detert@lognet2.af.mil (CMS David K. Detert) (09/14/89)
I got my InfoWorld (yeah, I know) 2 days late this week for some reason. Anyway, I never miss Jerry's articles and ,lo and behold, he again mentions our beloved Amy. (I'm surprised this hasnt' already been posted). He is talking about how everyone will eventually be able to program computers and then the following (reprinted without permission): That came home to me when I visited the physics people at Stanford Linear Accelerator (called SLAC, but I forget what the C stands for <maybe Center?>. First, the whole office--at least the office I visited--was using Amiga computers tied into a large mini. Everyone from secretaries to theoritical physicists had an Amiga, and they were all quite happy with the machines. Second, everyone was programming. EVERYONE. Some of the programs were pretty simple, but the impressive thing was that secretaries who didn't know they were programming were telling the machines to do things well outside what their applications programs (like Word Perfect) could do. Third, a lot of that was being done in AREXX, which is the Amiga version of the REXX programming language. That was it. He went on to talk about REXX on PCs and things. I thought it was a good promo as far as it went. It's too bad he didn't go out on a limb and draw some REAL conclusions about all that he had witnessed. Imagine, secretaries programming, who would have ever thought? And, everyone quite happy. Dont' take this wrong, but I thought it was neat that he can't figure out or remember what the C stands for, but can't see the forest before the trees when it comes to how easy the Amiga is for everyone. He probably even witnessed some real multitasking, but couldn't figure out what that was. Don't get me wrong, I like old Jerry and his columns, but I use them strictly for entertainment value much like I used to use John Dvorak's before he went to PC Mag or whereever. Anyway, just though you'd like to know what old Jerry's up to these days. I think those 2 paragraphs I quoted could have made a REAL good article all by themselves and some REAL conclusions could have been drawn by an objective magazine. Anyone think Commodore should paraphrase them for their commercial value????? Cheers, Dave CMSgt David K Detert, USAF MILNET: detert@lognet2.af.mil