[texhax] Doubts regarding the TeX & Latex

Herbert Gintis hgintis at comcast.net
Fri Jul 25 16:41:49 CEST 2003


At 03:23 PM 7/25/2003 -0400, William Adams wrote:
>Herb said:
>>  If so, I must protest. Microsoft is the best thing that ever happened 
>> to computer users, ever.
>
>I'll have to remember that the next time a Word document gets repaginated 
>merely 'cause I tried to update the index.
         I agree with you. I only use Word when I have to. I wrote my own 
word processor years ago that is much better. BUT, only for me.
         Millions of people successfully use Word without advanced 
schooling or the time to RTFM.

>>         As for money, Bill Gates is the greatest humanitarian charitable 
>> giver in the history of the human race, and the profits Microsoft makes 
>> are minuscule in comparison to the power he has given people to control 
>> information without being beholden to the technocratic gurus of this world.
>
>Right, one is instead beholden to the technocrats at Microsoft and at 
>their mercy re: whether or no bugs get fixed.
>
>Moreover, he achieved his fortune by steamrolling over other companies 
>which often had much better technologies or architectures---take a look at 
>Jerry Kaplan's book _StartUp_ for one example of this.
         It is inevitable that when something become universal, better 
products get shunted aside. The point is that it be universal, so that 
people don't have to learn 17 different ways of doing things. 
Standardization is the enemy of creativity. But creativity is the enemy of 
mass popularity and usability.
         I'm sorry for sounding off like this. I am an economist and we are 
trained to look at products from the point of view of the user, not the 
creator. I would hate to have to work for MS, and I hate to have to deal 
with their products (except PowerPoint, which is pretty cool, and IE, which 
is the best there is).

Best,

Herb




>As regards doubts on TeX & Latex, well, ``The TeX Showcase'' should dispel 
>any such:
>http://www.tug.org/texshowcase
>
>William
>
>--
>William Adams, publishing specialist
>voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
>www.atlis.com

Herbert Gintis
Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of 
Massachusetts
External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM
15 Forbes Avenue, Northampton, MA 01060
413-586-7756  (Home Office) 206-984-9873 (Fax)
Recent papers are posted on my <http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~gintis>web site.
Get Game Theory Evolving (Princeton, 2000) at 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691009430/qid=1057311870/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8882889-4632849?v=glance&s=books>Amazon.com.
New Email Address is hgintis at comcast.net
There is no sorrow so great that does not find
its background in joy.
                                                 Niels Bohr (1938)

                                  
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