work@dgh.Eng.Sun.COM (David G. Hough at work) (01/23/91)
I'd hope, after Dick Dunn's brilliant parody, that people who don't have any insights that are even more brilliant would leave the subject alone or move it to alt.something. But I won't let that stop me: For Christmas would you rather have a nice set of oak furniture which closely matches your present needs and which you can probably adapt your future needs to, or would you rather have a nice set of power woodworking tools with which, IN PRINCIPLE, you could build exactly what you want when you want it, provided only that you were willing to expend the necessary time developing the necessary expertise? The fact is, most consumers will take the furniture. Most woodworking craftsmen that actually build such furniture would take the tools. There are a lot more consumers than craftsmen, but the manufacturers of woodworking tools may get a better return on investment than furniture manufacturers, even though the market is much smaller. Clearly both are essential. "Which is better" is a matter of taste and point of view and is not a meaningful or decidable question, unlike the seemingly closely-related "which is better for me". The comp.arch problem for the 1990's is how to provide a way for consumers to benefit from the power of Unix without actually knowing anything about it, and without diminishing the availability or the underlying power for the craftsmen. Please start a new Subject: line if you want to talk about that. -- David Hough dgh@eng.sun.com dgh@validgh.com na.hough@na-net.stanford.edu