On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 09:20:34AM -0500, Allister MacLeod wrote: > On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 09:07:58AM -0500, David Yitzchak Cohen wrote: > > find more annoyance than use, and any scheme that's capable of failing > > will always fail exactly when you need it to work right, as the sage > > Murphy pointed out ages ago. > > I believe the butt of Murphy's pronouncement was users, rather than > implementers. Hmm ... then this must be a correlary (spelling?) thereof. . . > However, it was an admonishment to implementers to make > things so that it's as hard as possible for users to screw up. When the syntax classification scheme is trying to examine a user's file, it's out of the user's hands whether or not the scheme will screw up. Implementors need to make tools that work, and then we can talk about whether or not users should be allowed to screw up. (Since that'll never happen, I'll probably not get an opportunity to point out that I'm a very pro-UNIX guy - if the user requests a gun, give it to him if you can, even if you know he's about to shoot himself in the foot with it. Everybody has the right to "rm -rf /" just the same as everybody has the right to commit suicide. Your computer, your choice.) - Dave -- Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word processor? It's simple, Skyler. You've seen what food processors do to food, right? Please visit this link: http://rotter.net/israel
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