taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (07/01/86)
-------- This article is from utzoo!henry and was received on Fri Jun 27 18:28:37 1986 -------- Bruce Sesnovich writes, in part: > Before word processors and electronic mail existed, important letters or > documents were usually handwritten and hand-corrected, often in several > drafts, before being typed and mailed. The typing of the letter represented > a finalizing and codifying process which encouraged well thought-out > communication. Care needed to be taken, since a single error could > necessitate re-typing the entire letter or document. This sort of thing has been an active topic of discussion recently among professional writers. The argument has validity. There is another side to it, however: quite often, when documents were prepared by the traditional means, the author refrained from fixing minor problems or making modest improvements precisely *because* there was too much overhead. More often than not, the alternative to error-free typing was not re-typing, but living with the inevitable mistakes. The price of being a perfectionist was very high in pre-computer days, and many were unwilling to pay it. Sometimes the high cost of a new version encouraged well thought-out communication; more often it encouraged tolerance of poorly thought-out communication, because doing better was too expensive. (Enraged king holding a piece of paper: "Torture the author of this memo until he explains what it means!") The argument is almost precisely analogous to that of the advocates of batch operation over time-sharing: "time-sharing encourages sloppiness, because it makes life too easy". In fact, time-sharing, like word processing, is neutral: it facilitates *either* sloppy work *or* good work. Instant turnaround encourages sloppy workers to just bash away until they get it more-or-less right, but it also encourages careful workers not to settle for second best. Most professional writers who have switched to word-processing technology feel that it has *improved* the net quality of their writing, by reducing the practical problems of revision and improvement. Note that these are people who make their living selling documents, and hence have strong incentives to produce professional-quality output. Far too many fingers are being pointed at the machinery used to do the work, and far too few at the users of the machinery. Considering the rate of functional near-illiteracy among high-school graduates (not to mention corporate management!), is it really surprising that poorly-done documents abound? Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry P.S. There is another aspect that just occurred to me. If phone calls cost $100 each, clearly there would be great incentive to plan them well. But many people would stop using telephones entirely, even in emergencies. Easing communication encourages people to communicate. Both the increased volume and the inexperience of novice communicators cause problems, and new ways of dealing with the problems may be needed. Overall, though, the change may be a good thing.
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (07/03/86)
This article is from ihnp4!whuts!6243tes (Terry Sterkel) and was received on Thu Jul 3 08:22:34 1986 Henry Spencer writes in part: > > Bruce Sesnovich writes, in part: > > > Before word processors and electronic mail existed, important letters or > > documents were usually handwritten and hand-corrected, often in several > > drafts, before being typed and mailed. The typing of the letter represented > > a finalizing and codifying process which encouraged well thought-out > > communication. Care needed to be taken, since a single error could > > necessitate re-typing the entire letter or document. > > Most professional writers who have switched to word-processing technology > feel that it has *improved* the net quality of their writing, by reducing > the practical problems of revision and improvement. To quote an overworked phrase "The Medium is the MASSAGE" (mAssage not mEssage). I firmly believe that most commentators who take the approach that "technology is neutral, the problem is with lazy or incompetent people" miss the fact that when you change the environment, however subtly, you change behavior and sub- sequently results. That is the message of the the (in-)famous Hawthorne Experiments earlier this century. I am embroiled in this discussion frequently over lunch by the resident software group who feel that "pleasant but quaint" mechanisms as specifications, test plans, structured development, dry runs, paper testing, etc. are artifacts of a by-gone age. They would rather get on the terminal and hack, claiming higher productivity. My personal perception over the last 15 years is that the quality and timeliness of software has been dropping especially since timesharing programmer's terminals became de rigueur. To take another example, I am (perhaps over-) familiar with the past thirty years of science fiction writers. The new wave (last two to three years) is remarkably void of spelling diction, and grammar errors compared to novels of the fifties and sixties. Unfortunately, the "clever turn of phrase" that frequently was a