Re: SEUL: What's the diff to SEUL ?

[lso8219@cs.rit.edu (Loren S Osborn)]

> 
> Loren et al.
> 
> Beyond any intentions whatsoever to flame anyone, I get the feeling 

No, on this particular regaurd, I am well deserving of a good flame.
I spoke  (wrote) carelessly and needed a wakeup call.

My only excuse (and it's a poor one) is that I've been trying to be staying
on-top-of 3 listservers, *AND* 3 classes, and am trying to cruise through
my email as fast as posibble while still hoping to get my point... I have
been responding to email while half-asleep, and not re-reading most of what
I've been sending... 

> that you may be overestimating some users over others: In your 
> earlier message, you wrote about the 'shortsighted' who require a

I have to admit that I had certain people in mind when I made each of
these generalizations, and will try to explain each to you in hopes of
recovering some of my pride...

When I mentioned "shortsighted" I was refering to my father (one heck of
a EE by the way) who (for lack of time, if nothing else) judges the
quality of an OS by the quality and ease of use of it's interface.
He want's to sit down and use it, but be able to fix it if he has to...
without spending alot of time...

> powerfull GUI. Now, you mention that SEUL may be for the 'retired'.
> Well, in the SEG, just to mention a few, there are **Senior 
> scientists** some of which are **bosses** and **national 
> representatives** in international research foundations. Pardon me 

Ok... I know *MANY* retirees who are at the very least computer-savy,
but the "retirees" that I spend the most time with are my grandparents.
(heck, my *PARENTS* are close to retirement age...)  My grandmother comes
from a clerical background in a car dealership, and my grandfather was
professionally involved in violin, jewelry, advertising, and glass.

My father and I (the two computer geeks of our house) *GAVE* my grandfather
a computer (granted it was an -XT).  He went to classes, and tried to learn,
but ended up giving it back to us after 6 months... He couldn't figure
out how to do anything with it...

> but this 'Dilbert' thing is truly *insulting* AND if you have such an 
> attitude towards what non-hackers like or do not like, request or do 
> not request and believe that everyone else who do not know 800 Unix 
> commands are idiots (that's the way I understood your 'Dilbert' 
> irony) you are nothing but seriously damaging the *intentions*, *good 
> spirit* and *hard work* of everyone else in this project. Sorry to 

Well, in-fact you do mis-understand the allusion to Dilbert... (Not that
I expect anyone to understand anything banged out of my keyboard at the
weird hours I've been keeping lately...)  I meant Scott Adams' portail of
the "manager"... not that many managers are *ACTUALLY* like this, but
some do exist, and I have met a few... Scott Adams' "manager" is the
unfortunate soul who doesn't know anything about the project(s) that
they are managing, and doesn't realize that their lack of knowledge will
have an impact on the project...  

I'm not saying that these are the only people that should use SEUL, either,
just that SEUL should be designed with this "lowest common denominator"
in mind... I didn't want to say "easy enough that a kid could use it."
because many kids, nowadays, are much more computer-savy than their parents,
and this could intimidate the parents...  

> write this but end users should be referred with the same respect as
> they see at the very hackers who've decided to dedicate their time & 
> energies to do something for them. Thank you.

You are right, and I sincerely appologize...  I'm sorry if I offended
anyone.  What I said neither helped further SEUL, nor clarify my views
on it.

Loren