why Mr. Gates said he had as much power as the
president as early as 1993....

Dan Strychalski