technical violation of spelling, diction, or grammar are also missing. To pick on two examples, take Clarke and Anthony. Compare Clarke of the sixties (2001) and Clarke of the eighties (2010). He proudly proclaims his use of Wordstar (an early PC word processing software package) in the second book. I fell asleep reading 2010. The clean, lean approach has been bloated by mechanistic perfection allowed by word processing. Piers Anthony (yes, a pseudonym) always been a high-volume writer pumping out four to eight serial novels a year. His hallmark has been high entertainment (XANTH, OX/ORN, ADEPT series) or stabs at philosophy (TAROT series). Above all, he was entertaining. He spent four pages in an earlier book explaining his work area consisting of a manual typewriter in an unheated stable. In one of this latest books, he proudly announces the purchase of word processing which he used on that book. The book reads as if it is a hacked together string of episodes and puns (the series was noted for its puns). It was merely selections from earlier novels from the series, some puns, and little thought. If you made it this far, you deserve a short wrap-up. My message is that neither Clarke nor Anthony can be declared anything short of masters of their trade. If the introduction of word processing has changed their efforts, what is happening to us journeymen, novices, and *grade school children* who are having technology put on us. To repeat "the medium is the mAssage" -- Terry Sterkel AT&T Bell Labs, ihnp4!whuts!6243tes
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (07/11/86)
This article is from utzoo!henry (Henry Spencer) and was received on Thu Jul 10 22:27:34 1986 > ...most commentators who take the approach that "technology is > neutral, the problem is with lazy or incompetent people" miss the fact that > when you change the environment, however subtly, you change behavior and sub- > sequently results... A change in technology certainly changes the results, often in subtle ways, but that does *not* imply that it is to blame for poor quality. This is the classic "after this, therefore because of this" fallacy. > I am embroiled in this discussion frequently over lunch by the resident > software group who feel that "pleasant but quaint" mechanisms as > specifications, test plans, structured development, dry runs, paper testing, > etc. are artifacts of a by-gone age... These are probably the same people who would patch the binary rather than recompile in the old days. At least they (probably) don't do that any more. To repeat the point: technology is *neutral*. People who will take the easy-but-sloppy way out will do so regardless of technology; only the details change. When you are remembering the Good Old Days, remember that there was no shortage of Bad Old Days. > ... My personal perception over the last 15 > years is that the quality and timeliness of software has been dropping > especially since timesharing programmer's terminals became de rigueur. Are you sure you aren't confusing a greater volume of software, with a greater spread of quality and timeliness, with an overall decline? Look at the good stuff too, not just the bad stuff that catches your eye. > ... To pick on two examples, take Clarke and Anthony. Compare Clarke > of the sixties (2001) and Clarke of the eighties (2010). He proudly > proclaims his use of Wordstar ... in the second book. I fell asleep > reading 2010. Asking an author not to change in 20 years, especially when he wasn't exactly young 20 years ago, is asking a bit much. Heinlein's work deteriorated badly long before he started using word processing. And some of us don't agree that 2010 was bad, by the way. > ... Piers Anthony > ... always been a high-volume writer pumping out four to eight > serial novels a year. His hallmark has been high entertainment... > or stabs at philosophy ... Above all, he was entertaining. > ... he proudly announces the purchase of word processing which he > used on [a new] book. The book reads as if it is a hacked together string > of episodes and puns (the series was noted for its puns)... If you're speaking of the Xanth books, the degeneration in them started long before Anthony computerized. This too is a well-known syndrome: "once you've saved the world, what do you do for an encore?". Being a high-volume writer for many years is not an easy thing to do; are you sure the word processor is really to blame? > ... neither Clarke nor Anthony can be declared anything short of > masters of their trade. If the introduction of word processing has changed > their efforts, what is happening to us journeymen, novices, and *grade > school children* who are having technology put on us... You have not established that it is, in fact, the introduction of word processing which has changed their efforts. One could just as easily claim that the introduction of word processing helped offset the inevitable dropoff in quality due to age in one case and sheer fatigue in the other. Tell me, Terry, have you run into *any* outstanding fiction of late? Surely there has been something you've really liked. And the odds are pretty good that it was done on a computer. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry