andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman) (01/25/91)
In article <13985@ganymede.inmos.co.uk> conor@inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill) writes: >A 'user' just wants to run applications. Aren't you a computer user? Give (non-programmer) ``users'' some credit ... a user who understands that they can construct their own applications by plugging together some tools in the correct order would want some easy mechanism to construct pipelines (and pipelines aren't the only model). -- Andrew Newman, Software Engineer. | Net: andy@research.canon.oz.au Canon Information Systems Research Australia | Phone: +61 2 805 2914 P.O. Box 313 North Ryde, NSW, Australia 2113 | Fax: +61 2 805 2929
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (01/25/91)
In article <1991Jan24.222501.7054@research.canon.oz.au>, andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman) writes: > In article <13985@ganymede.inmos.co.uk> conor@inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill) writes: > >A 'user' just wants to run applications. > > Aren't you a computer user? > > Give (non-programmer) ``users'' some credit ... a user who understands that > they can construct their own applications by plugging together some tools > in the correct order would want some easy mechanism to construct pipelines > (and pipelines aren't the only model). There are, unfortunately, some who want the software to do all their thinking for them. It is only those who can be called non-programmers. Anyone who has to put things together is already doing programming. As andy points out, even a pipeline is a program. One of the problems I have with using "packages" is that they do not allow the combining of tools. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet) {purdue,pur-ee}!l.cc!hrubin(UUCP)