andy (07/12/82)
it appears that unless a problem is easily solved it will continue to plague us forever. i realize dealing with the macro package is a difficult task, but are you implying, henry, that only simple, easy to solve problems are resolved and anything else is declared factor-12 and categorized as too "hard"? what does "re-implementing from scratch" mean? buying a new macro package because this one is too hard to fix? i have nothing against simple solutions, and i realize that crises arise that require immediate attention. but the macro mess has been with us for years, and i don't think it unreasonable to expect more progress than one unwanted error message messing up my final copy. it's bad enough waiting to get on the only passable-quality printer, but to have to get in line again because of messed-up output is very annoying. the macros are but a part of a greater annoyance. it seems to me that the system is geared almost totally to text processing. it is agreed that the macro package leaves something to be desired. there is but one final copy printer available and that one prints poorly and has an incomplete character set. instead of getting at least one more high quality, daisy wheel printer, we get a dot matrix one. sure, graphics and the like are nice, but it's letter-quality output that we need. all the hours of typing and editing have one purpose and goal: to produce high-quality final copy--that's what it's all about. so how come there is practically no emphasis on this point? we have defective software and hardware and are expected to somehow cope with and work around these inadequacies. to me, this just isn't right. if you are going to charge money for a service, then that is precisely what you must provide: service, not excuses.