The Great "Hard Return" Debate

[Ralph Cohen]

On Fri, 5 Nov 1999 14:32:31 -0800, Steve Lamb wrote:

>
>    A computer is not another piece of office equipment like a copying machine
>or a stapler.  It is not a simple tool.
>

A computer is as simple or as complex a tool as you need or want it to
be.  My young daughter can take some pretty good pictures with my Nikon
8080 SLR camera by simply using it in a point-and-shoot manner.  When I
use the same camera, however, I have the option of adjusting the
lighting (flash, no flash, fill flash, bounce flash), balancing the
trade-off between shutter speed and f-stop and depth of field,
adjusting the aperture to compensate for backlighting, selecting
different lenses, focal lengths, filters, etc. before  ever pushing the
shutter release.  My daughter sees my camera as just a simple tool for
taking snaphots.  I see my camera as a complex and flexible tool that
allows me to create, compose and capture images.  Computers are the
same way.  People who only need to compose a simple letter in
WordPerfect can view computers as modern-day typewriters.  People who
publish a full color magazines using Quark Express see them as highly
complex and powerful composition and publishing machines and data
retrieval systems.  Not everyone needs to publish a magazine.

Ralph
rpcohen@neurotron.com